I was reading Robin and Wren’s blog and stumbled across her ‘our full home before tour’ post and thought it was a brilliant idea (and why didn’t I think of doing the same when we moved in?!).

We’ve been in our house a little over a year now and have so far finished three rooms, made a start on some of the others and the garden too. However there’s still an awful lot of work to do to get the house how we’d like it. On moving in we estimated it would take us 5 years to complete it though my dad thinks we should add an extra two years on top to account for the outdoor spaces which need work.

The house itself we think was built in the 50s though it has features typical of 1930s homes. We have no paperwork or previous survey records to go off so are relying on the knowledge of our neighbours!

Nevertheless, heavily inspired by Robin and Wren’s post here is our ‘before’ tour which I’ll come back and update with the ‘after’ posts as/when they’re available.

Downstairs

Hallway

The hallway is what (I think) really sold us on the house. While we have plans to change the design, the high ceilings and available space really made us fall in love with the house. We have big plans to change the downstairs layout so it’ll be a while before this space gets any real attention.

Living room

The living room is a generous size but, as with all rooms, needed changing to our tastes. This was actually the second room we finished in the house, after our main bedroom.

View our finished living room in this previous blog post.

Office

Across from the living room is what we plan to be an office for David and I and an arts/craft room for Arthur. It’s one of the nicest rooms in the house with the window overlooking the garden. There’s some work to do in here with the bay window which has a timber lintel and we think it needs replacing. The cills also need replacing and we have plans to remove the fireplace as it’s just not our style.

Downstairs bathroom

We’re planning on taking this room back to brick and starting again with the plumbing and decoration; this room needs all sorts doing to it. There’s also a downstairs cupboard which eats into some of the bathroom space (the section near the bath) which we’re planning on knocking out. There’s also a false ceiling above the bath which we have no idea why is there. You can’t tell from the before photo but the plasterwork in here is pretty shoddy which is why we’re taking it all back.

Coat cupboard/’server room’

We’ve started calling our small coat cupboard our ‘server room’ as this will have all our digital stuff hidden away (think routers, hard drives, etc). It’s not very functional at the moment and is longer than it is wide so it’s a bit of an awkward space but we’d still like to do this little room up and make it look more presentable and to make it work better for us as storage.

Kitchen and dining room

I’m combining both the kitchen and dining room because, despite the fact they’re seperate rooms now, we’d like to knock through and make it one big space. It’ll be another few years before we touch these rooms – they’ll likely be the last ones we do! Our plan is to knock through the dividing wall, install an extractor fan (our current kitchen doesn’t have one), reinstate the old fireplace and install a log burner and add in a kitchen with an island and induction hob and a big dining table that can maybe be extended to accomodate more people (we’ll see).

Utility/boot room

The kitchen runs into a small entryway for the back door and a utility room. I’d like to install cupboards if I can in the area where the back door is to make this a mini boot room. The utility currently has our dishwasher (as it doesn’t fit in the kitchen) and our washing machine but in the future this will have the washing machine and tumble dryer.

Sitting room

Finally, downstairs we have the sitting room which will be a more formal (and locked!) space. I keep saying it’ll be an adult space (no kids allowed) but in reality I think this will be the cosiest room in the house and likely where we’ll end up on Christmas morning and where we’ll spend all those darker winter nights purely because of the fireplace. We’d like to replace the mantel and we’re planning on boxing in and plastering over the shelves in the alcove but the biggest change will be the door placement as we’d like to add double doors which are parellel to the fireplace.

Garden

The garden needs major work doing to it but we’ve made some huge progress on it. The hot tub has gone, as has the ivy, the pond, the concrete/brickwork surrounding the pond and the decking area and we’re now getting ready to put a new fence up around the garden and hopefully this year we’ll plant some new shrubs along the perimeter.

Upstairs

Bedroom One

Writing this now is strange because this bedroom is now two! We’ve divided what was a very long bedroom into two. The first (which we’re currently using as our main bedroom) fits a kingsize and the second, depending on how we do the windows, will fit either a small double or maybe a normal double / kingsize again. The plan is that Arthur will eventually move into the second bedroom here as he’ll have access to the playroom from this room.

Upstairs bathroom

The second bedroom (the one we’re yet to touch) will join into the bathroom to create a bigger room but for now, this is our bathroom upstairs. It’s pretty small and has no natural light. Because of its location it also can’t connect to the main drainage system so the toilet is a macerator which is extremely loud and for this reason we never use it.

Bedroom two

Bedroom two has also been split into two separate rooms! This will be our main bedroom (as it fits a super king) and the other room will become our upstairs bathroom as it has easy access to the rest of the drainage in the house.

Playroom

The previous owners used this room as an office but we’re turning this into Arthur’s playroom with plenty of storage for toys. It’ll be accessible through his bedroom by a little door. This room we think needs insulating and reboarding then replastering as well as new carpet, a new radiator and when it comes to it, probably a new velux window too.

What I haven’t included here is the exterior of the house and garage, both of which we have big plans for. You can follow along and see how we’re getting on with all the work over on Instagram!