If you have read my most recent blogs you will probably be aware of our latest purchase - our first home!
Our new house has the bones of a cosy first home but the interior was awful. Think dark grey carpets, busy printed wallpaper and orange walls. There is barely anything I want to keep, but that's what makes it so exciting!
For months and months my brain has been buzzing with interior ideas, my Pinterest boards have expanded and now we can finally get cracking. Luckily for me, Ciaran is happy for me to decorate our home how I want so there hasn't been any beef..yet!
There is so much we want to do to our new home before we move in on 1st July. First on our list is to steam off all of the wallpaper. God only knows why the previous owners wallpapered a thousand layers of paper on top of each other but it is an utter pain to remove. There is basically 80 years of wallpaper intermingled with layers of paint. If I never see wallpaper again in my life I will be so pleased.
On our first day in the house we ripped up the carpet in our new bedroom and found this gorgeous wooden floor underneath. It's pretty much filthy and paint splatted in places so in a few weeks we plan to borrow a sander and sort the floor out!
Note the copious amounts of wallpaper allover the floor - believe me when I say this is minor! We so far have filled 7 bin bags of wallpaper and the stairs still look like this...
Our kitchen seems to have been recently fitted and has soft close cabinets which I love. One of my favourite parts is the vertical pull out drawer beside the oven - perfect for herbs and spices.
The kitchen is long and narrow and has two build in cupboards that hooked me instantly when we viewed the house. One will be perfect for coats & bags and the other is crying out for some shelves to give all of my little bowls a home!
To be honest, I don't like to counter tops or the floor in here. They are too dark and I would rather have more natural browns - a good replacement for this floor would be something like this but we will have to put this on the back foot for now, there are more important things to be done!
Diverging from our new home, I have come back to my home home. I flew back last night and as is our ritual for Saturday lunchtimes at home we took a trip to Picnic in Killyleagh. If you don't happen to know this absolute gem, it is my favourite deli cafe and serves the most delicious meals. It is on the pricey side of a cafe lunch but 100% worth it.
Today I got some corn cakes to take away and heated them up at home. They kindly packed me in some chilli jam, amazing coleslaw and my favourite smoothie of all time - non dairy strawberry, mango and passion fruit.
Lunch was eaten in the garden under the sun and joined by the pugly angel Betty and my freshly engaged best friend's gorgeous Springador pup, Annie.