Seven month ago my boyfriend and I finally managed to move out from
his mum’s place where we lived for almost two years. After the struggle
of living in one small bedroom with one wardrobe in it (which was
obviously too small for both our clothes, his stuff just had to move…) ,
and way too many Lego figures for a twenty something man, it was a
breath of fresh air to move into this awesome little two bedroom place.
We got some cheap, mish-mash furniture from a friend, and already had a
lot of small items to display (Lego……..) so we didn’t have to start off
with a completely empty space. But it has been quite blend, I never
thought it would take so much time and money (SOOO much money) to get
the place to look somewhat stylish and put together. We’re nowhere near close
to it still. Since I have been taking pictures from the beginning, I
thought it would be fun to share the progress I’m making and how much
fun I’m having with it, especially that I have a feeling DIY is going to
come in VERY shortly as I’m definitely not rich enough for the stuff I
want. I’m just going to have to be clever with it.
So the flat is in quite a nice new build building in the middle of
a small town. Perfectly located for us, not too far from work or
civilisation, yet the town has it’s own little shopping street with
supermarkets, Boots, Costa… and Game. I’m pretty sure that’s why the
boyfriend likes the location so much. The flat has a nicely sized living
room opened up with the kitchen. And there’s a breakfast bar. Bonus!
We’ve got two bedrooms, one of which we turned into a guest room/music
studio/office/game room/beauty room… struggling with space here
obviously. Thankfully the bathroom has a bathtub, this was my criteria,
and we also have a utility room, where we basically store everything we
don’t want to see: tools, hoover, spare mattress, a paddling boat… you
know, the usual. We're only renting the place so we're facing the usual struggles: we have to put up with the dull magnolia walls and the blu tech marks on them, we can't actually decorate the walls and don't even get me started on the cheap, worn out carpet in the two bedrooms!
So this is what we started out with, and this is what
it looked like after the first couple of weeks: filled with stuff we
inherited from our friend, clutter we already had, and some décor we got
from Tesco…
This space had so much potential, but as a couple with many hobbies and friends and family living far away, we had to be very careful not to fill it with too many different things. The furniture here messy and cheap looking, but we slowly managed to upgrade it. At this point we had a spare mattress in case a friend visited us, but we are just about to purchase a very compact and adorable sofa bed. That is definitely a major upgrade I cannot wait for!
The kitchen was lovely to start off with! I love the wooden worktops and the stainless steel features in it, and it has proved to be spacious enough for a Sunday baking session. We bought bits and bobs in here, but our biggest purchase was a barista style coffee machine, which I now couldn't live without! I'll make sure to include close ups of it in my upcoming kitchen edit.
The bathroom was quite standard, but with some cheap but well coordinated accessories, some nice towels and way too many Lush products, it's starting to look like a bit more of a sanctuary.
For a good while, this was my space to work on and to be in. Again, all the furniture is inherited from a friend, but the lovely and open space has made it so easy to work with. The accessories in the pictures are mainly from Tesco, but shortly after we moved in, I discovered a few somewhat pricey, but borderline genius homeware shops, like Oliver Bonas and West Elm. As we're both on average wages, we can't afford any great luxuries, however I do like to splash out on stylish accessories, I think they make all the difference!
Unfortunately there are no pictures of the bedroom from when we moved in, however I'm planning to do a bedroom accessories edit shortly, as I had so much fun working with that space and trying to make it more personal.
Now that you've seen the "Before" I'm excited to show you how I slowly upgraded the place, making it from a rented flat to our first home.
...to be continued!
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