Showing posts with label new home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new home. Show all posts
My life has changed completely this year all for the better but it still feels strange to think about how much it has.
At the start of the year Cal and I were waiting for our mortgage offer to be accepted which was a very anxious time for both of us. I get nervous speaking to new people anyway so having to talk to different mortgage accountants and solicitors was a bit nerve racking, plus I don't sound very professional at the best of times. It didn't take very long to get all the legal side sorted so it was just a waiting game after that. I can't explain what emotion I felt when we were told we finally had our mortgage offer and just needed to wait for our completion day. I have wrote a few posts about the process and although it can be a really hard and draining process for some people, we were quite lucky that we didn't have a house full of stuff to move or kids and pets to get settled. Because it was just us two we could do it all at our own pace which made it more fun.
Then moving into a new place for the first time with my partner was a very strange feeling, I am a big home person and I am the kind of person who if I got the choice to go out and do something or stay at home... I would stay at home. My room in my parents house was my favourite place so leaving that behind to live with someone else was a big step for me. I am quite an independent person in that I am happy to do my own thing on my days off or evenings so spending every evening with someone is different. Now that I have lived in my house for 7 months it feels completely like home and I love it so much. Cal and I have found our rhythm living together now and our house is coming together and by the beginning of next year we hope to have the final touches done.
If that change wasn't big enough Cal proposed to me the first night we slept over in our new house and I really wasn't expecting it at all! I know some people say that proposing means nothing it is just a piece of jewelry but it has definitely changed our relationship. It still feels weird walking around with a sparkly ring on my finger, it definitely makes me feel more grown up. I have forgot to wear it a few times because it is still new to me which Cal doesn't let me forgot haha. I have wrote a post on our engagement story for you to read.
They say good things normally come in threes but this year I had a fourth big change happen to me! I have been working in retail management for 4 years now and like in most retail jobs, to get to where you want to go you have to move up the ladder which can take years. Over the years I have been a Sales Advisor, Supervisor, Sales Manager and Deputy and finally I am a Manager of my own store!! I love working in small stores, I love smaller spaces so I can do more things in a shorter time and I find working in smaller stores I can do more. When I have worked in larger spaces I find I am just people managing all day rather than merchandising ect. I love all my staff that I have who are all lovely girls and am so happy in my store!
At the start of the year Cal and I were waiting for our mortgage offer to be accepted which was a very anxious time for both of us. I get nervous speaking to new people anyway so having to talk to different mortgage accountants and solicitors was a bit nerve racking, plus I don't sound very professional at the best of times. It didn't take very long to get all the legal side sorted so it was just a waiting game after that. I can't explain what emotion I felt when we were told we finally had our mortgage offer and just needed to wait for our completion day. I have wrote a few posts about the process and although it can be a really hard and draining process for some people, we were quite lucky that we didn't have a house full of stuff to move or kids and pets to get settled. Because it was just us two we could do it all at our own pace which made it more fun.
Then moving into a new place for the first time with my partner was a very strange feeling, I am a big home person and I am the kind of person who if I got the choice to go out and do something or stay at home... I would stay at home. My room in my parents house was my favourite place so leaving that behind to live with someone else was a big step for me. I am quite an independent person in that I am happy to do my own thing on my days off or evenings so spending every evening with someone is different. Now that I have lived in my house for 7 months it feels completely like home and I love it so much. Cal and I have found our rhythm living together now and our house is coming together and by the beginning of next year we hope to have the final touches done.
If that change wasn't big enough Cal proposed to me the first night we slept over in our new house and I really wasn't expecting it at all! I know some people say that proposing means nothing it is just a piece of jewelry but it has definitely changed our relationship. It still feels weird walking around with a sparkly ring on my finger, it definitely makes me feel more grown up. I have forgot to wear it a few times because it is still new to me which Cal doesn't let me forgot haha. I have wrote a post on our engagement story for you to read.
They say good things normally come in threes but this year I had a fourth big change happen to me! I have been working in retail management for 4 years now and like in most retail jobs, to get to where you want to go you have to move up the ladder which can take years. Over the years I have been a Sales Advisor, Supervisor, Sales Manager and Deputy and finally I am a Manager of my own store!! I love working in small stores, I love smaller spaces so I can do more things in a shorter time and I find working in smaller stores I can do more. When I have worked in larger spaces I find I am just people managing all day rather than merchandising ect. I love all my staff that I have who are all lovely girls and am so happy in my store!
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So you can probably tell by the title of this blog post but... I've got engaged! It happened way back in May when Cal and I officially moved into our brand new home and I have mentioned words like fiance but not actually announced it. So here I am... announcing it!
Before I tell you how Callum proposed which I will tease you - it is super cute, I will give you some back ground about Cal and I. We have been together for 3 years now and we become friends when I was 16 so I have known him for 6+ years now. We first started talking on BBM -who actually remembers when everyone had BBM? Those were the good old days!- through mutual friends way back 6 years ago and at first we were just casual friends. Then over time we become best friends and would spend most of our free time together. Then 3 years back it all changed when we had a little cheeky kiss and I guess you could say the rest is history!
So we celebrated our 3rd anniversary in August - although we both forgot till the end of the month so technically we haven't celebrated alone yet... I feel a curry house date night! 3 years already I don't know how I've lasted with this milky bar kid.
Now for what you'll be waiting for and probably skipped to because your too impatient, the proposal!!
Callum proposed the first night we slept over at our new house and we had been out for most of the night. We arrived home around 11 in the evening after a bit of trouble with the parking , basically Callum parked in a car park next the bowling alley we were at that night and they locked the gates so he had to drive up onto the pavement to get out! I told him just to leave it and get someone to pick us up but he obviously didn't want someone else coming back to ruin the surprise. We arrived home to a pitch black house and I walked in to the house first and noticed some lines going up the stairs, at first I thought that maybe the builders have entered our house while we were out and left something. Once I finally found the light switch I realised the lines were colorful ribbon leading up the stairs with love hearts stuck on them.
Callum proposed the first night we slept over at our new house and we had been out for most of the night. We arrived home around 11 in the evening after a bit of trouble with the parking , basically Callum parked in a car park next the bowling alley we were at that night and they locked the gates so he had to drive up onto the pavement to get out! I told him just to leave it and get someone to pick us up but he obviously didn't want someone else coming back to ruin the surprise. We arrived home to a pitch black house and I walked in to the house first and noticed some lines going up the stairs, at first I thought that maybe the builders have entered our house while we were out and left something. Once I finally found the light switch I realised the lines were colorful ribbon leading up the stairs with love hearts stuck on them.
As soon as I sure the ribbon and the love hearts I knew exactly what was happening and to be honest I was completely stunned. I couldn't move my feet. Callum had to push me up the stairs to our top floor bedroom where the ribbon stopped in front of the back wall. Leaning against the wall was a hand made heart shaped mirror (made by Callum) which has a post it note stuck to it which said 'will you marry me?' and fairy light lit up around it and a bottle of champagne and two flutes.
While we had been out all evening my parents had come round and placed the ribbon up the stairs and put everything in place. Apparently my dad helped to stick the hearts on the ribbon and if you saw my dad you would laugh out loud imaging him doing this like I did! He is not the most femine man so I bet he loved it! Typical cockney geezer...
While we had been out all evening my parents had come round and placed the ribbon up the stairs and put everything in place. Apparently my dad helped to stick the hearts on the ribbon and if you saw my dad you would laugh out loud imaging him doing this like I did! He is not the most femine man so I bet he loved it! Typical cockney geezer...
As you can imagine I stood there stunned in silence for a long while Callum got the ring box out of its hiding space and opened the box to show me the ring. He then cheekily said 'do I have to get down on one knee?' which I said of course! The whole time I kept repeating 'is this a joke? is this real?'
I feel a bit like I have wrote a short story here instead of a blog post but the details are everything! It still feels weird calling Callum my fiance and if I am completely honest, even thought our relationship status has changed, nothing about our relationship has, we are the same since day one.
We have no plans to get married any time soon as we are in no rush to make it official but that hasn't stopped me looking at wedding posts, which has made me want to write wedding inspo posts so keep your eyes out for them!
I hope you are still awake! Leave me links to any wedding inspo posts you have written so I can get some ideas! xx
We have no plans to get married any time soon as we are in no rush to make it official but that hasn't stopped me looking at wedding posts, which has made me want to write wedding inspo posts so keep your eyes out for them!
I hope you are still awake! Leave me links to any wedding inspo posts you have written so I can get some ideas! xx
I have been super excited to show you all my bathrooms in my new home because I am so in love with them and they finally feel ready to be shown to the world! Call me sad but I love being nosey in peoples bathrooms, more than any other room is the house. I think it is because I spend a lot of time in there either have a overly long bath, getting ready for bed or the day ahead so I spend a lot of time in there.
I have three bathrooms in my house; the downstairs toilet, the main bathroom and the ensuite on the top floor (yes cleaning them all is a long job ...) so we had a lot of space to fill and a lot of products to spread out. We plan to use the ensuite more often when we have our mirror which Cal has recently made screwed into the wall but at the moment we only have a small mirror to use so we tend to mostly get ready in the main bathroom on the second floor.
F i r s t B a t h r o o m
Starting with the downstairs bathroom, we didn't want to over crowd it too much so we currently just have a small wood basket which a friend of mine got us as a moving in gift (it had a hand wash and candle and all cute bits in) to hold our toilet paper which I think looks super cute! We also have a white marble toilet brush holder from Dunelm which we really like against the black flooring. We also have a bottle of Baylis and Harding Pink Processco and Cassis Fragranced hand wash which smells divine! Nationwide sent us a huge hamper for choosing to get our mortgage with them and this was one of the items included which we loved. Cal has made a mirror for every bathroom in the house and the mirror that will be going in this bathroom is a big diamond which will tie the whole room together I think. 
M a i n B a t h r o o m
Since this is our biggest bathroom out of the three and the one we would probably use the most we wanted it to make it feel really cosy and relaxing. On the top shelf we firstly have our tooth brushes and tooth paste in a little candle holder with a C on from my sister many moons ago. I never intended to keep the candle holder as a tooth brush holder but now it would feel wrong having anything else! Next to that we have our Ikea mirror which is bloody brilliant! It doesn't matter which room you put it in or whereabouts in the room you always get brilliant light through it so doing your makeup in it is amazing! Again Cal is planning on making us a mirror that runs the length and width of the wall above the shelf but until they we are using this mirror to get ready in the mornings. Then just next to the mirror we have my Zoella My Eden candle as I love to have candle lit baths and this candle matches the bath really nicely.Down on the floor we have our black marble bin, toilet brush holder and toilet paper holder all from Dunelm again (seriously their home stuff is amazing and their sales are so good, some of the items I mention are full price but most were either on sale or just a really good price anyway!) We also have a white three tier shelving unit which we picked up from The Range in Milton Keynes which is amazing for home buys! This rack was only £15 and it has come in so handy and looks really nice in our simple bathroom. This rack holds all of Cal's products and then I have one on the top floor which holds all mine.
E n s u i t e
I never thought i'd ever say this but I have an ensuite! It is quite strange having one because it is lovely to only have to walk a few steps to go toilet but I don't find myself using it in the night because I am too scared to wake Cal up so I don't actually use it for its purpose. Anyway again this is only a small room so we didn't want to over crowd it so we just have my white three tier shelving unit which this time we found in Dunelm (we really like Dunelm...) which is a perfect match for our unit down stairs. We do have a plan to get a small white draw unit to have in the main bathroom and then to use our white shelves as his and her racks either side of the ensuite sink, cuties I know. We have a cute little rotating mirror from B&M sitting on the sink for now to use to get ready (Cal has made a circle pot hole mirror for this bathroom) and lastly we have our stripe toilet brush holder, tooth brush holder and soap dish all from yes you guessed it Dunelm which I absolutely love. I like that each bathroom has different accessories. Lastly in this room we just have a boring black pedal bin from Dunelm (shut up really?!) I love the skylight in this bathroom it makes the room so light no matter what time of day. I think this sky light compensates for not having a window in our min bathroom. I realise this is quite a long post and not everyone is interested in peoples bathrooms so if you have made it to the end well done! I will leave links to all the items I have talked about in case you want to copy me and have matching bathrooms, let me know if you do! Also please tell me you like looking at peoples bathrooms as much as me so I don't feel so lame! I plan to fill all three bathrooms with big green plants for the corners because I love how colorful but understated green plants look in white bathrooms.
L I N K S
White marble toilet brush holder (similar)Baylis and Harding Processco hand wash
Ikea Mirror
Zoella My Eden candle
Black marble bin
Black marble toilet brush holder
Black marble toilet paper holder
White shelving unit (The Range)
B&M mirror
Stripe toilet brush holder (similar)
Stripe toothbrush holder (similar)
Pedal bin
I have some very exciting news... We have a date for our new house! The house is going to be released to us on Friday the 16th of May which means in two weeks we will officially own our first house! Last week we visited the house to see the progress and so I have some photos to show you guys because I know you love to be as nosey as I do. I don't have photos of every room as some of them are simply a room with white walls and a door. Also the flooring in each room wasn't laid until the day after we visited so I don't have any photos for you.
The Kitchen
Firstly in the kitchen all our cupboards and doors are in place as well as our cooker which I couldn't take a proper photo of because I wasn't allowed to walk on the floor. We were a bit scared to see the kitchen cupboards at first because we didn't know if our dark colour schemes would work but we both love how they have turned out. We love the big window on the front of the house because it lets in so much light into the room.
The Living Room
The Downstairs Toilet
I think out downstairs toilet is super cute and simple which is what we want. We are thinking of putting a huge mirror along to wall just to give the space something. In the show house the little toilet had a small window which let in light but because we are in between two house that isn't possible which is slightly annoying.
The Main Bathroom
The one thing I don't like about the house so far are the taps that have been installed because they remind me of school taps and I find you can't scoop up water properly because the taps are too close to the basin, I also don't like have a separate hot and cold tap as I either burn myself with boiling hot water or freezing cold water. Apart from that disappointment I love the rest of the bathroom especially the shelf which is behind the sink and toilet which we will put another long mirror on the wall and I can store everyday products on the shelf. 
The On Suite
I love our on suite bathroom I think it is the perfect size and it has a sky light in the roof which is going to make the room so light. We have different tiles for the main bathroom and the on suite which I really like now they are in and makes the rooms not look identical. We also love that we have a bath and a shower as I am a big fan of both, I have always had a shower/bath so having a proper shower is a wish come true.
The Garden
Our grass hadn't been laid by the time we took this photo so hopefully when we move in in two week most of the grass will have come through. Also at the end is a photo of our garden (the left one) which has space for two cars to park in front which is real bonus for a couple with two cars.
At the start of 2016 Cal and myself decided to start saving money so we could move into our own place, we always knew we wanted to buy a place instead of renting so we saved pretty damn hard all of last year. We never intended to buy anything until maybe 2018 when we thought we had enough money and time to look but then something caught our eye over Christmas last year. We found out about some houses for sell in the village next to us and fast forward to two months later, we have just exchanged contracts with the sellers and are waiting to move in! It is so crazy to think that two months ago we weren't even thinking about buying for another year and now we have everything in place to move in this May/June!
The house we are buying is a three storey new build in a little village right next to where we live now, it has three bedrooms (plenty of room for kids hint hint Cal) and should be ready for us to move in between May and June. I never thought I would have ever been able to buy a three bedroom house at the age of 22 and we are able to do it because the housing development that we are buying it from run a help to buy scheme for first time buyers which means we are able to buy a house we never would have been able to buy otherwise. The scheme so far has been fantastic and there hasn't been any scary small print catches that we have found so I would seriously recommend this scheme if you are looking to buy your first home.
Because we have chosen a new build as well we got to chose everything that went in so from built in appliances to carpets and flooring. Obviously we have to pay for any extra that they fit ourselves but because we picked the 'house of the week' we actually got money off some of our options for the house so we have picked all our carpet throughout the house (cream for the first and second floor and then light grey for the master bedroom) and a fridge freezer and cooker. So luckily we don't have to worry about picking a design and shape to fit our kitchen after we have moved in.
We have also picked our kitchen units and floor colour which is really exciting. We picked a grey marble kitchen top, with like grey cupboards with a even lighter grey flooring which has very subtle sparkles in it which you can't see on the photo sadly. For the bathrooms we picked this dark grey/black flooring which has sparkles too which luckly you can see in the photo.
Ever since we found this place we have been buying as well as our families little bits here and there so that when we do move in we have the essentials. We don't plan on buying anything big like sofas or new beds until we have moved in and decided what colour we plan to do each room as but we have a big pile of little bits and bobs all ready to go. I will try and link everything for you so you can have a nose yourself!
K I T C H E N
The kitchen is the one room in the house which I think is nearly complete as we actually have so much stuff already for it. Cal and I both liked the idea of square plates and bowls rather than circle and we found these individual plates in Tescos in January for around £3 so we picked up 4 plates. We also picked up 4 of these cute mason style glasses from Tesco too which I absolutely love. After we purchased these we did find sets of each at B&M so ended up buying a 16 piece square dinner set and a set of 4 mason jar glasses which I can't find on the website but they were only about £3 again so well worth a look round B&M for.
From B&M again we bought a Russell Hobbs 3 Piece Pan Set for only £19.99 which I think is a great deal. They were reduced from £50 to £20 so we had to yet them when we saw them. My mum swears by Russell Hobbs so hopefully I like these as much as she does. We also have loads of bog standard kit for the kitchen like drainer, pizza cuter, peeler, wooden and metal spoons, Tupperware, frying pans, mixing bowl and measuring jugs. We got all of these from either B&M, Wilkinson, Tesco and Home Bargains. One of the kitchen utensils which I think is definitely worn checking out is the Rose Gold kitchen utensils in Wilkinson. We picked up this rose gold Colander which is so cool.
Lastly for the kitchen we recently picked up at Tescos the Hinari Genie 8 In 1 Blender which was reduced so obviously we picked on up. My mum has one of these and whenever I make toad in the hole or pancakes or shakes I use hers so I really wanted one for myself when I moved out. On most websites this set is in the £30-40 range but at Tescos it is only £24.50 so definitely worth a look.
L I V I N G R O O M
We are super lucky to be given two practically new sofas of some family friends which we are very thankful for but to make them our own we have bought two super fluffy grey throws from Next which feel so beautiful I want to wear them all day every day.
Now this last Living room object is something Cal wanted for his birthday so Myself and my family all chipped in to get Cal this old fashioned suitcase Record Player from HMV. At first I didn't really get the appeal of this if I am completely honest but now that I have used it, I think it is a great piece to have in the house - one because it super cool and unique and two because it will be perfect when in the summer you want to listen to music in the garden.
R A N D O M
Me and Cal both love a bit of Ikea so of course we stocked up on a few bits in the last few weeks. We found this brown 'Welcome' mat for just £4 in store and this was exactly we wanted for the front door as having a cream carpet is hard work. We also got this green fake grass mat to put outside the back door. Lastly from Ikea we bought two bath mats for the main bathroom and the ensuite on the top floor, we picked this grey super soft design in large for the main bathroom and small for the ensuite shower.
Cal and I both are quite minimalist people so don't expect us to have quotes and sayings dotted around the house but we did find two cute little wall hanging in B&M this month which we thought would work great in the house. The first is this grey chalkboard week planner which we want to plan our meals for the week on, I plan on becoming a cooking goddess when I move out so having this will keep me from forgetting to prepare dinner and relying on take out food, this was only £2.99. We also got this super cute grey key and post holder to hang be the front door, can you tell we have a grey theme running through the house yet?! This was around £3.
The house currently has a roof, stairs and flooring but no walls so hopefully by the next of next week (the 4th of March) the walls should be fully plastered and they can start fitting in our appliances and flooring! I am so excited for this big change and if any of your are interested I will keep you posted on the progress with lots and lots photos! If you have any questions on Help To Buy loans leave them below and I will answer them for you.
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