A bare minerals bathroom

So, the bathroom is finished. 

I can’t quite believe it, I keep going in to make sure it’s still there. 

  

In fact, I’m constantly having a bath just as an excuse to sit in there and stare at it. Plus, the bath has a wide enough edge to balance an iPad on for maximum, undisturbed Scandal viewing, which is always a bonus. 

  
We went for a minimal, natural look. We fell in love with the wooden cabinets and planned everything around there, looking for interesting textures in neutral colours as opposed to brights. It keeps the room clean and calm without it being to plain, and we’re slowly adding objects of interest – and a lot of Yankee candles. 

  
There are more details on the Before and Afters page. 

Bedroom Inspo: Moroccan Minimalist

As we countdown the days until moving in, I’ve been having a look round at the new season offerings when it comes to bedrooms. 

I love traveling, especially the Middle East, so seeing that Bedouin-inspired fabrics and Moorish prints are in is really hitting my style buttons. We’ve gone for white and deep blue walls in the bedroom so I’d love to incorporate a little souk style in there. There’s something deeply cosy about Marrakech – the rich culture, the homely food, the spices and the sweets – and this means it is perfect inspiration for a bedroom. 
 

Moroccan Minimalist Moodboard

 

Clockwise from top left:

Linen bed set, £79.99 from H&M

Embroidered hand towel, £18 from Anthropologie

Mirrored tray, £19.99 from H&M

Wall light, £45 from John Lewis

Lantern, £39.99 from Zara

Curtains, from £70 from Next

Cushion, £30 from John Lewis

Cushions, £58 and £68 from Anthropologie

Bed, £1200 from John Lewis

Christmas is coming!

So it’s been a long autumn here at Hey There, House, although it does seem to have flown by! We’ve made so much progress that it seems weird looking back at pictures from the summer – being so busy has meant I haven’t updated for a while and having a new job has taken up a lot of my brain power. Oh, and there’s the little business of an RSC production….

  

 

But we’re counting down the days until Christmas, but instead of awaiting the arrival of a small Jewish baby Messiah we’re awaiting the arrival of some bathroom furniture. Not as exciting for humanity but pretty exciting for us. 

The walls were done, and the roof was put on. I naively thought putting a roof on wouldn’t be too bad – Lord knows why when I’ve already lived through a new roof at Mum and Dad’s. It arrived like a giant Mechano set with instructions and everything. It looked enormous in our drive but once it was on it was amazing how normal the house looked – like it was missing it all along! Over a couple of weekends and with the help of various family members we got it up, felted and secure. 

  

However, it happened to be during a couple of storms. We had water in places. In the freshly decorated bedroom. In the hall. In the spare room. The coving made a run for it. 

  

After what seemed like an age we were able to get up and start fibre glassine the flat roof part. As it was a half-hipped roof, we had to allow a section of flat roof on the top which can’t be seen from the ground. Andrew was able to pull in some expertise from his work and we spent a weekend of sun on the top of our “landing pad” painting on layers of fibreglass and resin. The finished result is finally watertight and pretty sturdy!
As soon as the roof was finished we knocked out a wall or two and put one up.  As we were extending the bathroom we removed the original wall and moved it a couple of feet out, giving us two decent-sized rooms. We bricked up the odd hallway window and fitted the new bathroom window, and the set to preparing the floors.

  

The damp-proofing bitumen was not nice. It smelt. It was sticky. It ruined everything. I’m hoping this bodes well for our floor. And that it doesn’t eat through  the insulation….

  

 Our plasterer came one evening to screed the floors level. It’s amazing what a difference a flat floor can make to a room!
Since then it’s been all-hands on deck again. We’ve chosen our bathroom and we’re getting ready for it to arrive, plaster boarding walls, plumbing in pipes and booking in Matt the electrician for our lights and mirror. Fingers crossed, we might be in by 2016… 

   
 

The Big Build: Walls

Tonight, on Hey There House at 10…

Okay, so I haven’t updated for a while and so much has happened. This post is just the headlines.

In the past month we’ve seen some serious changes. The bricklayer has been and we’ve got walls!

   

  

    
 
We’ve still got one small wall to build (across the two above) and then we can knock the old walls through giving us two rooms – one for the bath and one for the utility. 

We’ve blocked up the old windows, too. Our kitchen window will be large and so will our new bathroom window, so we don’t need those anymore. 

     
 As the outside will be rendered, it’s enabled us to use blocks instead of bricks which is quicker and easier. You can see we’ve ripped out the toilet, too, ready for that right hand wall to be knocked into the new room. 

The kitchen and the bathroom have also been ripped out, so it’s starting to look like a real building site. It’s crazy how one cupboard can hold so much stuff! All of our supplies are now living on a camp table and in buckets. Luckily the fridge is still there… 

I had some serious fun removing the tiles. It’s my new favourite job. It was a lot easier with this baby: 

     
And in more news, our drains are finished! They’ve been here and there for months now THEY ARE FINISHED! Unless you have lived without proper drainage or a toilet for months you will not understand my excitement. This is big news.   
And finally, the roof has arrived!

  
Well, the trusses at least. They’re enormous. It’s hard to believe that all of that is going to be up soon. It does mean we need to remove the old roof which is currently protecting our brand new bedroom. We have tarpaulins but I am hoping we don’t see any more storms for a while; my beautifully painted walls can’t take it! 

The Big Build: Foundations Day!

 If you’re short on time, we’ve created this handy video to see what we did today in 25 secs.

  
But believe me, it took a lot longer than 25 seconds! It was a hot, hot day but we started at 7:30am. Whilst I made a bacon roll run, Andrew gathered the troops and made last minute alterations to the drain and the trench. 

At 8:50am, Big Bertha arrived with her cargo of concrete looking like a bizarre funfair ride and the boys began lining up ready for the drop.
  

Then it was action stations and go! As soon as the concrete hit the barrow we had 50 minutes to get it in the trenches. Luckily, Andrew had a plan!
  

Dan, my Dad and Andrew’s dad and AP himself made up the shovel team. When the barrows we ditched, they raked, shovelled and generally squished around in the concrete getting it into everywhere it was needed.

  

We had rigged up some boards and ramps through the shuttering so the boys could get straight into the far end. We needed a little bit of extra soil behind the shuttering as it was beginning to bow, but it held out.
  

After 50 minutes, the last barrow was emptied and the mixer was being washed…. But we didn’t quite have enough to get it to the right level. After a bit of deliberation, Mr Concrete said “save your money. Go get 10 bags of ballast, 5 bags of cement and mix it yourself.”

So off to B&Q me and Papa Hey went! 

  

There was just enough! The boys had created a frame to squeegee the concrete level, which was a great idea. Dan was Captain Concrete getting it all perfect. You can see our little poop pipe happily sticking out – it made a great drinks holder 🙊! (Don’t worry, it’s brand new).
  

With one final squish and a bit of trowel work, we made it. All that expensive steel was gone, covered in concrete. It just goes to show all the hard work you can’t see.

 

The finished product. Andrew is religiously dousing it with water to make sure it hardens low and slow, making it as strong as possible – although at 27 degrees and not a cloud in the sky it was proving difficult. At the end of the week we should be able to remove the shuttering ready for the brickie and backfill the holes around the edge so nobody falls down them again…oops. 

The only way is, quite literally, up. Hopefully. 

The build: laying the foundations

It’s been a while, but we’ve been busy! 

This summer has been a bit of a blur of digging, ripping up and more digging. The conservatory came down, the trenches were dug and the old drains were removed. Then we found that our house was built on pretty shoddy soil (which also made it very hard work to dig!) and so the nice easy foundations we had planned turned into a fancy steel raft. We had some much debris in our ground that the raft will keep the new part of the house nice and stable. 

   
I came home one day to find the conservatory pretty much gone. The house looked so strange with its exposed yellow walls and vinyl “patio”! 

 Next began the hard work. Andrew got his money’s worth of the Titan ripping up the thick concrete drive and pad. 
An important planning meeting! Papa T and AP discussing where to put the new drains (which will hopefully actually work!).  You can see the first trench dug. This was the day we were told we needed a steel raft.

Getting stuck in! We had to dig two new trenches beside the existing walls for the steel to sit in.    
The trenches didn’t have to be as wide for the steel, so AP created some shuttering from the old conservatory roof. Clever! You can see the loo waste pipe here (nice). 

 

The steel was delivered. We bent 70 pieces; 35 into a “bucket” and 35 into an “r” shape.
   
Here are the “r” pieces ready to go! 

Goodbye toilet! It’s buckets from now on as we removed the waste pipe.

   

 

The bent pieces of steel get attached to the straights to create a frame. The same happens to the bucket pieces. 
   
  

Polystyrene is stuck to the existing building to give a crushable zone should anything move.

  
The frames are put into the trenches. They were pretty heavy! 
  Once all the frames are in around the edges, four mesh layers are added over the top. Spacers are put underneath to ensure the mesh doesn’t touch soil; it should end up embedded within the concrete.  
The pieces of steel are cable-tied together. Now we await the concrete! 

 

50 things that make me happy

I’ve been tagged!
My friend Elizabeth over at Peach Jones has been listing 50 things that maker her happy, and so now it’s my turn. I’ve got a lot going on at the mo and it’s stressing me out, so taking time to think of so many good things is going to be a welcome break.
1. The first day of the new season. I love waking up to a hot day after the spring, or when I see the leaves falling in the autumn.

2. Mastering a new skill. Learning to knit, crochet, embroider and make prints are all things I’ve been learning these past few years, and I love tackling a new project!

3. Corgis. Because obviously.

4. Little cat chins

5. Waking up on Sunday morning.

6. Going to bed early!

7. The grief you feel when you finish a good book.

8. The excitement you feel when you start a book you’ve been waiting years for.

9. Getting the first freckles on my shoulders from the sunshine.

10. Choosing where to travel to next.

Exactly at sea level!

11. Binging on Netflix.

12. Pizza.

13. Messing about with my drama troupe (RSC? 😉 )

Pre-RSC audition

14. Buying new yarn.

15. Writing on my blog!

16. Going to IKEA.

17. Finishing a room we’re decorating

18. Tax rebates.

19. Hearing old men laughing hysterically together.

20. The dry heat of the desert in the morning.

Dana Nature Reserve

21. Finding a new artist or designer I love.

22. Buying local!

23. Cheese.

24. Weddings.

25. Zara sales.

26. Trips to the reclamation yard.

27. Going for a long, lazy lunch

28. Trying the local cuisine in a new country.

29. VISA stamps in my passport.

30. When people save me biscuits at work before they all go.

31. Going to the cinema.

32. Walks.

33. Upcycling

Nearly finished Poang!

 

34. Funding awesome new online stores.

35. Exciting changes.

36. Speaking to dogs instead of people.

37. Nights in alone.

38. Good internet.

39. Getting gifts!

40. Fresh bed linen.

41. New stationary.

42. New shoes.

43. New pants.

44. Bargain yarn.

45. Patterned tiles.

46. This human.

47. These humans.

48. Eating a really good meal.

49. A cup of tea.

50. Baking cake.

So, there are 50 things that make me happy! I’m sure there R

An upcycling workshop with The General Office

So, I’ve got this chest of drawers. It’s second hand and painted duck-egg blue, which is a fine colour, but a colour I do not have in my house.

I’ve been thinking I need to freshen her up a little bit, but taking the plunge is a bit of a commitment for me. I’m keen to try chalk paint, but having never used it before I was a little apprehensive.

 

Thankfully, The General Office was on hand! I noticed Nina was holding some chalk paint workshops over at Milk & Moss, so I decided to head along to her intermediate class to learn how to make a good job of it.

   

Nina was a great teacher! We all started off with a wooden chair which was in desperate need of some TLC. Nina had prepped each chair to make sure none of the natural oils would seep through the paint by sanding and sealing with Grand Illusions’ Shellac. Then, we got to work choosing our colours!

  
Nina went through how to achieve various different effects by layering the paint. Some of my fellow classmates took bold yellows, greens and blues to their chairs but I had fallen in love with the wooden seat of mine. I decided to keep the seat plain, but highlight it by painting the rest of the chair in an antique white finish.

  

 First, we painted on our base colours. These were the bold colours we would reveal at the end through sanding to create a vintage finish. I didn’t want mine too bold, so stuck to creams and greys. Once these had dried, which only took a few minutes on such a hot day, we moved on to painting our main colour over the top.

  

 We used Grand Illusions chalk paints, and the colours in the range are beautiful! I was originally torn between the yellow of or the dark Nordic Blue, but once I’d chosen my chair I stuck to the Sel De Mer white. The paint brushed on easily and covered well, although some of the deeper colours came out lighter than the swatch.

Lunch was provided by the lovely Sophie of Milk & Moss whilst we waited for our paint to dry, and it was delicious! After a few helpings and a few glasses of fruit water and a cup of tea it was back to work.

   

Now that the paint was dry, it was time to sand back the top coat to reveal the colours underneath. A lot of my paint came off to also reveal the wood, but as I’d left the seat this added a really great texture. The lady beside me had gone for a bold red, and as she sanded a gorgeous yellow colour came through. Please with my work, I chose a clear wax to keep the white bright but opted for the deep brown wax for the seat to add richness to it. Those who chose a deep colour found that the darker wax really added a depth to their colour, making it closer to the original swatch.

  
The day was brilliant fun, and as Nina was so knowledgeable I learnt so much! I definitely have the confidence to paint all my old furniture now, and have stocked up on Grand Illusions’ paints and waxes ready for my chest of drawers!

    

The General Office paint workshops are held at Milk & Moss in Norwich, costing approx. 60 for 3 hours of tuition, lunch, drinks, supplies and a piece of furniture to paint. Bargain! You even get a tin of paint to take home, and 25% off other Grand Illusions’ products.

I Love… Izzi Rainey

 

Having decorated two rooms now, I’m starting to look for some great accessories to really bring everything together.
I love to support local businesses and there are some amazing little brands popping up in Norfolk. One of those brands is Izzi Rainey.

Pencil Case, 14GBP

Izzi and Lara started the brand in 2014, and from a farm in Norfolk they now supply printed homewares to local stores including Jarrold’s. Izzi’s great eye for colour was honed at Glasgow School of Art, and inspired by the farm she grew up on. I would definitely recommend checking out their blog; not only are the girls running a homeware business, but they’re busing feeding cattle and upcycling an old caravan, too!

Lampshade, 70GBP

I’m thinking of getting in to print-making myself, but before I get the hang of it I’m definitely going to be buying some Izzi Rainey bits and pieces. I’m loving the Aztec print, and think this is going to be the base for my white-and-geometric home office. I think I’ll have to buy some notebooks just to decorate my desk! I also love the bunting – I think it will look great hanging above my pegboard to inspire me to be more creative. I’m getting really into lighting at the moment, so I’m definitely going to be after one of the lampshades!

Bunting, 25GBP

There are also some great gift ideas in their range, and with my mum’s birthday coming up I’ll definitely be treating her to something. I’m thinking a cute apron will be perfect for when she holds her charity coffee mornings – she’ll be get lots of compliments on it I’m sure!

 

If you like the look of these gorgeous prints, pop down to The Granary on Bedford Street or check out the online shop.

Colours – June

If you know me, you’ll know I’m a big fan of colour. Whether it’s teaming bright pinks with greens, yellows and dark blues or oranges with purples I love a good colour combo. Even if I’m going neutral I love a specific mink shade or a tonal grey-on-grey ensemble.

It doesn’t really come as a surprise then that I’m addicted to Design Seeds.  If you’ve never been on, I’m warning you – it’s amazing! It’s all about finding inspiration in the every day, and is a great source for unusual colour combinations.

Here are some of my favourite seeds from this month.

 

 

I love dark blue and yellow. Love love love. I’m hoping to incorporate this somewhere in my home – perhaps the bathroom or the kitchen?

 

 

I have a bit of a thing for pineapples. I think this colour combo is the type of thing I’m after in the study; bold, edible tones. Yum.

This is definitely one for the living room. We have most of these colours already incorporated, with grey walls, charcoal and ox blood sofas and green curtains. I love the really light kinky grey as a cool element.

 

 

I’m really liking this salmon colour, and I’m thinking with our blue, white and gold bedroom it would really liven the place up a bit.

 

Okay, wow! The tones of these colours but their contrasting hues really makes an impact, like someone has toned-down the contrast on an autumn day. It’s colourful without being bright, bold and brash. Great for a calming spare room, maybe?

 

Finally, something maybe more classic and floral. I love a purple and green combo and these vintage tones are elegant but bold against the dark backdrop. Perhaps this is a good bathroom combo, with the neutral tiles but bright accessories.

 

Let me know which is your favourite, and be sure to check out Design Seeds!