Notes from England - Housing Developments

Hi everyone!

It's been another busy couple of weeks since my last post, but we've a great deal to show for it. Helen and I have worked really, really hard on the house, and it's really coming together! I've included some pics below, so let's get started.

First of all, let me start with the lovely Helen. A few weeks ago, Helen went and got her hair cut and styled with a few red highlights through it. She'd been wanting to do it for some time now, but with the wedding, it was easier (for the hair style she chose for the day) to have more hair to work with. Her hair used to be below her shoulder blades...probably to the centre of her back. It's much shorter now, and I think it's really, really beautiful...so pardon me if I dwell for a moment. Besides...she wasn't expecting me to take the picture...hence the sort of surprised/amused expression on her face in the transition between the two shots.

Okay, so here's our living room! I adjusted the brightness/contrast on this pic because it came out really dull for some reason. The batteries were going on the camera, so I'm not sure the flash was working properly. The rest to follow look much better.

Anyway, we've got sofas, TV, DVD, VCR, Wii...we're only missing the Sky box...but that's a different post altogether. We've also put in a few different styles of display/storage cabinets, as you'll see. We stuck primarily with lighter birch and beech effect 'wood', just in an effort to brighten the rooms a bit. Aside from being a great way do display some of our more precious possessions like fragile figurines, etc, they're also very functional. They've allowed us to tuck our videos, DVDs CDs and everyday beat up paperback books away and out of sight.

Anyhoo, we really like how the colours came together. The feature wall (or accent wall depending on what home-decorating guru you ask) in the 'red berries' is fantastic; also Helen thought it would work really well to put a swatch of the berry behind the flower pictures on the walls, as it really helps them to pop out.

I couldn't agree more - it works fabulously. The unfortunate problem is that if you want to mask off a square for such a task, when you pull the tape back off the wall you tend to take bits of paint off with you. It's a real pain in the bum. So for all the masking I had to do whilst painting, you can imagine that there's a significant amount of touch-up left to do.

You can see the other wall here, and I think the three pics work fantastically together. The three small flower pics along with the large flower pic over the sideboard were from a little art shoppe in Bowness in the Lake District. Also, you'll note (if you saw the pics of the home before we decorated) that we replaced the bare-bulb with a proper flush-mount ceiling fixture. It looks really nice and, of course, really brightens the room.

Next is the dining/kitchen area. What can you say about it? It's fabulous...but it is what it is. We used the dining table & chairs along with the display/storage cabinet to sort of 'separate' the rooms a bit. It helps create a visual distinction between the lounge and the kitchen. I did have to take the radiator (next to the display cabinet on the left arm of the sofa) off the wall and re-drill and mount it so that the cabinet would actually fit there. Our measurement was off by something like 2 or 3mm. Don't you hate it when that happens?

As you can see, the soapstone for a kitchen floor works really well especially against the 'glamour' (light pink/beige) on the walls. Complimenting that with the warmth of the walnut cabinets and the contrasting dark counter tops really worked to our benefit, I think. We've noticed a few of the apartments whilst driving/walking by (not that we're nosey) have some very...different...styles. Anything from rainbow-like colours and cabinets to stark, sterile white with bare light bulbs dangling from the ceiling everywhere. Yeesh.

Moving out of the lounge we'll go down the hall (painted in a nice, warming 'wild honeysuckle)into the first door on the left, the spare room. Again, you get the lovely view of the park that you enjoy from the lounge. Here we have put the spare wardrobe, the single bed and the computer desk and filing cabinet. We've also got some more shelves in here for book/media storage. We like the idea of having things tucked away and out of sight.

We went with 'china blue' for the land of 'spare oom' and it works really nicely. The curtains, like the ones in the lounge, are a faux suede and do a really nice job of blocking out the sunlight. Like the hallway we've left the hanging bulbs up in the spare room, but have replaced the 'energy efficient' bulbs...which blinked and gave one a headache if one was around them too long...with standard bulbs. Then we found some nice ornamental shades to pretty them up!

As you can see, we've not really put up any pictures as wall decoration in this room. Instead Helen and I have decided to use this room to tuck our sharp and pointy, somewhat dangerous wall decorations safely away. Helen's 'Hadhafang' is sitting along the top of the little bookshelves next to the desk, but will ultimately end up on the a shelf on the wall next to all the other swords. Sitting out as it is, it just begs to be picked up...and that's probably not a good idea. Can you say 'liability'?


Anyway, Helen and I found it amusing that a sword like 'Herugrim' (on the wall, far right) which initially seems quite large, suddenly becomes dwarfed when compared to something like 'Anduril' (on the wall, far left). As many of you know, I've still got swords in the States ready to be shipped over to me, so the walls above the bed will be nicely fleshed out with our 'Lord of the Rings' collectibles when all is said and done. Just...if you stay over in the spare bed, don't sit up sharply whilst in bed. You may just regret it.

Further down the hall in the second door to the left we find the master bedroom. We went for warmth in this room, as with the lounge. Where the feature wall in the lounge was 'red berries', this feature wall is 'fireside'. It's a much darker red and just adds a great overall feeling of comfort and warmth, especially when complimented by the red faux suede curtains and chocolate brown accents. The throw across the foot of the bed is a chocolate brown faux bear fur blanket backed with a caramel-coloured fleece and is actually large enough to cover the bed from top to bottom. The painting of the sunset was also bought in the Lake District, at the same art gallery as the flower pics in the lounge. If I recall correctly it is inspired by a view the artist found in Ireland. There's also a fantastic panoramic picture of the Chicago skyline across the lake at Sunset that sits just inside the bedroom door...unfortunately you can't see it in this shot. Again, the reds in the sunsets really help bring out the warmth of the room. For the master bedroom we also put in a flush-mount ceiling light, much like the one in the lounge. It's made to match the lights on the night stand...so if you picture those, but turned upside down and with 3 bulbs instead of 2, you've got it.

Next is the en-suite. Although it looks like the same colour as the spare bedroom, this is actually 'clear sky' where the bedroom was 'china blue'. Trust me...they're different. It's a much colder blue than the one we used in the bedroom, and that works well for the bathroom. It feels like a nice clean colour. The floors are 'calcite' and the colouring matches quite well with the darkest grey of the tiles on the wall. For those keeping score, the picture above the toilet is a watercolour of the canals in Venice.

Also, as mentioned in previous posts, the towel rails are heated and the sole source of heating for the bathrooms. And as my posterior and elbows can attest...they are very warm! Still, there's nothing quite like getting out of the shower and having a nice warm towel to greet you.

The master bathroom is done in the same colours as the en-suite. We've gone for some nice watery-themed pictures to brighten things up a bit. To the left over the towel rail is a lovely wide shot of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia where Helen did SCUBA.

On the right over the bath is an incredibly beautiful picture of a waterfall. Don't ask me where it's supposed to be. It looks like a watercolour to me and there are a couple of Chinese-style characters on the lower-right corners. The style of trees in the image also suggest its Asian influences...but that's all I can tell you.

We also put a set of drawers just inside the bathroom door to put all the bits and pieces like shampoo, moisturisers, extra TP, (etc.) in. We don't want them hanging about in the bathroom making it look cluttered and messy. So, like with all our media, we've tucked them away out of sight. Also, in both the bathroom and en-suite we I removed the energy-efficient light fixtures and replaced them with some proper bathroom fixtures. Again, it's an effort to eliminate the blinking, headache-inducing problems of the e.e. bulbs, but as an added benefit they more yellowy colour of the standard bulbs adds a warmth that you can't get otherwise.

That's about all. If you continue down the hall any further you'll go 'round the corner and out the door. You can see that we've put up some mirrors at the end of the hall to help catch the light and throw it around in the darkness of the corner. On the left of the hall as you exit (not shown) is a beautiful charcoal drawing of Venice that Helen's parents picked up whilst on a visit before Helen was even born. To the right, which you can just see, is the wedding card Aaron gave us. It was such a beautiful picture, Helen insisted on framing it and hanging it in our new home. It's 'The Wedding Morning' by John Henry Frederick Bacon.

That's all I've got time for right now, friends. I've got lots to do and less time to do it. If you've got any questions or comments regarding this little home tour which I hope you enjoyed as much as I did, please post a comment below!

Take care of yourselves.

~Jer

PS - Thanks to everyone who came to the housewarming party on Saturday! We're really pleased so many of you could make it, and we wish that even more of you could have. There was lots of mini party-style food and plenty of alcohol to go around. (Last count was 7 bottles of wine drained and oodles of beer.) We really had a great time and we hope you all did too. For those that couldn't make it, we hope that the pictures will help to tide you over until you get a chance to visit us in our new home.