reading time: 5 min
Where to start?
While I moved away at the beginning of the year to start a new job, my boyfriend was supposed to follow me so we would move into a flat together. However, things turned out differently.
I realized quickly that I didn't enjoy my new job, even though it was a prestigious workplace and I had the loveliest colleagues, and so I ended up quitting after six months. In the meantime my boyfriend – who had stayed home due to the change of plans – found a house. Well, half of a house. The other half belongs to his sister.
And so we moved into our own house (half) two months ago. Yup.
To be honest, it's not (yet) my dream house, but it's huge! And having lived in different shared flats for the past six years, it's soooo nice to finally have our own space to furnish and decorate the way we want. My boyfriend and I are still in the process of arranging everything in a way that suits us and our visions, but that's what I enjoy most about this "house project" – taking the time to create our comfort zone, and even building some of the things ourselves, like a boho-style coffee table and a bookshelf for our living room. This will take a while, but there I've got some home DIYs planned for the future :)
But now, let's take a first look at our new home!
Like I said, we only own half of the house, and that's the top floor as well as the fitted out attic. And part of the garden of course.
Welcome to the most important room in our home: the kitchen! I love that it's white with a dark wooden countertop, and that it's sort of a farmhouse style. Don't fancy those tiny tiles though.
You can't tell from this picture, but this is now my "home office" / the guest room.
The former house owners used this as their dining room, but a) we don't need a dining room for the two of us (we have the big table in our living room now) and b) I definitely needed a home office for my writing and freelance work, and we decided to combine this with our spare bed because when I have guests, I won't work anyway.
By now this is definitely my favourite room, and the second important after the kitchen. I love that it's so bright and spacious, and I can't wait to show you a little room tour once it's fully furnished!
This is our living room. It's pretty huge (the dining table is in the corner of the room from which the photo was taken). This room has changed a lot in the meantime too, but there's still a lot to be done, like lampshades, a bookshelf, a coffee table, a meditation/yoga corner (yup, we're hippies), and a new sofa to replace the one you see in the picture that was left by the former owners. I'm thrilled to see it all come together!
The living room is also connected to a long, narrow balcony that we only use to set up our laundry drying rack and as a smoking area for friends. However, I want to make this a cosy stargazing space too! With lanterns, chairs, maybe a hammock, and a little table. And plants of course!
That's how my boyfriend and I actually spent our first ever night in the house: camping in our living room! We set up our little indoor camp with sleeping mats and sleeping bags, made ourselves vegan frozen pizza that we ate on their cardboard packaging (we didn't have any dishes, cutlery or pots and pans to cook with), and lit a candle. Romantic, eh? :)
(Unfortunately, we both had a pretty restless night because of the unfamiliar surrounding, and we hardly slept at all. Yeah, that's the truth behind those romantic fantasies...)
Now let's go upstairs to the attic!
There's sooo much storage space up here! All our camping stuff, suitcases, backpacks, tools, my DIY supplies, my boyfriend's tech stuff, our sewing machine, ironing board, and other random stuff like the empty packaging of various devices. (I was honestly shocked by the amount of "useful clutter" we have!! so much for minimalism...)
Apart from that, the space at the back of this attic (or "hallway") will be my boyfriend's home office in the future. Basically, the attic is his realm :)
I call this our "Harry Potter room". It's a small room at the other end of the attic that we use for storing our seasonal clothes, seasonal decor, my sled, and mostly empty moving boxes. It has also served as an additional guest room when we had seven people sleeping over!
One of the first things we set up before the big move was our closet. This was already built in, and while the colour of the curtains (and other fabric pieces in the house) doesn't really suit my taste, but at least it's a lot of space!
This is our bedroom by the way, and it is connected to a large terrace. I forgot to take a photo of that, oops.
Hi there! I do love this huge mirrored wall :)
This is our
bathroom, obviously. And again, not really my colours (any shade of blue, turquoise,
aqua or plain white would have been nicer), but it's very spacious and
we might paint it. And we have loads of storage space (more than we
have stuff to fill it with!).
Lastly, the garden. Which we share with my boyfriend's sister and her partner. You can't really tell by this photo, but it's a pretty big area with several trees (a big willow, a magnolia, a little apple tree, a plum tree, two seabuckthorn bushes, and several rhododendrons). So far we've also had two hedgehogs, at least one squirrel, apparently also a pheasant, a couple of jays, and two or three deer in our garden :)
We are planning to grown our own vegetables and herbs there (definitely lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, zucchinis, and maybe strawberries), but we'll have to wait for spring to tackle that home gardening project!
So that's it for this first house tour. I'm excited to update you once we've done more decorating and furnishing – so keep your eyes peeled for some home DIYs! :)
♥
Maisy
