We moved into our 1930s house

In July 2012

The twins were about to turn two

Matilda Mae

Our baby Tilda was just two months

We bought the house

Knowing that it was a project

Excited

That there was much to do

To make our house our home

In February 2013

Our baby, Tilda, died

Our lives turned upside down

Our family ripped apart

Any plans we may have had

Stopped, dead, in their tracks

It was not until last year

We felt able to begin our plans again

We changed our downstairs living space

From kitchen, lounge, dining room and playroom

Into one large open space

When the renovations began

I tried to blog our journey

But as we moved out of our house

When the works began

I felt very disconnected from the build

Unlike David who lived the whole thing

Working on the house every day for months and months

While I looked after the children

And began our home education adventure

The work on the house took 6 months

With a small team of builders

And David

Who by the end

Was working alone to fit our kitchen

And lay our engineered oak wooden flooring

We chose this floor as it was cheaper than solid oak

David did a lot of reading and research before making his choices

We ordered our floor locally

But if you are renovating you might look online

At this solid oak flooring sale

The floor was one of the most important decisions

As it flows through our whole living space

It was once the floor was laid

That our building site became our house

Our home

I am going to be taking a few blog posts

Over the coming weeks

To share with you our home

How we find open plan living

How a new living space layout has changed

The way we live in our space

I especially want to talk about

How our home is also our school

Our learning place

I want to share our hopes and dreams

For the rooms yet to be completed

How 10 months living here means

That we are now finding changes we wish we had made

As part of the renovation process

And changes we would now like to make

As our family grows into each space

So here are some photos

Or our renovated open plan home

The main living space

And THAT floor!

This is our dining area

It is where we spend much of our time

This table is used for eating all our meals

It is used for arts and craft time

It is used for ‘school’ work and written projects

Small world play

It is where adults can sit

While children roam the garden

It is the centre of our home

This is our kitchen area

I love this kitchen

I love the colour

We worked hard on the design of this kitchen

I knew how I wanted our kitchen to look and feel

And David made it happen

It still needs finishing off

Trims and sills need adding

But it is the kitchen I have longed for

Minus three or four kitchen stools

This is our playroom

Where we play

Though often this feels like a toy storage area

Rather than the place we play

This is one of the areas I want to rethink

Before next summer

I want to have a toy reduction

And change many of the plastic toys

That have crept on to our shelves

For wooden ones

I want there to be less in this room

But much more possibility

I am looking forward to sharing my ideas with you

This room was to be a classroom

But we do all our learning around the big table

So I think we may make our lounge area bigger

And turn this into more of a snug

A cosy corner for reading books

And watching movies on our interactive whiteboard

Winter is coming!

I also want Bea to have her colouring table in here

As she does not always want to watch a full movie with the rest of us

So it would be good if she could watch and snack and colour

This photo shows part of the lounge

We have two teal sofas in here

A fire

Bookshelves and TV

And all our baby paraphernalia

I love our lounge

And am looking forward to us needing less baby stuff in it

One day!

I am very much looking forward to telling you more about our home

And sharing the changes we make as our family grows

This is a collaborative post