All posts tagged: our home

Our Bedroom Plans – The Nude Room

Published by Karen Knox

I’ve finally decided on plans for our bedroom. If you remember, I mentioned the bedroom was the next room i’d be switching up, here in this post where I showed you before and after pictures of our whole house. Our bedroom has always gotten lovely feedback, being featured in Real Homes magazine, by Abigail Ahern on MADE.COM and Apartment Therapy. So you know, this little room has certainly earned its keep. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Karen Knox – Making Spaces (@makingspacesnet) It’s been like this for over three years now, which is a long time for me to not fiddle with a room. But the one thing i’ve always found about this space is that it was a bit of a black sheep alongside the rest of the house. Or teal sheep. Our home is “Monochrome and Materials”. It’s Scandinavian design inspired with a large helping of mid-century (because it’s a mid-century house). Whilst being neutral there is plenty of colour added with artwork, plants and accessories but for the fundamental scheme …

Time for the BIG garden overhaul – The landscaping has finally begun!

Published by Karen Knox

It’s time. Finally! After 6 years of being in our normal, average sized, 1960’s semi-detached, family home, we’ve done all of the big building jobs inside. Which can only mean one thing; it’s time to tackle the outside! And it couldn’t have come at a better time as our driveway was falling apart. Let me walk you through some of the garden projects we’ve done to tart up the space whilst eagerly awaiting the big overhaul. Back in 2015 You can see what a bad state the driveway was in then, another three years on and it was becoming, well, embarrassing. Summer 2015, The Chalkboard Wall The outdoor blackboard worked a treat to disguise that ugly concrete brick wall for a few years, but after the loft extension in December 2016… … our outdoor space took a hammering and was completely neglected during the epic 17 week build. I gave it a little budget revamp as part of the #UKHomeBlogHop in Summer 2017. It got us through Summer 2017, but 2018 was the year we …

The Loo. Toilet. Whatever you call it, our WC gets a makeover

Published by Karen Knox

It’s often the most overlooked room of the house. Not even big enough to warrant its own basin, mirror or any extraneous faffing. The separate bathroom and loo combo leaves a lot of people with a space that’s not big enough to swing a small hamster, never mind a cat. This is our first floor layout… since we had the loft converted and sacked off the second smallest room in the house for our dream staircase. You can see on the floorplan, our bathroom and WC are two separate spaces. And despite most people’s preference to knock these spaces into one to make a larger family bathroom, we didn’t want to do that with the house only having one loo when we moved in. And actually, I still prefer the layout like this. I like not having the loo in the bathroom. Especially with a five year old in the house whose aim isn’t always 100% accurate. Sure, our bathroom isn’t large, but for a family of three it’s more than adequate. More so now …

Aluminium Door Making Spaces Home Update

Out with the old – In with a new aluminium sliding door

Published by Karen Knox

I do love sharing projects with you guys, especially the ones at our place, as you get to see just how normal our house is and how the smallest of changes can make the biggest of differences. This is certainly one of those projects! Photo from last summer’s #UKHomeBlogHop We’ve finally got rid of the horrendous French doors that lead out onto the garden. I’ve always hated them, but when we moved in, it was at the bottom of a very long list of priorities to sort. They don’t look too bad in this pic above, that’s mainly because I’ve styled the crap out of the space, but the reality was they didn’t close properly, they were too small for the opening and they let a whole heap of cold inside. Before Updating the back of the house is something we’ve been putting off for ages. It was a faffy job, needing the old walls knocking down before the window co could fit the new, much improved door. Our first choice? An aluminium sliding door, …

We have carpet!

Published by Karen Knox

Can you believe it was this time last year that we started our loft conversion? How quickly have the last 12 months gone? We finished the staircase earlier this year and finally got the build signed off in June. Phew! But the one thing we still hadn’t managed to sort (afford) was the carpet. You can see in the image above where the old box room wall and door were as our old, battered carpets were a kind reminder of the house’s former layout. Luckily for me, Flooring Megastore were happy to work with me to re-carpet our stairs and open plan landing. Whoop! They stock an enormous range of flooring (carpets, vinyl, laminate, engineered and solid wood) including just what I was looking for. Associated Weavers Lochay – Fossil I opted for Associated Weavers’ Natural Wool Collection in a warm stone shade. I wanted something with grey undertones for more of a Scandi vibe. Especially as the space it was being fitted was all white and birch, birch and white. It’s 50/50 wool and polyester, so, super hardwearing …