Living Room Renovation

For the vast majority of us, this has been a rollercoaster of a year to say the least … for me it’s been punctuated by new stores opening, then closing, then opening again … then closing again!!  From a business perspective, and particularly one in both retail and hospitality, you really couldn’t make it up .. So many highs (tidal waves of online orders during lockdown 1), and lows (signing on a new London Store about a week before said lockdown), followed by higher highs (eat out to help out and possibly the busiest little cafe in all of Sussex!) and even lower lows (locking the doors on our stores .. again!).  But through it all we have been lucky enough to maintain both our health and a sense of humour so we really do count our blessings.

There was definitely a common theme in lockdown 1  in that it made us turn to our homes and do some serious nesting.  For me it meant an opportunity to finally complete some more rooms in our never ending Georgian saga – in between home schooling of course – oh the joy of that!  So here I would love to show you the end result of the living room transformation.  The work has been ongoing for 3 years but the extra time at home just enabled me to get it finally finished.

We knocked this front room through to the Kitchen at the back to open up the space.  The old Crittall doors were an ebay find and once we had painstakingly removed the peach gloss paint and given them a fresh coat of black, we cut the opening through to fit them.  Total cost of doors £200 so I think we smugly saved a small fortune on made to measure modern versions.  The other major job was the ceiling which we ripped down to expose the joists from the floor above.  These then had to be insulated and plaster boarded between each one which was a laborious task, but once we’d whitewashed the whole lot the end result made a huge difference to the room.  Georgian properties typically have higher ceilings upstairs than down and this room had felt dark and a bit gloomy before with it’s yellow walls, low ceiling and maroon floors!  We also removed the old fireplace surround and installed a log burner.

We are so lucky with floor to ceiling sash windows in this room and repainting the replacements black has made them a favourite feature.  Sofas, lighting, vintage furniture and soft furnishings are all from Design Vintage, linked individually.  The floors have been sanded and finished with a white oil – more on that drama to follow!  

I hope you like the progress and as always I’m very happy to help with any renovation questions if I possibly can!  Images throughout by the genius that is Alex Wilson Photography.

Stay safe x