Tuesday 4 December 2012
I just wanted to do a quick post to show you what we've been doing in the Dining room, the room had quite a large ceiling rose as well as a Picture rail and Chair rail but we decided to dress it up just a little bit more.

Original Room


I think most people have some feature they'd really like in their homes, my other half has always wanted a decorated ceiling so taking everything back to bare bones and doing such a big renovation gave us the oppotunity to that. 


And here's the finished design.....

We also decided to add some panels (wainscotting) under the chair rail and even though the room is no where near finished we're already thrilled by it.

Is there a dream feature you'd love for your house? Are you lucky enough to already have it?  Let me know in the comments.
Friday 30 November 2012
The saga of the Navy Blue paint seems to have more episodes and drama than the Twilight Saga so despite finally choosing a colour the universe conspired to throw a spanner in the works and Fountains Blue was not to be.

I had to order the Fired Earth Fountains Blue paint since the store did not stock this colour and when I went to collect it something did not sound right, the paint seemed very watery I could hear it sloshing all the way to the car.  On to the room to be painted, lift off the lid and we were greeted with this

Dry sample to the right, wet sample on the bottom, mystery paint on top

Even though the dark sample above is wet the colour which is practically black did not change when it was dry it also developed a really oily residue, not a good look on a matt paint, clearly something had gone wrong and to top off it off we were now on a bit of a time crunch as we needed to get two coats on the walls before the carpet arrived, re-ordering was not option.
Farrow & Ball to the rescue!  Armed with sample pots of Drawing Room Blue and Hague Blue it was back to the nest to re-chose my problem blue. In the end there was a winner in Hague Blue, we did encounter a few more hiccups on the way but we made the deadline and today the carpet went down on time. Farrow & Ball were a tremendous help and I'm incredibly happy with the end result just going to show you things really do happen for a reason.
Farrow & Ball Hague Blue (sorry for the dust)

Walls - Check, Carpet - Check, Wardrobes - Next


Sunday 25 November 2012
I thought today I'd show the inspiration and progress in another of the rooms but first I should explain the origins of it's name The Gray Room.  When I was looking of inspiration on decorating and dressing rooms I, like many people, turned to Pinterest and while browsing I stumbled upon a the most peaceful, comfortable and sophisticated looking room in a beautiful gray palette, it was love at first sight.  Then because I was almost constantly discussing rooms and showing my other half pics to help keep them straight conversations almost always started with "you know that gray room"  we decided that the spare guest room should have a neutral hotel feel to it and that gray room was just perfect so the spare room in our home became known as The Gray room.  Now whenever you lose someone or something it's so much easier

Source: houzz.com via Claire on Pinterest

 "Have you seen the paint brush?" "Yes it's in the Gray room"
 So that's the story and the inspiration now for the progress

Original room from property listing
After it's stripped bare, dark and dingy
First step was to fill some holes left by removing the sink and addressing some cracks to the ceiling before covering it and the walls with heavy lining paper.

Next step was the white coat for the ceiling, coving, picture rail and woodwork and the followed up with the first part of the gray makeover.

We've choosen a wallpaper for the main body of the walls but the picture rail section is painted, it did take a little while and quite a few samples to find a perfect gray as a lot looked too blue in the room but in the end Farrow & Ball's Pavillion Gray was perfect so with two coats on the wall that's where we are today.

Carpet fitters arrive on Thursday and after that we can wallpaper the wall and the room is almost ready to be dressed so I'll be sure to so you more progress when it happens.
Tuesday 20 November 2012
So it turns out I'm the Goldilocks of paint, the previous sample pots I mentioned (here) weren't quite right, Sapphire Springs was very close and a really lovely blue but not quite as dark as I wanted it. However the good news is that I have actually found a paint, I know amazing right.

So the paint in question? Fired Earth's Fountains Blue
It took an extra 3 samples to get here
Described as:
A strong blue but at the same time, quiet and tranquil, like the ruins of Fountains Abbey in the twilight.
Fountains Blue definitely has a purple base colour, in fact it looked so purple when I first painted the sample I dismissed it. However once it dried it darkened down and more of the bluey tones came out.  It's not the same as Midnight, it's definitely more purple but it does have that dark night sky look I was looking for. 
Saturday 17 November 2012
I mentioned in the last post about the Kitchen that we'd started the plastering, that was finished earlier this week and is drying out quite nicely, in fact most areas are now dry the dampest area seems to be the curve but that has had two layers. 
Visitors seem determined to give me a heart attack in there as every person I've spoke to so far has reached out a hand and made a move to lean on the freshly plastered slightly damp walls (que my movie style slow motion "NOOOOOOOOOOO")
Don't touch the walls!
The second leap in progress in there is that we now have power and lights!  Switching on the lights in a room you've had no power in for months is a great moment and really helps bring the room to life even though there's no furniture in there.  Power cables have also been run through to the island area so the next step is to get the screed done to level out the floor ready for dressing up.

Power cables for the Island

Tuesday 13 November 2012
I have a small addiction to deep, dark blue walls I fell in love with the colour and I just knew I had to have it for my dressing room, so off I went on a quest to find the perfect blue. As always there is a catch and that is that the perfect navy blue is REALLY hard to find.

Six sample pots later I found the perfect blue by the name of Midnight by Homebase Sanctuary, it's perfect and as I discovered today it's also discontinued.


So with this news off to Homebase I went armed with my large painted sample to see if Dulux they can colour match, sadly the colour machine could not match my gorgeous Midnight shade but by comparing the colour cards I think I have a couple of candidates for my new perfect navy.



Hopefully when I test these new colours one of them will be just what I'm looking but failing that my close second was a colour by Crown from the Period dead flat matt collection by the name of Ballgown, which also happens to have the perfect name.


 I'll be sure to update on my colour quest after trying out my new samples.
Saturday 10 November 2012
Today was a big day for the kitchen as we started plastering (we've been dying to get to this stage), this is the room that we started work in and made little progress in since, the last two weeks have seen some really big changes and it's coming on leaps and bounds now.


In the beginning the kitchen was a small cramped L-shaped area with every square inch clad in knotty pine and I'm literally talking every where...ceiling, walls, cupboards, the place looked more like a sauna than a kitchen.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the kitchen before we started stripping it out as we were quite eager to make a start.
Behind the cladding revealed some really scary electrical diy work and some slightly unstable walls between the next two rooms (corridor and toilet/shower room) so it was time to bring in the professionals.

Welcome to I'll Take Both Interiors! Much like it's sister blog I'll Take Both this blog was born out of love and interest in a subject. My interest in interiors developed in the last year when my partner and I decided to move home, a couple of failed purchases later we final completed on our life house.
I know the "everything happens for a reason" line is a bit of a cliche but in this instance it's true if those earlier contracts hadn't fallen through we'd have missed out on a house which is truly better than those that came before, so if you're going through the trials of home buying keep your head up it'll all work out in the end.
Doormat from The Contemporary Home

Our new nest is a four storey Victorian in need of a little love and care to bring it up to date.  We got the keys in April and since then we've started a massive renovation, I'll Take Both Interiors will chronicle the renovation, show our design ideas and I'll try to the explain the thought processes behind them but don't be surprised if you find the odd shopping post thrown in after all I didn't get the motto "I'll Take Both" for nothing.