I am so excited to say that we’re finally in our new home. After nine long months of very hard work, we’ve renovated our house and moved in.
You can see my last posts to see what kind of a state it was really in:
The house renovation project 8 months on
I was waiting until the house was absolutely perfect and 100% finished before starting to write posts about it. Things aren’t quite finished and I’m still waiting to buy the finishing touches and give it a homey, travel theme. If I’ve learned one thing recently, it’s that a home is never ‘perfect’ when you have a baby and a very busy life. It our version of perfect thought. It’s perfect for us and I love it, despite the fact that we have wires hanging out in random places, we already have grubby hand prints on the walls, paw prints on the doors and a lot of our junk still hasn’t found a home.
We’ve painted the entire house white and now it’s like a gorgeous, blank canvas for us to start playing with.
I’m a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of any home so let’s start there…
And now….
I wanted a relaxed, bright and fun kitchen so opted for this gorgeous blue colour. The kitchen and all appliances came from Howdens. We blew our budget on a slate floor but I’m so glad we did. It looks great and we don’t need to worry about scuffs and scratches.
These clocks are my favourite bit of décor in the kitchen. The clocks are from George Home at Asda and I created the text stickers using Tenstickers. They have a really easy service where you select the text, the size and the font and they arrived in five days.
We chose cities that meant something to us rather than just random cities. I like that it’s personal – but I do wish I’d realised that Hong Kong and New York are exactly 12 hours apart! Fail.
Every kitchen needs a chalkboard. I intended it to be used for ‘inspirational messages’ and reminders but, more often than not, it ends up with childish doodles on it – the type 12 year old boys doodle.
So here are the travel themed kitchen products on my wish list!
Always roaming with a hungry heart poster 
Watercolour tea towel for New York 
There’ll be more from my travel themed home coming over the next few weeks!
I love your kitchen! The clock idea is so clever – I might just have to steal that from you 🙂 All that matters is that the kitchen is perfect for you. Great job!
The clocks were so easy. It’s tough to get a travel theme into the kitchen so this worked perfectly 🙂
This looks amazing – what a labour of love but congratulations on finishing! Love the clocks too.
Thanks Cathy. It was tough but well worth it in the end.
It’s so pretty! Love it love it! Cannot believe just how crappy it was compared to what it was now. Similar to my flat I lived in above the shop last year, we spent weeks pealing layers and layers of wallpaper off. Was quite fun though as it was my grandma’s flat years before so she kept visiting and saying ooo that was my wallpaper in 1955, that was my wallpaper in the 60s. cute!
You have inspired me to get something bought and get renovating! Can’t wait xx
I know, I can’t believe it was that bad either. What were we thinking buying such a mess!? Ahh, that sounds cute about your grandma’s wallpaper. It’s funny how these things bring back memories.
Wow your kitchen looks amazing! Love the clocks and the stairway xx
Thanks Naomi. The under the stair cupboard was meant to be a little home for the dog but he refuses to go in there so we need to give it a new use.
Wow, this looks like a lot of work but I have to say- it turned out amazing!
I am sure you must be really proud of yourself! 🙂
Also where did you get the city names from under the clocks? It all looks super lovely 🙂 x
Claudia
Hi Claudia, thank you!
The info about the stickers is above. They’re from Tenstickers – a company I’d really recommend. They’re really easy to design – you can pick from lots of fonts and sizes. You can put in the exact length you need and it resizes it all for you. It’s also pretty cheap – I think these were less than £25.
Wow! I love it already! – Yaya
Thanks Yaya!
Looks lovely – but do not bother getting the world cork board – so disappointed with it. Can not wait to see what else you are doing to your home !
Oh really? That’s good to know because I love the look of it, I definitely would have bought it for my office. I have some friends who have covered their entire wall with a cork board and put a map and polaroids all over it. It looks great.
So beautiful! You can tell lots of love and excitement went into this room. Can’t wait to see the rest. And don’t worry about the matching times for New York and Hong Kong, at certain parts of the year they’ll be different with daylight savings and whatnot. Definitely gave me inspiration for my own flat.
What I love the most is the personality. It’s awesome to have an entire room in one theme and feel so cozy!
Why don’t you try suitcases as shelves? Isn’t that really amazing! It is surely a whimsical and absolutely perfect look. Another thing which can add craziness to your kitchen is the vintage style countertops. Try those with half-map top or the half-chalkboard.
Beautiful – love the subtly & the colours!