Ikea Stress

I love buying things second hand for many reasons, the biggest is the saving money, so when i saw on a local Facebook selling page the same Ikea bed id been lusting over for Bodhi for a bargain £20 i knew i had to have it !! only problem was the seller was moving house at the end of the week and Chris couldn't go get it before then ( no way i could have fitted it all in my little car ) so i asked if i could pay another £10 for them to bring it over and yesterday afternoon it arrived , 

Well this is when the stress started ! The photo below is from the Ikea website of the bed they stock... BUT they used to also stock the same bed with blue or pink ( the bed we have got is the blue model ) so i was thinking i was being smart by downloading the instructions for the white bed thinking they would be the same ( i was very very wrong ) it seems that our blue bed is Ikea bed 1.0 and said white bed in photo is Ikea bed 1.1 so yeah.... it was a little bit like trying to cook a recipe by only using the photos as the instructions are in a different language ! 

With a lot of help from my mum, dad , husband ( and Bodhi ) we got the bed made in a little over three hours! Bodhi is so please with his big boy bed and it is pretty big !! it takes up nearly all of the box room , So it looks like the change over of bed rooms will be bumped up the to do list. 

The bed new from Ikea would have costs 

£130 for the bed frame ( KURA reversible )

£12.50 for the bed tent 

£35 delivery or who knows how much if we had driven to pick it up (can't go into Ikea for just one thing knowing me i'd have spent over £30 on candles and meatballs )

plus for the mattress ( we got the mattress within the £30 over all cost ) 

So over all buying second hand we saved over £150 this saved money will be put towards the new carpet for the boys room, so yes it was a huge pain in the bum and without my families help I'd still be making the sodding thing but it is done now and Bodhi is over the moon to have it so its worth the stress in the end! 

Diy photo frames, Bedroom facelift

Is your bedroom in need of a little face lift? mine was! after we painted and wallpapered one wall back in January but i felt like the painted walls needed something more.. after putting up a few frames with photos in i remembered i had x2 old canvas frames , I popped to B&M and headed for the wall paper section , Our bedroom is in a woodland theme with browns and greens, when i spotted the sliver birch printed paper i knew it was what i wanted. I took a few small samples for my project and soon got to work

Laying the paper print side down simply over the lay the wooden frame ( these can be picked up in pound land and other shops for low cost ) you don't need to take the canvas off i had already done this on my as i no longer liked that i had panted on them. 

Once in place you will need a stapler to hold the wallpaper in place into the wooden frame, Don't go mad with staples tho as its only paper and will hold with just a few, make sure you pull the sides tight to not get a flappy finish.

When finish you can hang your new works of art on your walls, I am so pleased with the out come of these frames and i now feel that our bedroom is 100% finished I have had lots of compliments on the frames and i will definitely be making some for Bodhis bedroom in the summer. 

A new kitchen #TileMountainFacelift

We have lived in our house for over four year nows and to me it still doesn't feel like a home, one of the main reasons for this is the kitchen! the kitchen should be the heart of the home the place you cook eat and spend time as a family. As it stands my kitchen? its rank! i have no cupboard plints so i am for ever on my hands and knees sweeping up god knows what that finds its way under the cupboards, the walls are wallpapered ( who does that in a kitchen ?? ) and the layout is ALL wrong.

We are planning to make over our kitchen this summer also knocking out under the stairs to make a downstairs toilet ! ( My life long dream of being a home owner ) so when i headed about a blogger competition that title mountain had going i knew i had to try! with the chance to win vouchers for floor or wall tiles. 

Pinterest is one of my closest friends it knows all my wants and needs in life, so it really was my go to place for my ideas. If you don't use pinterest ( you really should ) its like a modern way to mood board and keep a note of all your design ideas and wish list items 

Follow Jess & bodhi's board Kitchen make over on Pinterest.


one of my biggest hates in my kitchen is the floor, A few year ago our bathroom flooded and water came into the kitchen and from that the floor has lifted in places leaving lots of toe subbing and swearing , So i DIY a "temperately" job with some tape and its doing the job for now? i long for the days when i can look down at a beautiful tiled floor ( maybe even with under floor heating ) and enjoy keeping it clean and lovely.

This leads me on to my 1st of many wish list items from tile mountain, Flooring! We are looking to get a simple white kitchen units with wooden worktops and we have both said that a black tile floor would look great and also be hard wearing and long lasting.

This is the lack district modular black floor tiles and i love that you can play around with the layout rather then just squares, I really like how in the photo above that it divides the rooms by the flooring as our kitchen leads out into our large hallway. This floor tile will also be perfect to also use in the toilet room. 

Now I'm the kind of person who loves the use of colour ( i studied fine art at college and Uni ) I love all things bright and bold. My husband on the other hand is more of a beige kind of guy and he has to live in the house swell ( even if i do spend a lot more time in the kitchen then him ) so we have spoken in great length about tile colours 

These are the two we both liked and i am in love with the shapes of both the hammered silver glass pebbles and the hammered Hex Aqua mix i think these could both work really well and i am still keen to use a dark grout with either of these. 

I Can not wait to turn out little house into our forever home!