Love Where You Live - Our New(ish) Home

We've been in our new home almost 7 months now.

7 months!

I really can't believe it.

When I say that I can't believe it's been 7 months I mean it feels like much longer. It feels like we have always been here, like we've come home.

We love where we live.

I mean, REALLY love it.

We thought we loved where we lived before this but now we really know what it's like to love where you live. Our old house was too small for us. We loved the location but not the house. It had 3 bedrooms but the living space was far too small for us. It had been perfect for Matt and I when we bought it 7 years earlier but it lacked room for the children to play, storage facilities and the third bedroom was a small square that TC would outgrow in no time.

We'd looked at moving a couple of years previously and even went to put our house on the market. We'd fallen in love with a new 5 bedroom home nearby but when the prices were released it was priced more than we had expected it to be and more than we thought we could comfortably afford. It wasn't going to be ready for a long time either.

We were happy where we lived, we just needed a bigger house.

So we plodded on and embraced our home but we never felt entirely happy.

By this time, Matt had a new job earning more money and I was earning from my freelance work but we still didn't look into moving.

Then, one day in mid-March, I was sat reading a post from Jennie about her gorgeous playroom. I longed for a playroom for our children and Jennie's words and photographs made me look at the development again that very morning, just to see if it had been sold. I thought it would have been - it was a beautiful house and a long time had passed since we first looked at it.

My heart skipped a beat as I stared at the computer screen.

"Matt!" I called "That house we wanted is built now and still for sale!".

I didn't have to tell him twice. We went up to the sales office that morning, 18th March.

We fell in love all over again but this time with a real physical house, not just a floor plan. It was even better than we had visioned.

This time though it had extras. Lots of extras - carpets, curtains, light fittings, some furniture, an alarm and much more.

It felt like it was meant to be.

We pretty much reserved it there and then - only actually paying the reservation fee 10 days later when the crazy March snow had cleared enough for us to get up there after sorting our mortgage out.

3 months later we moved in and we haven't looked back.

We wanted a future-proof home or our 'forever home'. Somewhere to grow old in. Somewhere to watch our children grow up in. Somewhere we would always feel happy.

We have 5 double bedrooms, a study, a large kitchen with an island (something we've always wanted), a dining room large enough to extend our table all the way, a double garage and 3 bathrooms - ours with a double shower - plus the downstairs toilet. The latter ones I'm not so happy about as it means more cleaning!

The kitchen is probably my favourite room in the whole house. It's light and trendy and, I'm told by friends, a real 'sociable' kitchen. My friends and I have spent a few nights around the island eating and drinking and it's been perfect. We've had fun buying some extra special things for the kitchen too and Matt bought me my dream KitchenAid for my birthday too. I love her.

We've made one of the bedrooms into a playroom for the kids and they love it. It's 9ft x 12.5ft and it's a brilliant space for them to explore their toys and mess-up. There's plenty of room for both of them to play together or independently. We also have a sofa bed in there so it can be used a bedroom too which came in handy at Christmas.

The playroom is still very much work in progress (as is a lot of the house) but I've brightened it up with the children's artwork on the walls and brought some fabulous coloured storage from Ikea. I really want to get a mural painted and have my eye on some local people to deliver that - just need to save some pennies.





The back garden is slightly smaller than our old house but the outlook is great - I love sitting in our lounge and looking at the beautiful trees out of the french doors. Our lounge is at the back of the house and we aren't overlooked. We had a fabulous summer this year and the garden got plenty of use.

This year I'd like to get the garden looking prettier. Unfortunately I don't like gardening but I really want to make the effort with this house.

Matt is loving the double garage but, at the moment, it's a bit of a mess. He keeps talking about model railways and insists it's "for the kids" but I think there's only one big kid he has in mind with his plans!

The 5th bedroom is our dedicated guest room with it's own bathroom. It's quite a little haven for guests but so far it's only family how have stayed the night although we are hoping to have some friends stay over soon.

It's in the attic space and I know that eventually the rooms up there will be claimed by two unruly teenagers when they don't think Matt and I are cool anymore!

The final thing is our neighbours. They are, quite simply, ACE. We are fortunate enough to be between two lovely, very different, families and we always feel welcome and their doors are always open to us. We've already organised carol singing around the tree at the park before Christmas and the vast majority of the neighbourhood ended up outside singing, eating mince pies and drinking mulled wine. It was lovely. It ended up with a fair few neighbours back at our house completely wasted and I won't go into detail about what happened to me but lets just say I didn't touch alcohol until New Year!

The children are so happy here too, not just Matt and I. MC is still attending the school she was at previously as we only a mile or so up the road from where we used to live so we haven't had to uproot her. There are lots of children of all ages (although mostly young) and the kids have made great friends already and it's a safe environment for them to play out too. I really can't wait for the summer.

I think it's so important to love where you live and I'm so happy that we finally truly do.

Christmas Day 2013

In my 3 years of blogging I've not actually written about Christmas.

How bad is that?

To be honest, by time we are through the holidays and we plunge straight into a new year I feel like it's too late to blog about it.

This year though, I'm making an effort, despite us already being halfway through January.

I need to blog about our family life more. I need to spend more time detailing our life and treasuring memories. It's probably not a post that will interest many people but it's one that I can look back on and that's what matters to me most.

For the past 7 years I've cooked Christmas dinner. The least amount was for just Matt and myself (the Christmas before MC was born) and the most was for 10 people.

That was this Christmas. 10 people.

Each year I've stressed about Christmas. I've got worked up about cooking for everyone and making sure the meal is perfect.

It always has been.

I'd spend the few days before working out all my timings of what needed to go in the oven on what setting, at what time and for how long. It would be timed to the minute and written out neatly in order.

This year was different though. I didn't prepare timings in advance and stress about dinner being perfect. Over the last 11 months or so, since Tilda passed away, I've realised more than ever what's important in life. Just being together as a family is what matters. Christmas dinner and everything else are just the extras. I had plenty of stars around the house to remind me of Tilda and what was important - not that I need reminding.

We were looking forward to Christmas as it was the first in our lovely new home. We were to be joined for dinner by my parents, Matt's parents and his brother and fiancée.

Christmas day was lovely.

The kids woke about 8am and that was only because I started making noise as I'd been wide awake from 6.30am excited to see the kids open their presents. Mini Cheddar was so excited when she saw the stocking filled at the end of her bed.

"SANTA'S BEEN" came the cries and running along the landing.

I when to Tiny Ched's room, plucked him from his cot and carried him into our room. MC carried his stocking in and we all sat on our bed to open presents. TC loved every second of it. He opened every present, although it took him a while as when he discovered Percy the engine in there he was beside himself and just wanted to play with that.

We went downstairs to the kitchen for breakfast and then we entered the lounge to discover more presents - the kids had definitely been good this year!

Again, TC opened every single present excitedly and when he discovered Thomas the Tank Engine, that was it! He shrieked.

Last Christmas I would have been champing at the bit to get through the present opening and so I could start dinner. This year though, I soaked it all in. I took lots of photos and watched the kids excitement unfold on their faces. It was lovely and leisurely.

We all got dressed and the kids played happily with their new toys whilst Matt and I started the dinner prep. Matt is the perfect Christmas dinner sous chef! He preps the mountains of vegetables (I hate prepping sprouts) and cleans all the pots up as we go and is just generally my 'kitchen biatch' for the day. It's very rare we both cook together and I love it.

Matt's parents arrived just after 11am, after driving up from Nottingham, and his brother and fiancée arrived shortly after from Oxford. My parents (who only live 10 minutes away) arrived too and we were all set. I'd told everyone that I'd serve dinner at 1pm and, for the first time ever, it was slightly late by about 15 minutes - probably due to my more relaxed attitude!

We sat down (at a table with 3 extra non-matching chairs - isn't that what Christmas is all about?) to eat a feast of roast beef (we aren't huge fans of turkey), a mountain of roast potatoes, stuffing (who says you can't have it with beef?), pigs in blankets, roasted parsnips, sprouts and pancetta, carrots, broccoli and gravy. It was delicious and my stomach is growling just thinking about it.

For dessert I'd made a chocolate hazelnut meringue roulade the day before (thanks Delia!). If you've not tried one, do it - simple to make and it's a bit like eating Fererro Rocher. We had Christmas pudding and homemade mince pies too.

After dinner began the present opening again! The kids were spoilt so much and, despite having a big house now, we were wondering where we were going to put it all.

The only time the TV was on all day was for the Queen's Speech. Usually we will watch a film or something but this year I wanted proper family time with no distractions. We talked, we played games and we were just happy in each others company. There was lots of laughter and just being together as a family.

TC did so well through the day. He had a couple of small naps and went to bed a little later than usual without a peep from him. MC stayed up late and was a little tearful at bedtime due to such a busy and exciting day.

The inlaws all stayed overnight and it was lovely to be able to put everyone up for the night now we have the extra bedrooms.

Everyone went home mid-morning on Boxing Day so we could enjoy the rest of Christmas as a family of four and we did just that.

I have so many lovely memories.

TC opening up his stocking presents on our bed

MC thrilled to have Harry Styles!

This Disney Hedbanz game provided
much entertainment Christmas Day 

Full steam opening presents

"What's that you've got bro?"

The kids playing happily while we cooked dinner

My kitchen biatch hard at work

Note the Matilda Mae star at the end

Enjoying roulade and ice cream

Christmas Dinner face

A helping hand with presents from Grandma and Grandad

So good at opening presents

They played beautifully together with toys

Or just playing horses

Disney Hedbandz is awesome

My favourite photo from Christmas

Making My New Kitchen Perfect Thanks To LakeLand Furniture

You know when an email drops in your inbox and even though you're in a public place you actually squeal slightly with delight?

Well, that happened to me a few weeks back now. It was before we moved house and my thoughts were consumed with moving and making our new house our future home. Anyone who knows me will know it's been at the forefront of my mind for the last month or so.

I had a list of things we needed to buy and a pair of red barstools was written on that list. Our new kitchen has an island (*squeals* I've always wanted one) and part of it is a breakfast bar.

So imagine my delight when Lakeland Furniture emailed me asking if I'd like to review a product for them. They specialise in reproductions of modern classic furniture and have a huge (and I mean massive) range of barstools and chairs.

I did actually squeal when I looked at their website and was very excited!

We knew we wanted red for the new kitchen and so the search commenced. The Lakeland Furniture website was simple and very user-friendly. Just selecting 'red barstools' on the website brought back a choice of 52 barstools. We couldn't believe the huge choice.

We finally settled on 2 Mars Red Padded Barstools (priced at £45 each*) which we thought would be perfect. We were also impressed they come with a 2 year warranty.

There was much excitement when they arrived. I'd expected the box to be much bigger but when I opened it I realised how well they'd been packed.

The chrome plated steel bases were really well packaged inside too so they didn't get damaged in any way.

The instructions of how to assemble the barstools were really simple and even TC wanted to help mummy.

It was simply put the pole with the footrest into the base, then screw in the pole with the gas lift handle onto the bottom of the seats (4 screws and Allen key provided) and then slot the two together.

Hey presto!

Even I managed to put them together effortlessly in no time at all.

I have to be honest and say that the colour of them is a lot brighter than how they appear on the Lakeland Furniture website but they still look amazing in our kitchen.

Most of our visitors to the new house have immediately commented on them and said how comfortable they are. I do have to say that they are extremely comfortable (they support your back unlike others I've tried) and are easy to clean - a must with 2 small kiddos. They are actually the most comfy barstools I've ever sat on...and I've sat on a lot!

We'd really recommend Lakeland Furniture if you want good quality products at great prices. Delivery is totally free within mainland UK which is great. I didn't realise, until I visited their website, that they supply to the TV industry. So when you see Mr Blumenthal in a fancy kitchen you know why.

I'm in love

Yes, it's totally an excuse to give you a sneak peak inside my new kitchen but forgive me *wink*

  

We were sent the two bar stools to review 

but all photographs, words, views and opinions are entirely my own.

*prices correct at time of writing