Welcome Home with Eve Sleep

– in collaboration with Eve Sleep –

Embarking on a renovation journey can definitely throw your routine into a state of flux! We packed our bags and hauled all of our possessions from our flat to our new, shabby but much loved home. Wandering around the drab rooms of a pre-renovation house, before a single drop of paint has touched the walls, can leave you thinking: what now? (* in my best Kevin Hart voice *)

I don’t think I’ve ever adulted this hard in my life, this is full throttle, maximum capacity, grown up level type stuff. So here are 4 top tips for surviving a renovation project!

1. Ensure that you get a good night’s sleep

When we first moved into our house, we were making do with the sofa bed that we kept from our old flat. Our boxes were scattered all around the house and we weren’t sleeping well. Throughout your renovation journey, please ensure that you are getting a good night’s sleep. It will make the world of difference to your mood and your productivity, even though builders may be traipsing in and our of your home.

We partnered with Eve to help transform our sleep, and we totally upgraded our sleeping situation with our Eve original mattress bundle. The mattress bundle comes with the original foam mattress, 2 memory foam pillows, the 4.5 tog duvet and a mattress protector. It is essentially a one stop shop for all your bed needs, making the process quick and easy. Our bed has been transformed into a cosy haven amongst the chaos of our renovation, promising a beautiful night’s sleep.

Call me weird but I got very excited about the Eve mattress bundle after my first night on it, so I started googling and quickly realised that there are thousands of other weirdly excited people on TrustPilot who love it too.

P.S. Eve are currently giving you the chance to win your mortgage for a year! …Yes girl. I’ve entered. I guess I have to tell you that you can enter it too, here.

Oh and before I go on to point number 2, Eve have also made a moving checklist that I read and totally realised there’s a bunch of stuff I haven’t done. Save yourself the headache and download it now.

2. Get. Help.

A renovation project is a whole load of admin. Somebody’s got to find the best builders in the area, schedule for them to come to your house to give quotes, review those quotes, finalise the building work schedule with the builders, oversee planning permission applications, check the architect’s drawings, keep on top of payments, regularly check the builders’ work and…………………wow I totally zoned out just writing that, imagine doing it!

Thankfully, my rockstar mum is helping me with all things admin. She can administrate and adult simultaneously, with her eyes closed, and she also loves property which is a bonus! So get someone like my mum in your corner to relieve you of your renovation duties so you can go back to being a free spirited young adult without a care, or renovation related stress, in the world.

3. Start with the things that will add the most value to your house

We have finalised the plan for our renovation! We will be starting with a loft conversion (which will add one master bedroom, an ensuite and a walk-in wardrobe), then we will focus on doing a full side return extension and completing the kitchen. Lastly, we will refurbish the rest of the house. The loft and kitchen extensions add the most value to the house, so we have prioritised them just in case the pennies in our piggy bank shrivel up and we’re left with a half finished home (it happens, you guys!).

4. Minimise the disruption to your routine

Renovations can take up to a year or two! You don’t want your renovation to completely obliterate your routine and cause you to hate your home for the duration of the project. Therefore, do try and have a room that is protected from the carnage of the building works at each stage of the project. Call it an escape room, a haven, a bomb shelter…call it what you may, but it will help preserve your sanity while the building work is going on. We intend to do the loft first and hibernate in there while the rest of the house descends into a glorious state of disarray.

This blog post is in collaboration with Eve Sleep, but all of the opinions I shared above are truly my own <3

We are so excited to be moving into our new house in London! I’ve become strangely used to living in a high-rise, but I certainly won’t miss the task of climbing up 20 flights of stairs whenever the lifts break down 🙈

Our search for a house was unusually quick and painless. I booked viewings for three houses in our area which we viewed in one day. When we arrived at the third viewing, we saw so much potential in the house and quickly put in an offer on it. The house came with no chain, and we had no chain, so the process of buying only took a couple months from start to finish! However, buying a house was definitely a learning experience, and I really wish that they taught this stuff in schools. Thankfully, our mortgage advisor is brilliant helped us to become mortgage literate, and he continues to help us on our quest to becoming financially woke.

We were looking for an imperfect house, with lots of potential as we have always intended to completely renovate it. However, we had to be able to tolerate living in it as it was.

Have a look at our house as it is now, and some pictures of inspiration for what we want it to look like post-renovation!

Our House

Reception Room 1

Reception Room 2 (currently being used as bedroom no. 4)

Hallway

Kitchen

Bedroom no. 1

Bedroom no. 2

Bedroom no. 3

Bathroom

Garden

Renovation Inspiration

We would love to have a kitchen island, but our kitchen is pretty narrow so weren’t sure if it would be possible to have the island size that we wanted. Then, I stumbled across this genius mini side-return extension that makes space for a good-sized kitchen island, without the requirement for planning permission and astronomical costs that come with getting a full side-return extension.

For our kitchen, we want to go for a fusion of traditional and industrial styles. Our new kitchen will feature white and navy cabinets with gold handles and white marble surfaces, New York inspired exposed brick, a kitchen island, floor-to-ceiling glass windows on the side wall, and floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading out onto the garden.

We will continue with the exposed brick theme for the fireplaces and knock down the wall between reception rooms 1 and 2 to create more open space. However, I want to install folding double doors between the rooms so that reception room 2 can still be used as a bedroom in future, if needed. In terms of decor, I am obsessed with Parisian inspired interiors! 😍

It was a little bit harder for me to decide on a design for the bathroom. I have now fallen in love with black and white as a colour scheme for the bathroom, with marble walls and floors to boot.

Renovating our bedrooms will be pretty simple (replacing the flooring, windows and painting the walls).

We’re also considering a loft conversion, adding one ensuite bedroom and a roof terrace. But we’re just going to have to see how far our budget will be able to stretch, because this renovation stuff is expensiiiiveeeeee!!!

Kima Otung