Champagne Lifestyle on a Lemonade Budget - 2021

Wednesday2000

I have had a disastrous xmas which I won't go into details about on here.

I found out in the new year that my buyer couldn't get a mortgage extension so the chain has fallen through on our side. We are having an open house this weekend and we have nearly 25 people showing up so hopefully we will get a buyer. We also got a call from a rival esate agent to tell us that our house in underpriced in their opinion, so hopefully we might get a higher offer than we did last summer.

We are meant to view more houses this weekend just in case our sellers don't want to wait for us. We want to see more options as we were only looking for two weeks last year. It seems like a lifetime ago!

If we can't get viewings we are just going to the coast for the day to go to a new restaurant and see the new Scream film. It's the first time I've been out socally since the start of December. At least that will be something nice to do instead of just decluttering the house and cleaning!

phoebe1989seb

Oh, Wednesday I'm so sorry your Christmas was a disaster and that you've lost your buyer ☹️ What a complete pain 😭 Really hope your open day produces a bidding war and you get a better offer than before! It's difficult to see it now, but perhaps this was meant to be and you'll find an even lovelier house to buy, too 😉

My champagne moment yesterday - 3.5 years after purchasing some reconditioned, primed, cast iron radiators on eBay, finally getting the one for the guest room spray painted in sage green to match the wall colour 😃

Today's champagne moment - being out in the winter sunshine, planting dozens of the bluebell bulbs I removed from the rockery when I deconstructed it last year. It was long overdue and there's more to do, but at least I've made a start as they were beginning to be munched.....

Wednesday2000

Thanks Phoebe.:) I love sage green.

phoebe1989seb

Me too, Wednesday ❤️

Very best of luck for your open day!!!

Today's champagne moment - after months of fruitless searching, finally finding the perfect curvaceous, tiny, black basin for our soon-to-be-created cloakroom 😍

We've had the very special basin tap for about seven years, having purchased it for our last house (but never using it), so am extremely excited at getting close to being in a position to fit it at long last 😄

MrsPorridge

My champagne moment today was sitting on the bench outside in the sunshine - we've had on stop rain for the past few days.  It was really nice and sunny.  I sat for around 15 mins then started to get chilly.  Was lovely to feel the sun on my face and see a lovely blue sky.

phoebe1989seb

Yesterday's champagne moment - purchasing a porcelain tile sample for the cloakroom we'll be creating in the next few months. It's perfect colour-and pattern-wise ❤️

Not so much the price, which at £15 each (£1200+ for the one wall I'd planned to tile 😮) is one reason why DH has always preferred shopping at Fired Earth or Porcelanosa, insisting that the concept of Topps being cheap is a con!

Previously we've bought some stunning handmade tiles from FE for £11 each and they looked worth every penny of the £££. These, whilst exactly what I was looking for are a little understated...but I suppose that's the point, lol! 

Anyway, I'm seriously considering recreating the look with a stencilled or handpainted design which is something I've successfully done before....

If I do this - saving £1200 or so in the process - it'll be a fab champagne moment 😁

Today's champagne moment - realising that by swapping the wardrobe and sofa in our bedroom I can create a reading nook 😊 It won't be done today as - even emptied - the antique wardrobe is way too heavy for me to move alone and DH is busy finishing the last of the skimming in the guest room. Meanwhile, I've been clearing out another load (mainly glassware and lamps) for the charity shop.

phoebe1989seb

Hope your open day and viewing(s) went well, Wednesday?

Yesterday's champagne moment - succeeding in moving the (empty) wardrobe on my own (well, most of the way - DH arrived home just in time for the final push 😇) and getting the sofa in place too. So my new bedroom reading nook is making progress 😊

The sofa is a pretty, high-backed, dusky pink two seater with original Arts and Crafts Movement embroidery - an eBay find when we were living in Wiltshire about eight years ago. This was a fantastic bargain at only £250 😁 It fits into the alcove perfectly.

It goes without saying that I've got ample cushions for it (including two velvet bolsters that the seller included with the blue velvet sofa we bought for the kitchen in November, which were surplus to requirements on that!), plus a pure wool throw for snuggling up to read/write. I'm going to add a plug-in wall light on one side and get DH to hang a useful small combined bookshelf/coatpeg (a £35 fleamarket find, subsequently given a paint job 😉) on the other.

Apart from the wall behind - a blocked up doorway - needing to be plastered, it's going to be the perfect place to get cosy with a book. Just need to find a little footstool/G&T table and I'm done 😄

I might rig up some kind of pull out book repository for under the sofa, although we already have floor to ceiling built in bookshelves the other side of the fireplace, so plenty of reading matter on hand....

Today's champagne moment has just been tidyvating by adding the cushions, hanging pictures etc...and admiring my handiwork, lol!!!

weenancyinAmerica

I love the idea of a pull-out book repository under the sofa. We have books almost everywhere but always looking for more ideas!

Wednesday2000

phoebe1989seb said:

Hope your open day and viewing(s) went well, Wednesday?

The open house last weekend has got us four offers so far. Two of them were higher than the one last year but we haven't accepted one yet. We are having more people to view our house today and the rest of the week. 

We didn't manage to see any more houses to buy if this one doesn't go though as people were busy that day, annoyingly. One house was fully booked the whole of Saturday. We did walk around the area we like and saw the houses from outside at least.

Fingers crossed we get more offers this week.:)

phoebe1989seb

That's very positive news on the selling front at least, Wednesday 😄 I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.....

Today's champagne moment - making further progress on the guest room, which DH recently finished plastering. I've been choosing some wall lights which will go on the wallpapered wall behind the bed.

The room was reduced in size when we created a new hallway running along the opposite side of the building last year, so we plan to use a pair of quite small bedside tables with the wall lights above, freeing up plenty of space for books etc. The tables were purchased not long after moving here in 2018 - one was half price because of a very minor scratch 😉

Apart from an antique/vintage chest of drawers I still need to find that will give much needed additional storage, virtually everything else is stuff we already have.

So, we'll be using our heavily carved, original Art Nouveau double bed (a rather spendy eBay purchase back in the early noughties 🙄), embroidered Zara bedding bought but barely used at our last house, art either painted by me or collected over the years, a Matthew Williamson light fitting that was an eBay bargain and a pair of car boot sale mirrors 😁

I'll be trawling my stash of collected cushions for a few choice examples too, lol 🤣

Target to complete the room is the end of the month, although I'm expecting that to overrun a bit....