Original features of my ’80s house

I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while, but in the post-move chaos the house has been a bit too messy for pictures!

I mentioned previously that our new house was built in 1987/1988, which I was obviously thrilled about when I found out.  While things like the kitchen and bathroom have been remodelled more recently, there are still a lot of lovely original ’80s features in the house, which are a huge bonus in my view.

Let’s take a look at a few of them.

'80s deco hearth
The deco-style hearth in the living room.

I love this art deco style hearth – it’s a real feature in the room.  It needs a bit of cleaning, and the fire doesn’t actually work at the moment (we need to have a look into that, but now that the winter’s over it’s not an urgent thing), but I think the design of it is gorgeous.

'80s brass light switches
The brass light switches…

 

'80s brass plug socket
…and the matching plug sockets.

Geth doesn’t like these brass fittings at all, but I love them – I’ve lived with standard white ones my whole life, and these are a lot more interesting!

'80s art deco stained glass windows
More art deco stylings – stained glass windows in the doorway from the hall into the living room.

These stained glass windows are probably my favourite feature in the house – they provide such a brightness to the living room.

'80s brass light fitting
One of the brass light fittings in the hallway.

Finally, there’s these brass light fittings – another thing that I love and Geth dislikes!  There are two of them, one in the downstairs hallway and one in the upstairs landing.  Most of the light fittings in the house do seem to be original, but these are my favourites.

It’s really nice that so many features have survived since the house was first built.  As a shameless ’80s throwback, it makes me feel much more at home.

 

New shiny things

After a couple of days of dribs and drabs of small deliveries of house stuff, the big Ikea order arrived today!  Most of it (I’ve already assembled the replacement lamp) is still sitting in the middle of the living room, as there’s no space to assemble the units or put them in their eventual places yet.  And just when I thought I’d reclaimed that bit of living room floor.  Oh well.

I also finally finished the wardrobe cull.  It’s amazing how much stuff I realised I just didn’t like or want to wear, and in total I’ve probably got rid of about 75% of my clothes.  To be fair, I am now spending a lot of time online, fantasy shopping for replacements, but I’m trying to be good and only (mostly) buying things I actually need.

Now that the Ikea order is here, one thing I can do is start putting stuff into its proper storage boxes.  Hopefully I’ll have a properly functioning dressing room, at least, by the end of the week!

(Justified) excessive spending

I spent a lot of money at Ikea and other homewares suppliers today.  There should be lots and lots of shiny packages arriving this week.  It’s all stuff we need for the house, though, so I don’t feel guilty about it (I know I shouldn’t ever feel guilty about spending money on stuff I want as long as I can afford it, but broke girl habits die hard!).

I bought new shelving (the Kallax units for the boardgames, plus a couple of things for upstairs), a new kitchen bin (I’m fed up of the ridiculous balancing act required by our current small one), a lamp to replace one of the ones that packed in earlier this week, a magazine rack for the downstairs toilet, hanging shoe storage for our tiny hallway, a wardrobe rail to replace a broken one in the wardrobe that came with the house, a new rug for the dressing room, a chair and mirror for my dressing table (my old director’s chair that I got for my ninth birthday has sadly seen its last days), hooks and other stuff for making jewellery storage, and approximately 1,000 pretty storage boxes for the various shelves in the house.  I’m so excited about the packages.  All the packages.

I’m not done with homewares buying yet, but I definitely think that’s enough for this week.

Storage junkie-ism

We’re having to buy a lot of new stuff for the house anyway, so I’ve just treated myself to some new makeup storage:

Sorbus makeup storage
Sorbus Acrylic Cosmetics Makeup and Jewellery Storage Case X-Large Display Sets. I had to copy ‘n’ paste that ridiculously long name off the Amazon website.

It’s going to sit on my dressing table, once I unbury the dressing table.  And buy a new mirror for the dressing table.  And buy some new lights for the dressing table – well, it’ll live there eventually.  In the meantime, it’ll have to perch precariously on the bathroom windowsill.  I don’t mind, though, ’cause it’s pretty, and I’ve been desperately wanting to organise something pretty – everything else is so functional and crammed in at the moment.

Also, all my lamps have decided to pack in at the same time for some reason, so I’m currently sitting in the dark.  I will be doing the giant Ikea order this weekend, so hopefully there will be more storage organising (and light) soon.