Jun 12

Jun 12 The House Pot Noodles Built, Home Renovation.

Talk about taking on life's events all at once, today's home tour is with Lu, a creative, blogger, and life coach who has just completed her home renovation while going through several other major milestones (I will let you read about it in her own words below), the aptly named @thehousepotnoodlesbuilt, because for 4 months that's pretty much all they ate.

This home has been beautifully renovated in fairly muted shades yet with pops of colour; (pink sofa anyone?) and a real character.

You can read all about Lu and her journey through her blog here.

I’m Lu AKA @thehousepotnoodlesbuilt, I’m a life coach, writer and renovation enthusiast.

I live in South East London with my husband Raphael, step son Gabriel (on the weekends) cat Dolly and Frenchie Tank.

We bought out flat last year and embarked on a massive mission to make some major changes which included moving the kitchen, changing windows and doors, adding an en-suite in the master bedroom and creating a new bedroom and utility in the bedroom. All this whilst we got engaged, planned and had a wedding and started IVF.

We learnt a lot of lessons fast during our renovation, one of which being the strength of our relationship and the ability to keep calm even though you feel the rage of a thousand King Kongs making you heart beat a million times a minute and making you want to punch your beloved in the face.

Since doing the work I have a new found appreciation for cleanliness and lack of clutter having been subjected to dust in all its forms for 4 months of my life, no hot water, no showers and no kitchen! The lack of kitchen is how our Instagram got its name. All we ate for 4 months was pot noodles as we only had a kettle, a toaster and no fridge!

Now that we’re finished I would say the style is European meets traditional English with modern twists, if that’s any sort of style?!

We have kept it fairly minimal as we like to maximise space and make our lives easier when it comes to clearing up after animals and children. The less you have the less there is to clean and tidy.

When it comes to animals and children our sofa (pink rather than green although my husband would tell you it’s purple) in particular will tell its successors some stories.

Not only was it the one piece of furniture which spent the whole renovation only partially covered and lived to tell the tale, it’s also battled through being used as a scratching post, as a colouring book and playdough pizza station and a takeaway catchall and it still looks good!

With decor, I like to get a feel for a space. I go very much on this ‘feeling’ that generally comes from hours on Pinterest, as well as keeping up to date with graphic design and fashion trends and strangely enough music videos. I’ll start with that, a colour palette or a specific item of furniture. Sometimes I’ll make mood boards but more often than not I will get an idea of furniture or a ‘look’ in my head and then spend hours trawling the internet trying to find it at a decent price.

I like projects to grow organically around a key feature whether it be a colour, a piece of furniture or a decor detail. I don’t like to be too decisive at the start as so often I change my mind as I go along. One thing I’m really liking at the moment are lighter spaces. I do love a dark wall and we have our navy bathroom which I LOVE but in larger spaces that you spend a lot of time in I like to feel as though the sun’s out.

Small details are important to me. We spent a long while looking for our kitchen handles for example and all our light switches and plug sockets had to match. I think that however mundane the item it’s always worth seeing if you can find a beautifully designed one or an interesting colour option. Doing that really makes a room pop.

We’re now about to embark on a second renovation project where I’ll be using all the lessons we learnt the first time around including:

However much you love marble and won’t be told be anyone it’s ill advised to have it as a kitchen surface - don’t have it as a kitchen surface
Measure your toilets before you buy them and the height of them when you install - we ended up with massive ones that I can swing my legs from like a 5 year old.
Never use ridged tiles as floor tiles no matter how much the lady at Tops Tiles puts the fear of God in you that you will slip and break your neck - they are hell to clean, it’s not worth it.
Let the place breath once you have your main furniture in and work out what you want to add as you go along.

Small details are important to me. We spent a long while looking for our kitchen handles for example and all our light switches and plug sockets had to match. I think that however mundane the item it’s always worth seeing if you can find a beautifully designed one or an interesting colour option. Doing that really makes a room pop.

We’re now about to embark on a second renovation project where I’ll be using all the lessons we learnt the first time around including:

However much you love marble and won’t be told be anyone it’s ill advised to have it as a kitchen surface - don’t have it as a kitchen surface
Measure your toilets before you buy them and the height of them when you install - we ended up with massive ones that I can swing my legs from like a 5 year old.
Never use ridged tiles as floor tiles no matter how much the lady at Tops Tiles puts the fear of God in you that you will slip and break your neck - they are hell to clean, it’s not worth it.
Let the place breath once you have your main furniture in and work out what you want to add as you go along.

We’re now about to embark on a second renovation project where I’ll be using all the lessons we learnt the first time around including:

However much you love marble and won’t be told be anyone it’s ill advised to have it as a kitchen surface - don’t have it as a kitchen surface
Measure your toilets before you buy them and the height of them when you install - we ended up with massive ones that I can swing my legs from like a 5 year old.
Never use ridged tiles as floor tiles no matter how much the lady at Tops Tiles puts the fear of God in you that you will slip and break your neck - they are hell to clean, it’s not worth it.
Let the place breath once you have your main furniture in and work out what you want to add as you go along.