My word of the week this week, is finished, because we are finally finished with all of the building work involved in our garage conversion and extension. I say finished but when is anything ever really finished? There are still niggly things needing doing but the major renovation work is now done. For anyone who hasn’t been aware, we previosuly had a garage and a car port. The garage has now been converted into a lovely new room, the car port is now a proper garage. We have also moved our front door and had a small utility built at the front.

Not sure if this makes any sense but here is a before and after of the front of the house (or at least up to the point where the garage door went on).We need a step and other work doing out the front (remember I mentioned niggly things?) but that will be happening fairly soon I hope.

Inside our hallway is the same size as ever but where the old front door used to be it now leads into a lovely little utility room. We love this room as it means the noisy washing machine and tumble dryer can now be well and truly shut away, meaning hubs and I can actually hear each other when they are on – potentially saving our marriage hehe ;).

Our living room now no longer has many toys stored in it as they are all in our lovely new playroom/study. Which is here.

We love this room with the grey walls and we went for a lovely soft (but bleach cleanable) carpet as we spend a lot of time in there on our hands and knees playing with the kids. We decided to be bold and step away from our usual Ikea furniture (which we love) and get some different pieces in there. Hubs found a fab place, Swoon editions (not a sponsored post in anyway) where we got this gorgeous unit we are using as toy storage, a lovely new desk and chest of drawers too.

We also went to our favourite Multiyork (again not sponsored) to get this gorgeous vibrant snuggle sofa and chair. We love being able to choose the fabrics ourselves and I always love what I call “Jewel tones” like these.

We still need to get some curtains, maybe cushions and decide what to have on the walls (there are the niggly things again!). We still need a bit more toy storage too though haven’t decided what form that will take. I love our book shelves though (Ikea picture rails, bargainous) and we did push the boat out when it came to the radiators, one in the lounge and one in the new room. Big and chunky and lovely.

Hubs bought this piano for £50 on ebay before we met and it has never had a home in this house and has been basically dumped in the conservatory with loads of other old furniture. It now has a proper home in the new room, and it has really helped free up space in the conservatory again making that room feel so much bigger again.

Having the garage itself finished, with a posh roller door (hubs’ choice) has made a huge difference too as for the past couple of months the entire contents of the garage have been kept in the conservatory. I allowed hubs to get his car in the garage once but then I am afraid it had to come out so I could reclaim the conservatory as that is our primary messy play area and very much needed on rainy days! Some of the stuff that is now in the garage needs to be sold and we need to get some shelves up and work out proper storage in there too.

So yes I say we are finished but as you can probably gather… there is still lots of things to be done. We also want some coat hooks on the walls in the utility to free up space in the hall and need to get a better shoe rack as there are constantly shoes all over the floor in the hall…. But the building work at least is finished and the building inspector has approved the work so hooray for that!