A New Build & Blank Canvas!

So, for my first blog I thought it best to start at the beginning of our adventure and that is the day we got the keys to what we believe will probably be our forever home. This day as many of you will know is like all your birthday's and Christmas's all rolled in to one surreal and crazy day.
​
Our Bellway home is in my home town in Dorset and we had been living in the Midland's up until receiving the keys and so we had only seen photos of our home and never actually got to see it in real life so it had been a very tense few months wondering if we had made the right choices with colours, Carpet, Tiles and the list goes on. All of these things go around in your head night after night when you are trying to switch off and get to sleep and it isn't until you see it on that day that you really do feel content that you had made the right decisions.

​Having owned a number of properties in the past I had thought owning a new build would be easy as everything has been done for you, how wrong could I be. Storage is usually quite limited initially and because no one has yet lived in it you face lots of unexpected issues with plug sockets in wrong places or no holes drilled for washing machine pipe in the cupboard and the list goes on.

​I felt a lot of pressure on myself to get it looking and flowing right too soon as I had dreamed of doing this for a number of years and yet I was then faced with a complete blank canvas and I did not know where to start.
​I found we were flitting through the house one minute laying Amtico flooring (which I love by the way) in the kitchen family room then laying grass for Bella dog then doing something in the bedrooms and I just couldn't take a minute to stop and think about how this house should be as I found it too over whelming. I then realised this is what you do just to get in and make it comfortable.
​
Jay and I had discussed at great length the style we wanted for the house and we felt that because Bellway had given the house a Barn style look we owed it to the house  to give it some character.
In previous places we have owned we have gone for a very modern and contemporary look but I think our tastes have changed as we have got older and  we decided we would go for a modern fresh country look that would both be in keeping with the look of the house and its surroundings and give it a much more homely feel.
​I decided to start with the Lounge as this was being used as a store room at the time for boxes that were still to be unpacked in to storage we didn't have.
I decided to keep working on this room until I was happy with the look and then we could use this room to  give us inspiration for the rest of the house which is still working progress.
Below is the results of the first completed room.

​We very quickly decided that the room needed a focal point so Jay built in a fire place (which I will blog about next so you can see how we built it). This instantly made such a difference to the room and gave us storage for the TV and all the boxes and cables that go with it.
​
We used a light  grey colour on the walls from Valspar called New York City Morning  and we bought classic oak furniture, sofa and winged back chairs from Next Home which I think wont date.

---

 I carefully chose a tall standing lamp and lamps with metallic shades for the sideboard and nest of tables to give the room a softer feel.
It took me almost 10 months to choose the ceiling lights because although I wanted something pretty I didn't want anything too modern or fussy looking and I hope I got this right.
​Because everything in the room is quite calm and I haven't got much on the walls yet I decided to have a bit of fun with the mirror adding a bit of glam to the room. This was from the Range and wasn't very expensive and I think it looks lovely above the sideboard.
We are really pleased with this finish and I hope this blog might help put your minds at ease if you are becoming the proud owners of a new build too.

Love From