We knew even when we were viewing St Marks that we would be picking up a lot of lessons on renovating and in the short space of time we already have quite a few tips and tricks on decorating a house. Even though this Vicarage from 1872 did not need any big refurbishments, we did want to stamp our mark on it. There have been things with the renovations that we knew about, things we have learned and we have no doubt, as there are more renovations to do, that there will be more to come. So in this short space of time here are our own personal lessons on renovating.
The joy of putting on that first bit of your colour is the same for everybody. It’s like being a child colouring in again.
Go with your instinct. It is your home and it needs to feels right. Lots of people felt our living room should be light colours, but we knew strong colours would be cosy.
Expect the unexpected. Everybody knows this, but it is still a set back in time and cost when, like us, you discover something like wood worm in the floor.
Consider the debate of hiring in trade professionals and industrial tools versus the satisfaction of doing it yourself and having that extra money to buy something else. Like a much needed cockatoo.
Choosing curtains for 9 sets of windows takes much longer when you have an ex textile student making the decisions. Plus when you want all 5 bedrooms to have a different colour theme, it is a lot of design notes to have swimming around in your head.
Pinterest is amazing and the devil all in one go. Amazing because you can find so much inspiration and the devil because it can suck away all of your time if you let it. We did plan some great moodboards on it though and it helped Damian to understand what I was good at visualising in my head, but not so clear at explaining.
Internet shopping gives you a huge amount of choice these days. Great if you know exactly what you are looking for. Not so great if you are no good at making firm decisions, because you can search everywhere for everything at any time of the day, or night. The internet did give us the opportunity to connect to lots of independents though and gave us a better chance at making our home more special knowing we had interior products that were helping smaller businesses to thrive.
Work to your strengths. Joanne is great at being destructive and anything messy. Damian is good at the detail and being a finisher. Although Damian has Joanne firmly in training to actual finish something she starts as opposed to just ripping up carpets.
There are always people willing to help.
And finally, Damian found it more creative to colour co-ordinate with his room when doing any DIY projects!
