Restoration inspiration and hallway update..

Styles change over the years, but it’s always lovely to see older houses retaining their original features or restored to their former glory. I mentioned in my last post what a shame it is when people remove all the period features out of older houses.

Since visiting one of their properties for my brothers birthday a few weeks ago, I’m a big fan of the Landmark Trust. I follow them on Instagram and they have some amazing properties with some great period features. One of my favourites that I am yet to visit is a folly shaped like a huge pineapple in Dunmore. Ranked the most bizarre building in Scotland, as houses go, it doesn’t get much quirkier than that. You can check it out here – http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/pineapple-10726/

Our new house was built in 1880, so with over 100 years of history to restore, I was in need of some inspiration. Two of the features I was always keen to restore in the new house were the fireplace and the decorative cornicing in the hallway and living room.

Its easy to get carried away.. there is a delicate balance to be struck between tasteful restoration and making your house look like the Sistine chapel. I have a tendency to go over the top, so to help me on my way I’ve been referring to pinterest for some ideas. Above are a selection of some of my favourite designs I’ve been looking at and some of my favourite bits of pinspiration. See if you can spot which ones were my favourites as the house takes shape.

Having trawled cornicing shops across London and the interweb for ideas for weeks now, I was excited this week to see the cornicing and corbels installed in the hallway. After much indecision I eventually opted for a design traditionally used in Victorian hallways and I’m really pleased with how it looks. These are yet to be painted, so I’ll post further progress updates when this is finished.

Full steam ahead..

With only about a week to go now until moving in day, we were excited to see lots of progress at the house this evening. With the plastering complete, decorating has begun along with the installation of our plaster corbels in the hallway. It’s always slightly scary to see the colours you chose actually up on the walls, but so far so good.

This evening we also took delivery of a new bed and the decorative cornicing for the downstairs hallway, which I can’t wait to see in situ. Taken from a mould of an original Victorian design, we’ve gone for a scroll theme to match the corbels and fireplace. It’s always sad to see houses where people have removed the original features, so I am trying to make up for this by cramming as many back in as I can, which will hopefully provide a nice contrast with the more modern kitchen and bathroom. We are still undecided about what cornicing to use in the living room, I have been threatening to post a blog dedicated to coving and cornicing for a while now, so watch this space for that.

Onto another of my favourite topics – fireplaces. I was very excited to see our new marble fireplace now installed in the living room. It’s such a big improvement on the old one, which wasn’t original and had an old wood surround. The cast iron fireplace from my first ever blog post has now also been fitted in our bedroom, along with some lovely moroccan blue retiling of the surround, which I am really pleased with.

Next up is getting the kitchen finished and the marble effect work tops fitted. And then the all important electricity switch on. Every time we go there we see progress so is always exciting to see what’s been done next. Its not looking like it’ll be too long before we are in the house, I will keep you posted as things take shape!