The House search, I remember it only too well! 

Frantically calling every estate agent I could to get our name on their books, lusting over massive houses that were way out of our price range and becoming a “floor plan expert”! 

By this I mean I became floor plan obssseed! I wouldn’t even look at houses online which didn’t provide a floor plan. I needed to be able to imagine us living in that house and could only do so by looking at that little black and white picture of little boxes. Note to house sellers – provide floor plan!  

One Friday morning whilst doing my mad woman online house hunting, I found a lovely little house that was in our dream area and looked quite nice. 

Click to view pictures, nope click to view floor plan (obviously). 

I remember thinking It was quite an unusual floor plan, as the upstairs bathroom looked a really odd shape. Don’t over think it was the good advise I gave myself. 

The living area was really big from the square feet listed (remember I’m an expert here ) but the one thing I couldn’t stop looking at was a little tiny box named “cloak room”. Fab a room to store our many coats, shoes and hats! 

Once the floor plan had my approval I took a peek at the pictures listed. Granted it was so ugly and would probably scare off most people, but I could see it’s potential and after showing Scott who also loved it, I made the call. 

Done, vewing with the estate agent booked in for Monday.  

Over the weekend, I began my pintrest mood board. Cute cupbaords to home our shoes in, pretty coat hooks and quirky hat stands all filled the “cloak room” space quite nicely in my head. I let my imagination run away with me (as per) and even began thinking about the clever flooring we could put in there to act as an additional floor wiping space!  I didn’t however share any of my wonderful “cloak room” ideas with my Husband, had I of done so I would of saved myself some embarrassment. 

Monday morning came with all the usual hope and happiness that comes with a maternity leave Monday morning (more hoping that happiness I might just add). 

The Estate agent was refreshingly punctual as were we for once. 

Open doors, instant love but hang on a minute something’s missing? 

Where is my cloack room? I noticed a very handy down stairs toilet which was a massive bonus, but where is the room to hang our hats and coats in- ah “cloak room” also translates (In some mad thesaurus) to “down stairs toilet” .

No idea, totally beyond me! 

Once I’d dealt with my initial disappointment; I have a tendency to set expectations in my head and if not met I struggle. Weird I know as obviously a toilet is much more useful than a room to hang your overalls!  We were sold and ready to make this house our happy home. 

The downstairs toilet quickly became one of the most used rooms in the house. As we had our upstairs bathroom ripped out practically at the same time we got the keys (View blog post here) we didn’t have much choice. 

The current room was way too ugly to take photos of, I literally couldn’t bring myself to do so! The estate agents clearly didn’t think it was worth a picture either just a misleading title on a floor plan . 

It had thick black carpet in it- yes carpet and yes coloured BLACK! Scott ripped this up immediately to only be welcomed by another layer of thinner carpet only this time it was lime green. It was a great relief when we finally got to the floor boards! 

We agreed wooden flooring would fit best in here, I’d always loved light, grey wood flooring and so decided this would be perfect. 

I started my savvy search and found out that real wood flooring is extautionate and so being the tight arse I am decided to go down vyinl route.

I eventually found the perfect flooring in good old Wickes. The Westco self adhesive pack in silver wood was a steal at just £9.99 psm- can’t argue with that! 

The result was a light silver toned wood effect flooring which opened up the little room and made it much more inviting for guests, after all this is the main toilet guests will use so it has to make a good impression. 

The walls were a plain white colour which wasn’t too bad, apart from the fact it was an oil paint which had gone on with a brush and had criss cross brush strokes all over it! A good bit of sanding got some marks out but the rest we’ve had to live with. 

We decided on another Homebase own paint “waterfall” in matte which is simply gorgeous. It has your very tradional “nautical” bathroom vibe to it, but is also really fresh and uplifting- just what you need for your first pee at home after a challenging commute! 

We also actually really loved the original tiles around the sink and so worked the wall colour around them. We thought it would be nice to keep this original feature of the house as the rest was being totally changed. 

This little space also homes our electric meter. It’s not so well hidden in a louvre door style cupboard. The only option we had was to paint it white. 

This was going to be really tricky with all the slats, but my very talented Father in law came to the rescue agin and managed to spray it white. The result was fantastic, you would never know it was any other colour. 

And que accessories. I knew I wanted a statement mirror to be the main feature and so was over the moon to find the exact mirror I’d been thinking of in my head  in the clearance section of TK Maxx. 

I’m a keen believer of the book “The secret” and so I’m pretty sure I “universed” this. I also would say it was God working his magic but I’m sure he has other things to contend with other than helping nab a bargain! 

A few more little homely touches including my favourite Marks’s air fresherner and a classic family swim photo and hey presto! 

Cloak room to downstairs loo, now that’s a transformation . 
Love 

Charlotte 

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