Coffee station update – mini faux marble plinth

Last weekend I made a very simple change to our kitchen. This time last year I updated our kitchen and created a mini coffee station in the far corner. Said coffee station looked a bit lonely. Like it was being punished and put in the naughty corner. Making hot drinks is a social thing so I first brought it all forward to the middle of the kitchen. 

For a while now I’ve wanted to get rid of the black tray we were using previously and get [or make] something a bit more fresh all up in there. I had a large chunk of timber in our storage cupboard for a couple of years now, so I cut it to a more manageable size and luckily had the perfect amount of leftover marble contact paper to cover the piece. I quickly covered it and used it to prop up all our coffee and tea accessories. It’s the perfect size for our kitchen, helps define our little station without taking up too much space or height and is in a perfect wipe-able finish. 
I really do love when you make a small change to your home and it makes all the difference. Robert [who is the sole user of both coffee and tea in our household] was really happy with how it turned out and how fancy it looks. These kind of projects are my favourite. Especially when they cost next-to-nothing or even better – completely free. 

Nursery plans – part 1

Before I share the exciting side of my design ideas for the nursery, I first have to tackle the far less exciting side that is the spare bedroom as it is now and getting it from this point to an empty room. Sounds easy? It’s not as straight forward as I’d like it to be thanks to us being renters living with our landlords furniture and not having as much freedom as a homeowner would have. But I’ve successfully managed to come up with a solution to almost every problem.

Feel free to allow your eyes to glaze over while you scroll as chances are you won’t find the below particularly interesting. It’s a solution I’ve come up with as a renter so I figured maybe one other person out there might find it interesting, so here it is … 

1. DOWN WITH THIS SORT OF THING – and everything else on the walls. I’ve found so many cute things to hang up and have some fun ideas, but that can’t start until I repaint.
2. REPAINT – this is an obvious step but it’s something that needs to be done before I start working on the nursery. I just need to decide on a colour.
3. UNDER THE BED – four years’ worth of college work and the dismantled shelves from our living room [as in the ‘before’ photo here] have been expertly rammed stored under our spare bed. Out of sight, out of mind! That is, until we get to number 5 below … 
4. DECLUTTER – I’ll be doing another sweep of what we have at the moment and either selling or donating as much as I can. I’ve gotten rid of a lot over the past two years but thanks to nesting hormones, I want to get rid of everything unnecessary. 
5. DISASSEMBLE THE SPARE BED – since we’re renters and the bed in the spare bedroom is our landlord’s, we can’t get rid of it. My plan is to stack the spare mattress on top of the mattress in our bedroom, disassemble the spare bed and store it under our bed. I also have to relocate the college work and shelves that are currently under the spare bed to under our bed and hope it all fits.

6. CHAOTIC CUPBOARDS – possibly scarier than under the bed; the cupboards in our spare bedroom. They hold about half of everything we own. Our Christmas decorations, more college work, my wedding dress, a printer, our landlords artwork, old Playstations, summer / winter clothes, one hundred years of wrapping paper that’s too pretty to use and mementos to name a few. All have to be ruthlessly culled. 
7. MOAR SHELVES – this random set of shelves belongs to our landlord and sit awkwardly at the entrance to our spare bedroom creating a bottle-neck to the room [which will be v. awkward when bebe comes]. We keep our DVD collection on them at the moment, but I’m hoping to move the DVDs elsewhere and put these shelves within the cupboard [no. 6 above] so the shelves can house overflow bebe stuff that we won’t have room for in the room itself.

If you’ve read this far, I commend you! If you haven’t, I don’t blame you. That’s the plan I have so far to get the spare bedroom ready for its new design and subsequently, new occupant. I cannot wait to share the plans I have for the nursery! Not to mention get started on decluttering and organising and assembling tiny bebe things. 
And for good measure, I’ll end on an awkward selfie … 

Spring decluttering round up – my top tips

The past couple of weeks I’ve had an overwhelming urge to [further] cull the clutter and get rid of the unnecessarily extra stuff in our apartment. I’ve decluttered our apartment by various degrees over the years and I feel this last time our home will be at my comfortable minimum [KNOCK ON WOOD]. This past weekend I started on our kitchen and so far I tackled half of it.

Time and time again I’ve used the same tips and tricks to declutter aspects of our apartment, so I thought there was no better time to share a little roundup of my favourite tips … 

THE BASICS – my original spring decluttering blog post from 2014 is the best place to start. I write about my core 5 tips for staying motivated while decluttering and following through with your plans. 

THE BASICS 2.0 – the following year in 2015 I wrote 5 more tips on decluttering to give you an extra boost if you’re feeling overwhelmed, as well as touching on the mental health benefits of decluttering.

THE EARLY BIRD – since writing about it in 2014, I’ve done my 10 minute morning tidy routine every day since. You may prefer to do it at night before you go to sleep [that’s what she said], but either way, 10 minutes of tidying a day will keep you on top of things and in the long run will save you time and energy.
DAY-TO-DAY – my two tips for staying organised on a day-to-day basis and it’s something I strongly think everyone should practice; using an agenda and organising your inbox.
EXTRA READING – I interviewed Sarah Reynolds of Organised Chaos for Image Interiors & Living and we geeked out over so much. You can check out the full article here – Cut the Clutter: six steps to a calmer, cleaner, happier home.

Happy decluttering!