4 Years On – Our Home Reno Update

I can’t believe we’ve been living in this house for four years already! It seems absolute madness and in many ways makes me realise how far we haven’t come within our home renovating journey. I mean, four years and we’re barely halfway through?! But I guess that’s the reality of DIY renovating and renovating on a serious budget. Tough life, eh?

Despite being far from finished, over the last 12 months, a lot has happened. We’ve finished the kitchen entirely (well, 95% finished – but that counts as finished right?!), we’ve finished the dining room entirely (well, 95% again) and we’ve made tons of progress in both the conservatory and the living room. Not to mention the garden has changed quite a bit too. So, that’s five different areas of the house in 12 months – not bad! And, I think this is the first year the house is actually beginning to feel and look like a home.

So, this post is basically going to be a kind of ‘up-to-date house tour’ showcasing where we’re currently at in our home reno journey. I do this post every year, so if you want to see how our journey has unfolded year on year, you can check out each of these posts for the last four years right here:

Year 3 Update (Last Year)

So let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I’ll walk you through the house, in the order of the rooms, you would meet. I haven’t styled any of the rooms for this shoot, what you see is what you get (sorry!) and it was on a bit of a dark day (mistake!).

This room is unchanged as ever! Actually, we anticipate this will be the last room we possibly ever tackle, so it’s barely changed in four years and I don’t see it changing much any time soon. But I mean, it’s not that bad, right? *said through gritted teeth*

This room has gone through quite the transformation this year. I’ve sanded floorboards, stripped wallpaper, repaired the ceiling (ish) and bought a whole new secondhand sofa. Let’s just say this room is probably the most changed room over the last 12 months. We’ve taken a break from it for the summer, but we hope to finish it later in the year! If you want to see all the progress made so far, you can find all my living room posts here.

Last year at this time, we only had half a kitchen. We still didn’t have a working sink, a proper tap, or a worktop along the right-hand side of the kitchen. We basically had run out of cash and had to wait to save for the last missing piece. A whole year on, it’s DONE. OK, the hanging lights are still out of place and we still don’t have shelves – but other than that, it’s done. And it feels good! You can see the full kitchen tour here.

The dining room is also finished, albeit with a plug and light switch still hanging out the wall. But it’s done, it’s furnished (although I desperately want to build a new table) and it’s a room that’s finally nice to be in. For three years, this was just a space we walked through; it lacked purpose and we never had somewhere to sit when we ate. Oh, how life has changed in the last 12 months! I’ve almost forgotten those days… almost.

Well, this room has also undergone quite the transformation! Last year I painted the floor on a whim since we had zero budget and I felt like we needed to up the pace of renovating a bit. It’s definitely added a punch of character and it’s held up pretty well for the most part too. The only issue we’ve had with the painted floor was during the change from colder to warmer weather, which has lifted up some paint near the air vent – but luckily you can’t see much of that. More recently, I’ve built the pallet seating in here too, which I had been planning for YEARS! And my vision of a garden room conservatory with plants galore is finally taking shape. There’s still much to do here, but I’m really pleased so far.

The secret room I very rarely talk about! I am so desperate to get my paws working down here. But, it’s going to be expensive and we currently have no money. We have ventilation issues we need to sort out, and I don’t want to rush into anything and make the wrong decision. So far, I haven’t researched enough to begin work down here – so it basically looks exactly the same. Well, aside from the stack of pallets mounting up. I’d like to start sooner than later with work down here, but we’ll see…

Another room that totally hasn’t changed. We even still have stuff in moving boxes from 4 YEARS AGO. Seriously when does it end?

This was the first room we ever tackled and it doesn’t look too different now. I’d love to update this room a little because we never quite got round to the ‘finishing touches’ stage and it feels a little empty and unloved at times. I’m also not digging the cream walls and we STILL have skirting boards missing in places and a cupboard without a door. But, meh. We have a place to shower and pee, that’s what counts right?

We use this room as an office, although it doesn’t actually see that much use. It hasn’t changed at all this year really. Again, I’d love to furnish it better – but there’s never the money for that. The negatives of forever renovating eh?!

Four years on, and this room is another one that’s completely the same! From the curtains to the floor, we’re still rocking dear old Edna’s retro style. Will it be on the to-do list for next year? I kinda hope so. It would be nice to one day not wake up amongst this dark mess!

At the start of this year, we got rid of SO much rubbish from up here. Stuff we’d been keeping *just in case* – but we had kept it long enough, it needed to go. We burnt a load of wood in the wood burner and took a load more to the recycling centre. It still doesn’t look tidy or empty, but it’s a great deal better than what it was. This room isn’t a high priority on our list, although it definitely needs attention sooner than later.

I’ve been tackling the garden since day one of moving in! It looks SO much different to how it looked when we moved in and it even looks different from how it did 12 months ago. We’ve added decking, gravel, fencing and the rubble is almost gone. 4 years of work out here is beginning to pay off. We’re not finished yet, but the end is certainly in sight. And we’re hoping to have this area ticked off the to-do list by the end of next summer!

So that’s the house in 2018, and our four-year houseiverasy update. Yes, I wish we had achieved more – but that’s probably always going to be the case. And I think this year has been quite a good one, so I feel good about that. Here’s to another year of hard work, ha!

Anyone else on the same long renovation journey out there?! Please come forward and make me feel better 😉