Setting up a home office

Before we started the build we had taken a wonderful holiday on a cruise liner.

It seems like such a long time ago now, but it was whilst we were on board the ship that I imagined everything I wanted in a home and hand drew plans for the interiors for all the rooms.

The office was inspired by the ship’s library. Using basic Ikea units we created box shelving to house all our books. I picked up an old carpet from our local auction house, which went beautifully with all the colours I had chosen for the curtains and upholstery.

This is to be a restful room with task lighting over the seats so that you can sit and read, plus a table in the centre of the room for computer work.

Our latest project was to tile the hallway and utility room, and Barry took the job on. I’d seen a pattern I liked that included a small black key square positioned at the centre of four white tiles.

To save money we decided to use the square tiles we had already bought and cut the corners off all 150 of them to cover the areas we needed. It was a time consuming and fiddly job, but once it was done and the tiles were laid, they finished off the rooms beautifully.

The next step will be to get on with the lounge. It’s essential that by the end of January we have finished at least one of the bedrooms and perhaps also a bathroom upstairs, to show off to a BBC film crew who will be visiting us in February.