A Trip Across the Pond : The New and Improved Flat - Your Virtual Tour of 160 Wyndham Court

After more trips to IKEA that have made me lose the will to live, we have ended up with the coolest flat ever! Every square inch of it is now decorated and furnished. We've come a long way from the non-furnished, blah place that we first stumbled into. This is your virtual tour of our new and improved flat!!

During the Olympics we bought a large Canadian flag and that now proudly hangs from our living room windows which face out onto the busy street below. Whenever we walk out to run errands or go to the train station, we look up and see the huge canadian flag. It may have started as an Olympic decor but we have decided to keep it up.

Seating! Our seating situation has drastically improved. Our blue futon - which looked sorely out of place on the red carpeting - is now a beautiful black couch! We bought a black sheet from IKEA and used it as a slip cover. We also purchased a pale pink and pale blue cushion, each in the same pattern, and have placed it on the futon. The result is muuuch better than what we had before! Matthew and I also purchased a chair from IKEA with a gift certificate we received for Christmas from Matthew's sister, Cheryl, and brother in law, Dan. With both of those moon chairs broken and in the garbage, it was definitely an essential item to purchase.

Kitchen Table!! Our most recent purchase and my most favourite purchase is a kitchen table. It's not fancy but it was a great deal. Matthew, Gabel and I split on a table and three chairs. They're all white which brightens up the living room a bit and the whole ensemble only cost 47£, divided three ways. Gabel and I had previously owned a really small high up circular table with two tiny bar stools for it but since there's been more than just the two of us for awhile now, the table was not functional for us. We haven't used it in so long and have eaten all of our meals on the couch while balancing up our plates. The kitchen table is a perfect size for the 3 of us and could easily fit 4 if we needed to. The old table and bar stools have been moved to the corner of the living room right near the balcony door and make a cute spot to sit and have a lazy breakfast on a weekend with the warm breeze coming in and the lovely view of our city from up here on the fifth floor.

My two "lovely" roomies

Decor, decor, decor!! On our living room table, we have placed a new orchid that's a really pretty yellowish green colour with pink in the middle. We then got crafty and filled up a wine glass with white sand and placed in some fake purple and yellow flowers. In the middle we have four clear glass tea light holders with scented tea lights. We also bought a small white bookshelf for only 10£ and placed that in the middle of the wall in the living room. On the top we have a long spider plant and some more of our crafts: Another wine glass with the white sand and purple and yellow flowers but also a large glass vase which we've filled up with rocks and water and then have floating tea lights at the top. On the first shelf we have a beautiful plant in a yellow pot holder that has a pinkish/purpley plant with lots of green leaves everywhere. Our living room wall decor is expanding like crazy. Every time we go to a new place, we bring home a postcard and put it on the wall and then we surround that postcard with pictures of us at that place. We call it our WANDERLUST wall and even have the wanderlust letters printed out on the wall. In the corner I have a long, green, magnetic cord, and Gabel and I printed out all our favourite quotes on pretty backgrounds and stuck them with magnets.

They say no garden rivals an English garden, and that has been the inspiration in our kitchen. We've got a cute whiteboard calendar that is absolutely surrounded by flower pics. Helps brighten things up on a foggy, rainy day!

My favourite improvements would have to be upstairs in my (and now Matthew's!) bedroom. We bought purple curtains for our room because its our favourite colour and Matthew surprised me and bought some purple diamond string lights and we have them draped over the curtains. We're using my existing duvet cover and pillow cases because they already had purple in them. We developed all of our engagement photos and made them into a big heart on one of our walls. Matthew then picked ten of his best instagram photos that he's taken and developed them in large squares and we've put those up. I love them because they are so colourful and they were all taken back home at familiar places like my cottage or Twin Elm soccer field. Over the bed we put a large map of the world I found in Bath and then we surrounded it with postcards from places I've/We've been too. We have a section of one wall devoted to pics of our family and a section devoted to pics of friends. When it came to Matthew unpacking his clothes, lets be honest, there was no way I was going sacrifice my perfectly laid out closet. So we got Matthew a cute dresser (it has 4 large square openings and we got black and turquoise drawers for them) and a hanging clothes rack. The final touch is the adorable white bookshelf I bought from IKEA and assembled myself before Matthew arrived. He then took one look at how it sloped sideways and was basically incredibly unsteady and told me I was hopeless and put it together properly. And now it stands!

Pics of us Heart Collage