Having recently relocated from a spacious three-bedroom house in Durham to a compact two-bedroom flat in Northumberland without storage, we are eager to simplify our lifestyle. Our goal is to embrace a more stress-free way of living as we transition from a busy household with live-in help and two young adults to becoming empty-nesters near the beautiful northeast coastline and to do this we need to renovate the flat we have moved into.

Currently, the flat we have moved to is an empty box, devoid of any wardrobes, cupboards or loft space to speak of.

I don’t know how sturdy this small ante-loft area is so I’m not putting much up there, just the Christmas tree and some empty suitcases. My goal is to have a new loft hatch installed in what is the dining room, with a proper loft ladder. The opening you can see in this picture is only about 30 cm wide and certainly isn’t big enough to use the loft as storage.

Once we have this done, we’ll start with boarding out the loft so that it can be used as storage for things we want to keep but don’t necessarily want to have out all of the time.

The plan

I feel like I should document the plan for the renovation of this flat, and hopefully I can use this myself as my own reference checklist.

Room	What’s Needed	Additional info
Kitchen	Entire kitchen including appliances is being replaced by our very kind landlord	December 2026
Bathroom	Entire bathroom including tiling is being replaced by our very kind landlord	January / February 2026
Living room	Storage	Buy / build storage cabinets
		Install a door for the cupboard
	Heating	Fire and fireplace
	Decoration	Paint the walls – dark colour is being planned, but I’m unsure which I like best. Dark green appeals to me, but so does a dark red/reddish brown.
	Window Treatments	Fit blinds and curtains
Dining room	Storage	Buy / build storage cabinets
	Loft access	Hire a contractor to put in a loft hatch. Install the loft ladders we got free from Freegle.co.uk
	Lighting	Hire a contractor to fit the IKEA lights
	Decoration	Continue the colour from the living room into the dining room
	Window treatments	Fit blinds and curtains
Master bedroom	Storage	Buy / build wardrobe and drawers
	Decoration	Paint the walls including storage. The colour palatte will be dark but different to the living room.
External windows	Restoration	Stone and paint is crumbling and flaking. Restore the crumbling stonework and paint all to match
Windows and Doors	Refit	The doors and windows have lasted since around 1991 and are mostly ok, but wouldn’t survive another 30+ years so the landlord is asking for quotes to replace these.
Electrical work		Additional outlets are needed throughout the flat.

As well as all of the work above we still have to unpack as many of our possessions are still in boxes or are being stored around the flat, so we will be getting rid of things we no longer need as well. Most things will be given away free on Freegle.co.uk but other things may be given to charity stores, if I can’t make something new out of them.

I’m exhausted just thinking about what needs to be done, so I’d better sign off and start doing it.

Bye for now,