Hi guys. Welcome back to my channel. In today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you the
best home investments that we've made on our house. We have spent the past decade renovating
it and extending it and it's now at the point where it is barely recognizable. This is the
house that we bought 10 years ago. I will put up some photos here so that you can see
just how much has changed. We have learned so much in the process of renovating and updating
our entire home and I feel like there's some real key features that really stand out that
I want to tell you guys about. I also have some recent home updates to show you as well,
and an amazing discount code for FY!. So, I'll link that in the description and I will
show you more about them in a minute. Obviously all of the updates that we're making
now are ones that we can take with us, because as some of you guys will know, we are hoping
to move when things improve. But yes, without further ado, let's get into the best home
investments we've made. So, the first thing that I wanted to show
you guys is the breakfast station in our kitchen. When we were looking at a new kitchen, we
saw this in a lot of high end kitchens, and we really wanted to recreate something like
it in this one. We had our independent kitchen fitter make this for us, and it's great because
it hides behind it everything that we need for breakfast. It also has our microwave,
our toaster, our bread bin, and a space to make breakfast. It's so handy because we can
make breakfast here. It's also next to the bin, so you can push any crumbs into the bin.
When you're done with breakfast and everything, you can just hide it all away and it looks
really clean because the appliances sit behind the door. We just love it. Get lots of comments
on it as well. Next up, I wanted to show you the glass topper
that we had made for our dining table. We got this dining table from Laura Ashley, and
it was quite expensive. When we got it, the kids would color on it, or even when they
were eating dinner, they would dent it with their forks. So to protect it, we had this
glass made. It was only about a hundred pounds and it's been amazing because now the kids
can play games on it, they can color on it with markers and we don't worry about it wrecking
our table. It also looks quite luxury. I feel like it gloms up the whole space and I would
just really recommend it. Something else we love having in our home
and we get so many comments about is our flowers. They are artificial and of course they cost
more than a fresh bouquet of flowers, but they're actually cost-effective because we've
had these for three years. They always look great and they really brighten up our living
space and we love having them. We had an artificial florist that is local to us, create these.
We can change them up if we want to. We could change the color of some of the flowers dependent
on the season, but yeah, we just really love having them.
Another good investment and recent home update that we've made in our house is to add some
new prints to breathe some life into the rooms of our home. Adding prints that means something
to you is such a good, cost effective way to brighten up and freshen up a space. I'm
going to show you the prints that I have chosen. All of them are from FY!. And if you don't
know who FY! are, they are a one stop shop for home and living products. They do some
beautiful things and they have kindly sponsored this video and said that my viewers can have
a 25% off discount. So, I'll leave a link in the description down
below so that you can check it out and if you click on that link, a 25% discount will
be applied to anything across their whole website. So they do not only prints, they
do soft furnishings, accessories, gifts. They do tech. They have so much on their website
and I found it very easy to use. You can shop by trend, which I really loved. You can shop
to by look and color and it's just really well planned out. They have some beautiful
rugs, some beautiful sheets and beautiful potted plants. They have so much to check
out. So, I ordered all prints. My favorite thing about FY! prints is that
they arrive already framed and ready to go. All you have to do is that you put it onto
your wall and you're done. You don't have to go and search a matching sized frame for
your print. You don't have to deal with putting the print in yourself and those little fiddly
clips that break your nails. It is all so well framed. The quality is incredible. You
can see here how it is all taped in, so securely mounted, and they're just beautifully done.
You also have a choice of three different colored frames. I think it's normally white,
black and oak. So I chose according to the room, of course, but yeah. I've just been
so impressed and also they do free shipping worldwide, which is a huge plus and I just
really love their website. This one here we got for Jackson's room. He
is obsessed with penguins. It is his favorite animal. So, I saw this and I thought it would
be perfect for him. This second print I got for Caleb's room. He's my middle son and his
room has tones of mustard. I liked that this car was like a mustard color and then on the
balloon it says, "Say yes to adventures." I think that really suits his personality
and I think this will look great in his room. Then I also got this one for our downstairs
loo. It says, "Wash your hands. You filthy animal." I liked this. I thought it was quite
apt for the situation we're all in at the moment, but also my boys love watching Home
Alone. That is obviously from that film, so I know that they will think that, that's really
cool. This next print I'm going to have in my office
space on one of my shelves is quite a personal one to me. It's a street map of Toronto. I'm
originally from Toronto in Ontario, Canada. When I saw this, I was like, "That is so lovely."
I just think it's really nice for me and the kids to remember where I'm from. They also
had it in loads of different colors, but I went for the very dusty pink, because I think
it suits my office chair and my room. But yeah, I really love it and again, the quality
is just incredible. And then this one, I thought was a great one
for Fraser. He really loves playing the piano and I thought that that was such a beautiful
artwork of just like someone playing piano and then all of these bright colors coming
away from the piano. We're going to put that up in Fraser's room.
And then the last one that I wanted to show you is just perfect for me and Matt. It says,
"If the love doesn't feel like 90s R&B, I don't want it." We're going to have this in
our room next to our bed. Both of us grew up in the nineties. We loved all of that,
like Black Streets and Jagged Edge and all of that. So when I saw it, I just thought
it was so us. I love the font. I love that it's just plain black and white because our
room is. And yeah, I just thought it was quite funny as well. Yes, so once again, the link
to the FY! Website will be in my description so you can check it out and you can get 25%
off, if you want to. Another really good tip is to use Bespoek
MDF Furniture that can be painted. We found ourselves a really good carpenter and we ended
up using him for so many things around our home because having Bespoek Furniture made
for you out of India, isn't as expensive as you might think. So, all of the paneling in
this room was just MDF that we then painted. We also really wanted to get some clever shoe
storage, and we had this random space under our stairs here. We had our carpenter build
this storage and it's like my favorite thing in the house, because it's just a great place
to put all of the shoes and the bags. You can just hide it all away. It's soft close
and it's really well-made. We also had my desk Bespoekly made by him
as well, again with MDF, because it's like a bit of an awkward space where we wanted
to have it. It fits perfectly there because he made it that way. Also all of our wardrobes
upstairs, we had him make those as well and they actually worked out cheaper than some
of the other integrated wardrobe companies. There are also a couple of things in our garden
that I wanted to show you guys. We had it redone about seven years ago and it still
looks just as it did when we had it redone because of two things. The first one is we
decided to go for composite decking over wood decking. It means that we don't have to paint
it, sand it, treat it every year. It always looks the same and it also is slightly less
slippery than wood as well. We thought that, that would be good for the kids. All we do
to maintain it is jet wash it once or twice a year and it always looks like this and we
just really love having it. Another key investment that we did in the
garden is we decided to go for artificial lawn. This is definitely more expensive. It
was an investment for us, but we're so happy that we did because the garden always looks
great. It is such low maintenance. It's also great for the kids. They never get muddy,
even if it's raining, they can play outside. We've had it, as I said, for seven years and
all we do to maintain it is jet wash it once a year. It always looks great.
Also for us, our garden is on show because we have so much glass in our living area.
When the garden looked messy, it looked messy inside. This way, it always looks great. We've
also found out if you have boys that play a lot of football, they just ruin your natural
garden, so this is a great alternative. Another really good tip is if you are extending
upstairs in your home, consider not having more loft space on top of that room, but instead
having a vaulted ceiling. That's what we did with Fraser's room. We decided that we already
had enough loft space, so instead we created this impressive vaulted ceiling and it's really
high. It's really light because we have Velux Windows in his roof and we're so pleased that
we did it. Another investment that we made, that I'm
so pleased that we did is, we had remote control, blackout blinds put in all the bedrooms upstairs.
I remember when we had them put in thinking, "This is quite expensive," but I'm actually
so pleased that we did it. I really didn't want to have any cords upstairs, especially
in our very young children's rooms at the time. We did this and we only have to charge
them maybe twice a year and that's it. They're really super easy to operate and yeah, just
quite cool. Another feature that we don't regret is having
mood lighting put in. Matt's really got a thing about lighting and I'm so pleased that
we did it. We had a new switch put here with three different switches on it, and it all
gives us different lights. We have one that gives off a really nice, like relaxed vibe
in the evenings. We also have one for under the kitchen cupboards and a breakfast bar
as well and then we have an overall light to light up the whole space. But it's really
nice, because we can decide what we need depending on what we're doing and it just really works.
Right, so that does it for this video you guys. I really hope you enjoyed it. Let me
know what you think in the comments below and as I was going around, I thought I could
definitely do a part two of things that I actually really regret investing in, in our
home. If you'd like to see this, give this video a big, like, and let me know in the
comments and I'll see you in my next one. Bye guys.