My Bargain (of the home improvements variety!)

So I normally share my clothes shopping habit however my shopping habit doesn't stop there. You could put me in a supermarket (especially foreign ones, I love foreign ones) if there were no other shops and I would still be happy! The hunt for a bargain mainly drives the habit. Winter months I do tend to hibernate a little, especially after Christmas so I've been focusing on lots of little homely updates. This post is just a little idea a friend had for my fireplace that has cost me minimal yet made me love it - when I previously did not. I've never had a fireplace and have wanted to rip my gas fire out since we moved in 4 years ago. Several different logistical reasons stopped us and after painting the surround when we first moved in, I still kept looking at it in disgust.

The sample
I looked at fully opening up our chimney and putting a log burner in - my end goal, but a costly one. At well over £1500, this was not the house we wanted to spend that kind of money on. So my friend suggested tiling over the marble surround. Back in December I found a tile I loved but as always, you've guessed it, I wasn't happy with the £70 price tag to do it. I searched and searched and waited a little longer. £30 later, they were mine!

My husband and I are no DIY experts, we avoid it if at all possible but when it saves us a fair bob or two, we are always willing to try. This wasn't the easiest thing to do (and only my hubbies second ever attempt at tiling - the week prior was the bathroom!) and required all our hands to keep them in place whilst placing the next ones up etc (they slid a little!). There was a reason my girls didn't play in the playroom that day - that marble run came in great use! We used normal tile adhesive after scouring the marble and left the first lot to set over night.

The jug was £1.70 from Homebase and the pot from Ikea £1.90 - not sure what I'm doing with this yet, it's just very similar to my wall colour so I had to buy it!

By night my candles are lit and lights twinkling
There were a few other samples I had ordered to try, this one being one of them. My husband came up with the idea of backing this with some felt/padding......hey presto, some new coasters! So yes, at 45p a tile, I've ordered a few more!

A little random post from me but if you have a fireplace and you don't like, for minimal spends there are ways to change it. I also ordered some more fake pebbles from ebay (mainly due to my youngest nibbling them as a baby) which were £10. The cream grout was £5 so for £45 my fireplace is now a lot more pleasing on my eye.