I agree paint the ceiling and leave the stairs. If budget allows I would change the floor. If not, you could look at either painting them or regrouting in a similar colour to the tiles to make it a bit more seamless and placing a rug in the hall. It is a lot of floor though so a lot of work!

Re the fireplace. My suggestion is not costly but a way of making things appear new. It is scale. Try moving the mirror to the wall alongside. Paint the canopy slightly darker than the rest of the rooms walls and toning into the fires pillars. Remove all small decorative items from the shelf and photos from floor. One very large log basket at the side under the mirror. Good luck.

Re the hall. I'm with mrsmcee but would suggest covering the tiles with a hard wearing(indoor/outdoor) rug which will have another life once you are ready to retile.

I agree with Ann Ellis re the fireplace, great advice. As for the stairs, I also think they should remain as they are as they look lovely and they match the doors (let's not forget that). And you are in the Alps, you are supposed to have a lot of wood :-) The floor looks designed for hard wearing which is something you need to have in the mountains. You might come in with mud, dust, etc. and you should be able to wipe that easily. So placing a rug on top...I'm not sure how wise that would be. If the budget allows it, I'd change the tiles with other tiles on your taste, maybe a bright colour which you could replicate with accessories of the same colour on the walls ? Or you could do a kind of design with new tiles to mimic a rug ? See below some ideas:

You can do this also with vinyl tiles placed on top of the old ceramic ones. This would be a cheaper solution and one which allows that you make changes as soon as you have more funds. And vinyl is easy to clean up. And easy to instal and you wouldn't have to smash the old ones first (lots of work and dust...).

OK, so someone stop me, I could go on and on... :-)

I see that my photos were not saved, not sure why, maybe because I used copy/paste ? Here they are, this time using the photo option in the menu bar:

Love those black & white tiles, cati

Me too ! And also the blue ones, they can look great in the right setting (they are of Moroccan inspiration, as I read).

HI Rebecca, I am not sure about the layout of your home so take this suggestion with a pinch of salt, how about make it a central feature? It's probably massive for the size of the room but by making part of a larger space it should feel more in proportion. Colours also are important and they will make a difference in how much it will stand out. Lovely and lively discussion this one ... great brain storming!

Central fireplace · More Info

Cati, your ideas for flooring are absolutely brilliant. Is it vinyl or tiles? And where did you get them from? Thank you.

Go on, let us see the bathroom! Lay outs are always useful too. As you have a set of interested parties talking about your home please take advantage of us.

Thank you. Have to confess my first reaction was a giggle,sorry. I'm not sure your house will take an historical retro look. I'd go for the wait and see approach and let it amuse you until you can afford THE makeover. Others might offer practical advice.

Pink is very in at the moment! I do agree it looks good quality though. I do find the window jars a little, if it were white it would blend in more but it would be a shame to paint those windows. I think I would leave everything until budget permits a complete refit. It is quite charming in its own way though!

No, I hadn't thought of that! I would make a list of everything you want to do and then work out what is a priority so what you can't live with if budget doesn't stretch to everything. Also look at cheaper alternatives, say the vinyl flooring for example or making over the fireplace. There may also be work you can do yourselves so look at that. The ceilings for instance will be a lot of work and therefore money, can you do that?? If you contact a pro, be sure to check out all of their previous work and any reviews. I'm not against pro's in any way but as with any profession there are poor, mediocre, good, excellent etc

Hi Rebecca,

Your fire place is a great focal point and the room size from the picture looks like can take it. Anything smaller I feel could look lost.

A good scrub as you suggest is a great start, plus with furniture around it will not look so imposing.

Here is a link on how to clean natural stone that may help you: http://litosonline.com/en/articles/en/124/how-clean-natural-stone-house

The property has amazing potentials! Where is located if I may ask? I am originally from Italy and in the north, Veneto region are popular stoves Austrian style: http://www.hotrockmasonry.com/austrian

Sometimes are part of a heating system able to heat potentially the all house. Once started can give heat for a relativly long time ... it's the same principle of the AGA cooking. Just an idea.

It's so exciting! Lovely great tall ceilings!

For the bathroom if you go for tiles again, the smaller they are the smaller the space will look. If you go for larger tiles your bathroom will look like double the size and I bet you can fit a bath for the children and a fab shower!

The all project can be overwhelming especially when is a total house makeover. A suggestion is to break it down to smaller easier to deal with chucks. List the rooms and the work you want to get done in each one. This way it will also be clear what sort of job each professional will have to do in each room and it will be also easy to identify the overall work that all the room share (electrical, plumbing, tiling ...).

Have fun!!!!

Hi @ Rebecca Hall,

If you are not sure which colours to use I would keep it natural and play with what you got already. Green is always a safe bet and with the grey natural stone and the earthy colour of the wood it will go very nicely. I noticed from the pic that you have a red chair and something else red. It could became your accent colour.

The only thing I would paint are the bricks/tiles surrounding the fire place BUT with the right colour scheme they can be easily incorporated without touching them.

So here is my suggestion including the wood burner:

For cleaning the stone ...

The best way to clean natural stone, be it granite, marble, sandstone, or slate, is water with some PH neutral soap, like the one used in dishwashers.

We can also do it with water and a small amount of ammonia or water with a small amount of bleach, but ammonia is better, because it is not an acidic product, but a base and does less damage to stone.

What we should not do, never, is to mix ammonia and bleach, this mixture generates vapours that can be mortal when inhaled.

Cleaning should be done using a sponge, a soft cloth or a very soft brush to avoid that the surface is scratched and is done making circles. Later one must clean very well and dry the surface soon with a soft towel. If we leave it to dry by itself, then whitish spots without shine will be left.

The barbecue and the surrounding floor tend to be of untreated stone, unpolished surface and can be very porous. An effective remedy is the talcum powder. We apply a good quantity of them on top of the dirty spots covering them and leave them to react during some days. The more, the better. If, on retiring the talcum powder not all of the dirt has been removed, then the process must be repeated.

Another remedy is to mix sodium bicarbonate and a little of water, cover and leave it to act.

The most efficient way, if we have not succeeding in cleaning, as we mentioned in the beginning, with water and detergent or ammonia or bleach, is a solution of hydrogenperoxide and some drops of ammoniaand let it act.

extract from: http://litosonline.com/en/articles/en/124/how-clean-natural-stone-house

@ Rebecca Hall Love the idea of the holiday ... ;-)

The curtain is a great start, the lighter shade used for the leafs design in the pattern could be your wall colour. Light blue/teal + wood + grey and a splash of something else (green?) with accessories and plants/flowers.

Just for future reference, did you find the quick image visualisation of your room that I have done useful? It's a service that I would like to offer.

Hi Elena,
Yes, that's really useful, I could immediately see the potential for the room. I really appreciate all your help and advice and the colours you suggest. Do you think I should paint the whole room in that colour or just specific walls? At the moment the walls are white (and they need painting again!)

Thanks again
Rebecca

Elena, I have been looking at my messages on my iPad but have now come on my computer and realised that I haven't read all your messages properly. (I didn't read all the things you said about the bathroom tiles etc). You're right, it's very exciting to have such a great house. I wish I had the budget to go with it! Thanks for the advice about the bathroom tiles. I am lucky to have a shower room upstairs (that pink bath is actually in the ensuite downstairs) so that I can take my time renovating one bathroom and still be able to wash during the works!!!
We live in La Rochette, which is between Grenoble, Chambery and Albertville. It's great!
Again thanks for all your ideas.

WOW @ Rebecca Hall, I googled the location and it's amazing! I love the Alps and I went to skiing in that area when I was still living in Italy. I am from Milan originally.

Very often a tight budget really increase the level of creativity and take you towards unusual and brilliant ideas. On the BBC there is a program that look at building houses with a very tight budget (100K) and they offer lots of great ideas for 'cheap' solution to save money and have fantastic design interior.

Here is the link in case you have time between decorating and scrubbing the fire place ... ;-)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bjqk4

Hello,

I think your fireplace looks just great and you should not rip it out! Perhaps it could be refurbished a bit but I see that the room already features Rustic Style and it would be a shame to spoil it.

Good luck with your project!

Wow! Fantastic work, well done! Feet up tonight and a glass of fully deserved vino! It seam to have some lettering carved on the front ... JJ? It looks amazing, are you pleased with it?

Rebecca, what is that inscription that we can see on the front ? JJ 1809 ? It can't be that old...can it ? And the bas-relief I can see in the background looks great, it would deserve to be seen better:-)

Very interesting ! So you have history in your house, how cool is that ? :-)

Ou un chat? Pour les souris .....