Oh the joys of home ownership. I found myself lying in bed last night thinking about how I might use the Panasonic Motion Sensor in my home, a rather clever gadget recently brought to my attention.
You see when you are in the midst of renovating a house as my husband and I currently are, all of a sudden everything is about the latest gadget to make your home safer and more comfortable to live in. I seem to have swapped my Darphain and Dior for domesticity. Beauty blogger turned homemaker.
We live in a lovely old stone cottage in a quaint idyllic village in the South of England (you may have read my ravings about this beautiful part of the world here).
So how am I going to include this clever and discreet piece of technology into my somewhat “good life” existence.
My first thoughts are that this nifty gadget is excellent for home security. The motion sensor can be attached to your home security system which will alert you if there is any motion in your home when there shouldn’t be. Clever and very reassuring. It can be set to communicate with your mobile device so if you are at work or perhaps when you are away on holiday, you can keep an eye on your home and all the precious memories it contains. It’s also very intelligent as it can be adjusted to avoid being triggered by pets moving about in the home. This got me to thinking, security probably isn’t at the forefront of my mind as we live in a close knit community. I expect the only home invasion we would be subject to is a flock of Bantam Hens on the loose! Still, it would give peace of mind, and one can never be too sure.
There are of course lots of great uses for a motion sensor in the home. It depends on what is useful to you in your day to day life.
One of the quirks of living in an old property, is that our bathroom is inconveniently located downstairs. Still, it’s better then it being outside, where it probably was once upon a time. One should be thankful for small mercies. So I thought an excellent use for the Panasonic motion sensor would be setting it up so that when I (precariously) make my way downstairs in the small dark hours of the morning to the bathroom, the motion sensor can switch on my downstairs lamps!
Genius! Where has this been these past 6 months? Bingo, this is exactly what I will be using this for. This and also setting it up so it will turn my lamps on throughout the house whenever I enter the room.
I have a lot of lamps in my house. A lot. I particularly like area lighting and the different moods and tones they can create. What I don’t like is having to switch them all on and off. This motion sensor couldn’t be better at addressing that. You see, I knew I had to have it, those hours laying awake and wondering about whether or not I needed it have not been in vain. The consensus is that I evidently do.
The thing about an old property, other than dodgy electrics and downstairs bathrooms is that you’re really only ever somewhat a custodian. Caught between preserving it and living in it.
We’ve had lots of ideas about what we would like to do with the house, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. However, one of the best pieces of advice I received was from my mother. She advise we simply ‘live in the house a year’ and get to know it. Of course like every diligent daughter I paid no attention and forged ahead. Resulting in a few regrets. For example, I decided to paint the parquet flooring in the lounge because I liked the idea of having white floorboards. Big mistake! Apart from it looking entirely aesthetically displeasing, the floor was cold and hard. Not ideal in a North facing house.
There have been other disasters but also a few triumphs. I am now taking my mums advice and taking things more slowly.
We have settled on decorating one room at a time and not proceeding until the room is finished. This can be a little difficult when you are impatient, as I am, not least because things take longer, but because there is an order to which these things have to be done. Take the living room for example. I wasn’t able to begin thinking about colours and finishes until the foundation work had been completed. The walls needed stripping, which revealed more about the age of the property. Limestone plaster and 20th century wallpaper was revealed. Original hand painted William Morris no less. Lovely, except the vivid green is achieved by using Arsenic! We wanted to preserve a piece and so we have encased it behind Perspex. The walls and ceiling then needed plastering, the fireplace needed opening back up and a wood-burner to be put in. The chimney needed fixing and lining to stop water ingress, the jobs just went on and on.
Eventually though once all this work was done I was able to pick out colours and soft furnishings,as well as replacing some of the original features like brass vents and oak curtail poles.
It has felt like an age getting to this. Still, so far, no disasters this time around, there’s certainly something to be said for taking your time.
Picking the finishing touches is the nicest part of renovating and decorating a home. It’s a great opportunity to find new things and new trends. If Pinterest were a platform game, I would have essentially completed it! I’ve lived and breathed interior styling magazines and have read every blog post going on the subject. It’s a true labour of love.
One of the most exciting things we have planned is to install a roof lantern on the flat roof of the kitchen. Again I am running ahead with my ideas as this will be a great deal of work and expense, but I am working towards it and really hope that we will be able to begin in the early summer. The house is north facing so can be very dark, this lantern will provide much needed natural light during the day and will make an otherwise small and ordinary room quite extraordinary.
We have plans now to work on the dining room as that is the natural flow of the house. Luckily this room doesn’t require much more than new flooring, electrics and decorating. I’m keen on installing underfloor heating in this room as it does get quite cold. I haven’t done enough research into this yet but I will get to it shortly. I’m torn between oak floors or sandstone tiles. Whichever is decided upon the combination of the modern technology of the underfloor heating and the traditional beauty of the flooring material will work in perfect harmony to make our house a home.
The house is very old and so I want to make sure that everything we do is sympathetic to its providence, but equally I want our home to reflect who we are. I like mixing old and new which is why I like discreet technology. It fits into your home whatever your style or the houses’ era and supports modern comfortable living. What’s not to like?
Amellia Mae
*Post in conjunction with Panasonic. All opinions are as always, humbly my own
