What's up Jana's Friends?
What's new? I hope you're all well
Today, I'm going to show you around my flat in London
Okay, I bought this flat about a year ago
There's a system in Britain called Help To Buy
Whenever a developer builds new housing
The government basically makes them sell some flats
Which are reasonably priced
Because house prices in London are extremely high
So with this flat, I bought a share of it and I pay rent on the rest
I can as time goes on, buy more of it
Or I can just sell my share
At the end of the day, what I'm paying monthly is a lot less than what I would be if I tried to rent in this area
And at least I will get something back from what I pay monthly once I decide to sell
So some of you suspect that I have rich parents who bought me a flat in London
But the truth is, without this system there's no way I could afford a flat in this area
The flat is about 52sqm, one bedroom and of course a kitchen and living room and stuff
If you're not used to London apartments, It's going to feel really small to you
But of course I'm just one person, so I am quite comfortable in it
I'll show you around the whole flat and tell you room by room what I've done
When I moved, I filmed it while it was empty and I filmed me painting the walls and stuff so
I'm going to show you all of that in this video
Okay, as soon as you walk in we have this hallway
To be honest I don't have anything in here, that's why you can hear an echo
My friend Jenny painted this for me
She said she painted it based on my personality
I really love this green
To the right of the hallway there's the bathroom
That's the bathroom
And then we come to the bedroom
This is what it looked like when it was empty
I decided to paint an accent wall
Which is when you paint one wall and leave the rest white
If you want to paint a wall, make sure you paint a small square first to make sure you like the colour
And then of course I covered the floors with a plastic sheet
And taped it to the wall so the paint doesn't go on the carpet
I bought this paint from a place called Farrow and Ball
They sell quite expensive paint to be honest but I felt like being fancy
When painting a wall, you should start with the edges and then fill in the centre
When we come into the bedroom
This is my bed
The bed and side table are made of solid oak
My whole life I've had beds from IKEA
This time I thought I'd spend a bit more money and buy something high quality, made of solid wood
I wanted to buy something that would last me a long time
I decided that I wasn't going to buy anything just in case, or while I wait to buy something else
I didn't want to budget too much
Then we have a mirror
And this is the desk I work on now
I had to bring this huge chair from my office
So I can work comfortably without my back hurting
Tell me if you remember this desk, it was in my old flat tour video
This my laptop, keyboard, mouse
Santisier and masks
I just got this basket as a gift from my company
So I thought I'd put it here to hide all of the wires
This is called a diffuser, if you don't know
It releases steam, and if you add this stuff it smells amazing
Ylang yland oil, it's the best thing ever, it smells amazing
If you want to feel relaxed, I'd recommend a diffuser
This is a whiteboard for my notes
I can write my to do list, or a shopping list so I don't forget
I searched a lot for a whiteboard with a frame so it's nice to look at
Here are my accessories, like rings and earrings and stuff
This glass box was the party favour at my parents' wedding
If you remember my grandma that featured in my vlogs, she passed away a few years ago
When I went to Jeddah for the funeral, my aunt was clearing out my grandma's bedroom
My grandma held onto all of the party favours from her kids' weddings
So I thought, of course, I'm going to take this with me
So I can always remember my grandma
And at the same time, it's really nice to have something from the day my parents got married
I originally bought these shelves for the living room but they didn't go very well
So I put them in the bedroom and I decided to put some clothes on them because my closet is full
And these drawers are full of clothes to like my PJ's
Let me give you some advice you might find useful
When you receive a piece of furniture in real life, like this bed for example
It might look different in real life compared to what you're imagining
And that's really normal, no one can imagine exactly what something is going to look like
Don't be afraid of buying something and changing where it goes or even returning it
Don't be too stubborn about where something goes
Try it in different places until you choose where it should go
And if it doesn't work out, return it. It's completely normal and has happened to me a lot
Most importantly, make sure it fits. Measure everything.
Let me explain why the bed is here and not there
When Coronavirus started, I had to change the layout of my entire bedroom
The layout was the opposite as you might have seen in previous videos
I had two problems, firstly it's the summer and I'm waking up later than usual
I'm not waking up early to go to the office, my office is two steps from my bed
And I get the sun in the morning, so with the bed in front of the window I would be roasting
I really couldn't put up with it especially because I don't have A/C
So I had no choice but to move my bed next to the wall rather than the window
And secondly, because everyone is working from home at the moment...
I needed to make some room for my desk
So there can be a specific space for me to work in so I can focus
And so I feel like when I'm sat down, work has started, when I get up, work is over
When I was working in the living room it was really messing with my head
I was working, and watching TV and cooking in the same space
So I had to change everything to acclimatise
Then from the hall we get to my closet
Nur and I built this closet a year ago
Here are my tops
Back here are more formal tops
Dresses
Jackets
Jeans and trousers
And more coats, sorry it's a bit dark
I was really convinced by the huge amount of storage in this small flat
I have more room in my bedroom because I have this closet out here
The other thing I really like, is look how far this door opens up
It opens all the way
And then exactly in front of this closet is is another closet
This is the laundry closet
It's another big closet
There's a washing machine, a suitcase, a vacuum and all my cleaning stuff
Here there's a ladder, a guitar bag - basically everything I need but don't really have a place for
Thankfully this closet is storing a lot of stuff for me
Okay and at the end of the hallway
At the end of the hallway
We have the kitchen
And to the right, the dining and living area
This of course, is the famous actress Sherine
I visited Beirut when I moved in so I bought this picture to hang up
Okay let's come into the living area
My favourite thing in the whole world is this entertainment unit
I recently hung the TV up because I wanted more of the table to be visible
Because it's so so beautiful
It's made of birch plywood
Which means it's made of many layers
This is an amplifier for these speakers
The speakers are connected to the TV, and at the same time to this record player
You guys know I love my records, here are all of my records
A lot of these books I'm still reading
I left the books I've already read in my old flat with my sister
If you like books and you want to see more videos about what I'm reading, let me know in the comments
This is a fake plant, I don't think I can look after a real plant, I feel like it would die straight away
I don't like when they grow really big so i thought I'd just buy a fake one so it always looks nice
And I don't have to look after it
I put this little shelf up next to my TV, right now I just have these crystals on it
I bought them from Lebanon too, they're all supposed to have different powers
But to be honest I just like the way they look
Here's my guitar
And then on this wall above the radiator, I hung two shelves
They're really thin shelves
They're just for displaying records
I think it's a nice idea because if I get bored of this view I can switch them out for these ones
And then I have another fake plant hanging here
I don't know why but I really wanted a rocking chair
To be honest I never sit in it but I like it
It makes me happy
This is a leather sofa
Again, I had it in my head that I wanted a leather sofa, not sure why
I looked everywhere in London to find something affordable
Because leather is expensive, as I discovered
This is called soft leather, so it's not shiny
I bought he sofa from Made.com
Most of the furniture is from Made or Etsy
Etsy is where people who make things custom and handmade can sell their products
For example, the media unit is from Etsy, from a place in Poland
The whole thing was handmade
And I've realised there's a huge difference between stuff you buy from IKEA
And stuff that is hand made, that a lot of work went into making
And the person making it is directly making money from selling it
So they care a lot about the quality, what it looks like, how it's delivered and everything
And these two tables are from IKEA
I ran out of money what could I do
This lamp is also from Made
And this is a gold mirror, I love classic and old school stuff
So I love this kind of thing
Okay now we're at the part I don't really like about my furniture
The dining table and chairs
The truth is I didn't want to pay too much money
Dining chairs are the most expensive thing in the world
if you want wooden chairs, each chair is like £300
so like 1500 riyals
I decided to buy these chairs, they're all plastic
for £120, so like 600 ryials
For all four of them
But the table is really small because the space is small
When you pull out the chair look where it is, almost to the sofa
Maybe in the future I'll buy some new chairs for the table
But when you see the whole flat it doesn't look too bad
Here there's yet another closet
I have all of my art supplies...
Don't look up there that's all the stuff I don't need
These are my art supplies, look I painted this picture
These are little drawers for all my camera stuff
Here are some chargers
Some lights, some batteries
Closets really hide away all your junk
If you know that word, tell me in the comments
I also bought this from Lebanon
I had the other one framed but this one was printed on wood so it looks different
Like I said, I like old-school stuff, records, ornate mirrors
So this is one of my favourite things in the flat
Then when my mum realised I like Oum Kalthum
Look what she bought me
Every band member
The entire orchestra
On these shelves I have a plant, and this box also has a story attached to it
My grandma, who's my dad's mum, passed away a long time ago when I was 11
Oh wow, I just realised that the story of this box is exactly the same as the other one
We went to Jeddah for the funeral when I was little
My aunt gave me this box and said
Your grandmother used to keep her Quran in this box
And my dad's family is always saying how much I look like her
So my aunt gave me this box
This is the award for the channel you're watching right now
And here is a glass box
Inside are all the tickets I've collected through the years
From concerts, or my trip the States for example
I love to collect stuff that is sentimental and display it in my home for the memories
This car I just take with me wherever I live
It's my favourite car, I wish I had a car like this
It's a red chevy silverado, it has to be red
And then I have some nice looking books here, Shakespeare for example
Old looking books for decoration
This is a baseball player, I went to a baseball game in the States and they gave these out
I don't know if this camera works, but my dad bought it for me because he knows I like cameras
My aunt bought me this dog when I moved in here
I painted this picture, tell me what you think
I tried to be artistic
There's one more think I wanted to show you because it's getting a bit dark
Another nice thing about this flat is that it's quite rare to find a balcony of this size in London
This is the whole balcony
This is the awesome bench I bought, it's almost a bed
I bought it from Etsy as well
All of this wood is reclaimed
It's all recycled so it's good for the planet
I told you that someone game me these chairs so I have them here for now
In the future I'm planning to switch them out
This is the amazing view from my balcony
Look how tall this building is
This one's almost finished and some people have already started living here
This one is still going up, look how far up
In the middle this is all supposed to be greenery and restaurants and stuff
But that's way in the future
And that's it, that's the whole flat
I hope you liked the video, if you did don't forget to give it a like
Because I know you've been waiting for it for a while
Okay that's it, see you soon. bye!
