Renovations

Yay, (lots of excited jumping up and down) I can hardly believe it, we have finally finished the living room make over and at last I can share a few before, during and after photos with you.

You may remember the long saga of our kitchen makeover last year, that 3 week project which turned into 13 weeks. Well, it's taken us a while to muster up the energy to take on another room but we've done it. After much procrastination and indecision about what to do next we put the bathroom on hold and focused on the living room. The kick start we needed was when we sent our furniture away to get reupholstered and had lots of space to get on with things. So here we go, be prepared for more than just a couple of pics!

The living room was quite a mishmash of stuff, the bookcases were left by the previous owners and when we moved in we had deposited some random and mismatched furniture in here. Once the settees had gone there was more space but still a lot of stuff to move.

We jammed a lot in with no real organisation but hoped we could put that right when we redecorated. The room is a bit of a weird layout in that it has 3 doors leading off it, one to the hall, one to the craft room and the last to the kitchen.

M had been desperate to get rid of this 70s/80s brick fireplace so once all the room was cleared it was the first thing to go. It was a strange shape, not very tall but very wide. The wood burner is great, it's really efficient and producesd a lot of heat so it was definitely staying.

The whole fireplace was quite dominant in the room, the wooden surround took up a lot of space and to be honest I think it was the wrong shape for the room - it always seemed a bit out of proportion.

After consultation with a professional (just in case it all came tumbling down) M removed the non supporting bricks at the back and the floor tiles to reveal quite a deep fire place. This was as far as we got on the fireplace at this stage while we waited for a couple of quotes for a hearth, back-plate, mantelpiece etc. 

       

So in the meantime M tackled the external wall, after removing the woodwork around the window he found the original shutters. We were pretty thrilled to discover these although they were in obvious need of some refurbishment and TLC. 

Once the shutters were taken down M got stuck into removing the plasterboard and what little insulation there was to reveal the old thick stone walls.

A great job by M to baton the walls and install some new warm insulation to keep us toasty in the winter. No more stuffing material under the skirting boards to keep out the draughts!!

Next came the fresh new plasterboard sheets to replace the old tatty ones M ripped off.

Despite M's amazing diy skills it was time to get the professionals in to do the plastering, now all we had to do was be patient and wait for it to dry.

The ceiling was stuccoed plaster so while the walls were being plastered we decided to get the chaps to rub it down and skim the ceiling at the same time. It's funny how this darker colour gave us the idea of painting the ceiling a darker colour than our usual white. (I'm just not sure if we'd brave enough - maybe next time!)

While the plastered ceiling and wall were drying it was time to return to the fireplace to prepare it for the fireplace man. Unfortunately we had to remove some of the old plaster to remove the old heating pipes and to see if we could find the lintel. At least the plasterer had already been booked to come back to plaster around the fire.

When the fire was removed it revealed the old and very large mucky fireplace, still, it could only get better - right? With the decisions on the fireplace made we merely had to wait for the hearth and mantelpiece to be made and delivered.

While we waited for progress on the fireplace M spent many hours removing years of paint from the shutters and then staining them. We are so pleased with the result, they look wonderful, rustic and homely all in one.

The settees returned, they are brown with gold and red flecks although they look almost grey in the photos. Such an amazing job, they definitely have been given a new lease of life.

Finn was especially happy to see the return of 'his' settee 

This is the chair which formed part of the settee set but as we decided to go for a completely different cover and colour scheme, it's not destined for the living room.

With the back of the fireplace boarded and painted, the hearth in (under the newspaper and the wall re plastered it felt like we were getting somewhere now.

In a bid to step away from our usual comfort zone of Magnolia we selected a orangey/terracotta colour. As M started the painting we were beginning to have second thoughts as the doubts crept in. 

However, once the walls were covered we loved the colour, it looks quite dark above but it is a really warm colour and does not close the room in as we had feared.

Wow, when the fireplace was finished we really felt that the room was starting to come back to life. 

After another few weeks of waiting for flooring quotes we eventually got there, oak effect laminate which should be easy to keep clean with 2 black labs running around. 

This was a major milestone as we could start to move things back in again in a bid to return some form of normality to the rest of the house. 

A work in progress with new plug sockets too 

The settees were in; it was incredible how much bigger the room appeared without the old imposing fireplace and with the electric piano moved out. The newly painted white doors also made a massive difference to the light in the room and was well worth the hours M spent on them. 

A few ornaments in place 

The bookcases returned to the fiction corner

With the tv in and a few pictures back up we were nearly there 

       

The final touch was to find a suitable ceiling light. Following a very long search where we flipflopped between contemporary and modern we came across this rather eccentric light. It is from IKEA, white on the outside with a copper coloured finish in the inside. It took a little bit of time to construct it but it looks great. The best part is that it opens out a bit like a transformer to increase the light in the room and we absolutely love it.

It looks even better at night, the patterns on the ceiling are really unusual.

       

After nearly 3 months (yes nearly as long as the kitchen but a lot less stressful) we are delighted with the room; it is gorgeous and feels like a proper grown up living room. Now the big question is which room is next for a makeover? Or perhaps we need a little rest before that, enjoying a clean and almost dust free house for a while.

Little Harvests

Well, I can hardly believe it's been nearly a month since I last sat down down at the computer to write a post. As the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun and we have definitely been doing that. The weather often dictates our daily activities and this August we seem to have had our fair share of rain. So we have been using the wet days for crafts and decorating (more about that later as the living room should be finished by the end of this week) while making the most of the dry days to catch up on outside chores.


I spent a lovely week at the beginning of August with mum and 2 of my nieces; a day at the seaside including a trip to the ice-cream parlour is always a winner. After this little break it was back to work and time to get stuck into harvesting some veg and preparing them for storage.

One of the first harvests of the season is always a bit of a mix with the peas, beans, carrots and radish all looking tasty.

We have had loads of Peas and Broad Beans, so much so that I had to ditch the trusty trug and resorted to collecting them in buckets.


Thankfully M is a dab hand at shelling peas and beans so instead of the usual 2 hour chore we had this lot done in no time, ready to be blanched before freezing. I think we will have plenty to keep us going throughout the winter and there is probably one more lot to be harvested before the end of the season.


Jess absolutely loves peas but Finn has never been quite so keen. This year he has discovered that he likes the pods but not the peas and has learned how to eat the bits he likes and leaves the peas for Jess. What a great partnership, nothing wasted here!

  

We were slightly better organised last year and got our garlic in the ground before the frosts last autumn and they have grown really well in the baths. We planted 2 different types, Bohemian Rose and Mikulov. They are both hardneck varieties which should be better suited to our growing conditions but may not store quite as well as the softneck types, we'll have to wait and see.

The garlic smells quite delicate but once chopped and crushed the full flavour is released and is a delightful cooking accompaniment.

  

The Jalapenos are coming along nicely and I don't think it will be long before I can harvest some and make more Jalapeno poppers. They were a real success last year and every single one was yummy. Any which aren't big enough for poppers will be chopped up finely and kept in the freezer so we can add them straight to our cooking.

  

Sometimes we have a disaster with Sweet Peppers and sometimes they are great. This is the best one so far and was wonderful in one of M's amazing omelettes.

  

So, way back in spring when I was duly sowing seeds, pricking out seedlings and potting up plants I vowed that every plant would have a label. Despite my diligence a couple of plants seem to have been mislabeled. The plant on the left was, I thought, a Gherkin but after consulting the packets again it looks like it may be a Cucamelon. It has been particularly rubbish, although there have been an abundance of little fruits this is the only one which has grown. M has a few of these plants in the polytunnel too but has only got 2 fruits growing. Not quite sure when to harvest them or what to do with them but this may be a one-off as I don't think they're worth the space they take up.

We have so far harvested our extra early and early potatoes and they have been much better than last year. The wasps haven't got to them and although there are a few dodgy ones we have more large and intact potatoes which should store well. As we were experimenting with a few different growing systems I thought I'd write a separate post about the results we achieved.


The wet and humid month has taken it's toll on our tomato plants in both the greenhouse and poytunnel, it isn't blight but they look very poorly indeed. However, it doesn't seem to be just us as Beechgrove (the tv gardening show) spoke about the same issues viewers had experienced in a recent programme.

  

Still, the fruit don't appear to be affected and so I made the most of a wet day to make some tomato (and pepperoni) soup for the freezer. It was a bit of a made up recipe but at least I managed to use up the 2.6kg of tomatoes we had. The rest will become passata, frozen for the winter.

As I was in the mood for cooking I also did a batch of cottage pie with M's amazing potato mash topping of course.

  

I really wanted to include a couple of pictures of M's little fig tree which has been in the polytunnel for about 3 months now and is starting to look like a proper little tree.


For the first time we had a go at growing turnips and swedes and despite a labelling mix up they have grown well, in fact so well that I really need to search out some recipes so we don't just end up steaming and boiling them.

Although the sweet potatoes weren't massively successful last year we thought we'd have another go and try them in the polytunnel this time. They look great, reasonably healthy and they have just produced some very pretty purple and white flowers.

The veg plot has been full to overflowing with peas, beans (runner, broad and french), onions, brassicas, turnips, swedes and sweetcorn. As we near the end of the summer the peas are coming to an end as are the broad beans and it won't be long until we harvest the last of the onions and potatoes. Soon the runner beans will be ready and it will be time to make some chutney, more than last year as it was a firm favourite and we ran out months ago. In no time our focus will be turning towards clearing the old plants, leaving room for those few still growing while starting to plan for winter veg. 

I went a bit overboard when sowing the brassica seeds and so they are also in the polytunnel where they were doing brilliantly. One day M had been looking at the cabbages and remarking on how they were nearly ready for picking and how wonderful they would be in coleslaw. However, that night we forgot to close the doors on the poytunnel and the very next day they looked like this. Some very lucky rabbits had a midnight feast courtesy of us. Lesson learned, shut the doors every night; at least we salvaged part of one to go with our dinner. Hopefully you haven't experienced any of our little disasters and are enjoying the tail end of the summer along with all the harvests it brings.