stage by stage...

the above photo was taken while standing at the window, the below one was taken standing near the archway.

it's madness really, trying to do stuff just before christmas, but this weather is crap for farmers so sam is making the most of it...after the builders pulled down the stud wall, the plasterer came and did the walls. these are now dry so sam's been undercoating...i snapped him a minute ago painting the ceiling! then i found these photos taken before we started, complete with red carpet and manky old sofa, thought it made a nice 'before & during'. the oak flooring arrived yesterday and we're hoping to have the dining room in operation on christmas day. and see the open fireplace with the concrete hearth? that's where the cat decided he was going to take a pee just after sam had levelled it out...

now you see it...

so...work begins on renovations (phase 2.) today the kitchen wall came down, revealing our new dining space, complete with newly installed french doors at the end. it was sad saying goodbye to the wallpaper, but not too disappointing as it's in the lounge too! behind where i'm taking the photo (i'm about halfway in the kitchen in these shots) is another set of doors into the garden. we measured the space from door to door and it is 40 feet long. ye gads! 40 feet! it's fantastic because we are practically all open plan now downstairs except the current studio (which will be sam's farm office) and the original old kitchen (which will be the new studio, where we sam found the old quarry tiles beneath two layers old crappy flooring)
through the larger archway is the playroom, or will be once it's been finished. we've chosen the new wooden flooring, and are hoping to be semi finished in time for christmas, but i'm not holding my breath. through the smaller archway is the hallway - at present home to some lonesome pieces of furniture. i'm collecting an assortment of charity shop mirrors to display in the hallway to make it feel a bit bigger. haha, how greedy am i? we've got great proportioned rooms in this house and all i can do is grumble about the hallway! one of these days i'll do a tour of the house, but it's such a shit hole at the moment. i'll do it when i've had a tidy, sorted out curtains and blinds and the thousands of other never ending jobs there tends to be with an old house...(did somebody say money pit???) after two years of living here, i'm getting all excited again...

{top photo shows kitchen wall...bottom one, after it came down}

white space...

this is my current favourite part of the house, despite the fact i've done nothing with it except had it painted white. (and actually out of shot are half packed/clothes strewn boxes, for this is my 'dressing room' {yes, really - originally sam's childhood bedroom, how spoilt am i?!} and i haven't got wardrobes yet)

BUT there's this little restful space in amongst all the crap, with a view of meadows, surrounded by white, and if i try really hard, i can pretend my whole house is an oasis of calm like this and not a chaos of farm toys, dirty clothes waiting to be washed, clean clothes waiting to be ironed, and piles of dirty dishes.

silly

sometimes you just have to have one or two things around to make you smile. these little lego pieces do just that for me, especially in that bright yellow colour!

update: thought i'd better just mention that i bought these in the legoland shop at windsor, but you can buy them online here.

fancy a cuppa?

lovely francesca, blogger pal and all round top gal offered me a housewarming gift of one of her beautiful prints and told me to chose one from her shop. (we decided on a little swap in the end - a print for one of my notebooks) well, it was damn hard, but in the end i chose this little treasure, and i had the perfect spot in the kitchen for it, as well as a frame and mount the right size. so within an hour of receiving it, it was already in it's new home. i can't believe how one simple job is so satisfying! and it also has the honour of being the first piece of art up in the house - all the other stuff is propped up against walls everywhere, all needing a sort-out - you know, all those annoying little black midges need cleaning - which is a job i just can't be bothered to do. anyway, thanks fran, i love it!

ohhhh, by the way, did anyone catch my footstool on design*sponge yesterday? very exciting!

naughty...

me. i've been a really rubbish blogger lately, i'm sorry. i woke up this morning to find i'd sold my 199th item in the summersville shop! amazing, it's totally blown me away. i expect there will be a nice little surprise for my 200th sale :)

ohhhh, before i forget, i've just got hold of a load of lined notebooks the same size (A6) as my sketchbooks for those of you who don't like the idea of writing on blank pages. so you can write lists galore without risk of a downhill slide...(actually my pet peeve - i've been known to rip out pages when my writing goes south, it's the OCD tendency coming to the fore...) anyway, i'll be adding them to the etsy listings, and do shout if there's a pattern you'd like to see on a sketch/notebook - i can do a custom one for you.

what's been happening? well, nuthin' really - not much to report anyway, it's all a bit flat this time of year, isn't it? we managed to avoid the worst of the snow, although we've got more forecast this week. we did have fun in the snow - sam attached a sledge to his tractor and the boys and i were pulled along the fields at a surprising speed - that was brilliant, but it was snowing really heavily at the time, poor arth at the front looked like a mini snowman.

i'm slowly making corners of the new house feel more like home - i painted an old dresser pale blue for a dull area in the kitchen, and i'm thrilled to bits with it. now my coffee pots are on display, the house is much cheerier and less like a rental property!