A Not So Quick Catch Up

I thought I'd better pop on because I've been absent for a while. 

We've been busy here since my last post with school holidays, new shed for the garden, sorting the living room out (still) and a few birthday celebrations. We went for a meal last week for Caleb's girlfriends birthday and to meet her family. Now to me it felt a bit odd because I will always think of him as my little boy who loved cuddles, not the 18 year old with a girlfriend. She is a very nice girl though.

We still aren't finished with the living room. The decorating side of it was completed ages ago but Anders seems to keep on adding work for himself. I'll show what has been done so far.

This old cabinet has gone

and has been replaced with these bookcases that Anders made.

The opposite corner is pretty much the same as before. The bookcase is one that Anders made a few years ago.

The fire surround is the old one that has had a coat of paint. Anders made a new hearth and replaced the back on the fire (this was something he added on as we went along). The mirror is from Exclusive Mirrors. 

This is what the fire place looked like before.

We ordered the table and chairs on line and when they arrived the table had been damaged. On one of the corners the wood had split so this had been sent from the manufacturers like this and not happened in transit. The company told us to dispose of the table and a replacement would be send. After waiting in for I don't know how many days I got back in touch with them only to be told they didn't have any more and they would arrange a refund. So I'm stuck with chairs and no table. Anders took the table top in work to see what could be done to it.

 After a lot of glue, being clamped and waxed, I had a table. It's a good job that we hadn't thrown it on the tip straight away.

These were the old lights which were originally from my in laws

and these are the new ones. The lights we bought were on sale, half price from Debenhams. The curtains and rug were also on sale from Dunhelm Mill.

The sofa looks a bit bigger than our last one but they are the same size. The old one had chunky arms and as this one hasn't it has more seating area instead. The sofa is the Fellini model from Sofology. The wall behind the sofa does look very bare but that is where Anders hangs his guitars. (as much as I hate them being in here, there is nowhere else to store them and he doesn't even have room for them all here so I don't know what his plan is)

The cabinet is from Ikea. Even though Anders wanted to make as much in this room as he could, to buy the glass doors worked out too expensive. It looks pretty empty from a distance but it is full of nik naks that we're bought on our travels.

This was the corner where the cabinet is now. We've bought some small speakers to replace those in the photo.

Still to go in this room is a coffee table (which is almost done), more bookcases in the other alcove next to the chimney breast and a new TV unit. Anders was going to make a sliding shelf to house the turn table but he says that the unit has faded too much in the sun and it is quicker for him to make a new unit from scratch instead of sanding and re staining the one we already have .. see, he makes more work.

Craft wise I got around to finishing an embroidery that I started a little over four years ago. I only found it while having a sort out.

The pattern was purchased from greenbeanbaby on Etsy.

I also made this crocheted cushion for Caleb's girlfriend.
Something else that may be happening in our house is that we might be getting a puppy. This subject has been talked about for years here with Anders adamant that it wasn't happening. I don't know what's up with him (maybe softening with age) but he changed his mind. The kids are delighted. First I looked on line at dog rescue centres where I live plus surrounding counties. After looking at the descriptions of many available dogs it was clear that I wasn't going to find one that fit our requirements as a family. We need a child friendly dog, one that doesn't shed a lot because of my allergies and my eldest boys asthma and is relatively easy to train. After looking at many different breeds and have settled on a Boston Terrier. I've been in touch with a breeder who has a litter but they won't be ready for some time yet as they are only 4 weeks old. I've done this instead of going to pick a pup that I can take there and then because I've heard so much about puppy farms. We have been in touch via email and they have answered any questions I've had so far. As we have no intention of breeding dogs ourselves we have chosen a dog rather than a bitch.

This is pup (the end one with a thinnest white blaze). We will be going to view him next week. Hopefully all goes well with the visit and his health checks are fine.

A Bit Quiet

Hello.

 I thought I'd better pop on here and explain why the blog has been a bit quiet lately. Nothing exciting has been going on it's just that we have made a start on decorating the living room and it is not going to be a quick job. It has taken us weeks to acquire enough boxes to pack stuff away. We're not going to be keeping much of the furniture only one of the bookcases and TV unit. Anders is going to be building us some new storage, a pc desk (though that one is the last thing on the list of jobs) and coffee table at work. We are then replacing the sofas, cabinet, dining room set, basically everything else in the room

These shelves have now gone (My friend had some of them for her house)

and so have these bookcases. As you can see from the photos, we're not minimalist type of people but I have been having a good sort out along the way.

We have stripped most the old wallpaper from the walls and uncovered this stenciling which goes all around the room. After speaking to my Mum and a friend who live in the same type of house, they also have stenciling so I wonder if they were all decorated this way after they were built. There are lots of holes to fill and bits of plastering to do before we can get to the actual decorating part. That's the part of it that I enjoy doing and I can't wait to get started.

The Boy's Room

At last we have finished redecorating the boy's bedroom. I did begin to sort through their belongings earlier on in the year and as they are older now (aged 19 and almost 18) they were willing to part with more stuff.

These were just the books the boys no longer wanted to keep, some of which we kept for Little L and the rest we dropped off at a charity shop.

It took a while for them to decide on a colour because they knew that they didn't want a shade of blue or green again but nothing else was springing to mind. I suggested grey and they both said no chance. I went off and returned with some colour cards and funnily enough they both chose grey and agreed on the same shade.

This was the old colour in the room ( the hole was caused by my eldest boy when he helped me to take some shelves down. A rawl plug had got stuck in to the wall and he thought the best way to remove it was to give it a big tug )

and this is what it looks like now. The shade is called Bottlenose Dolphin. We replaced the blind but the lampshade is their old one.

The geometric print bedding set was from Matalan.

Anders made this shelf unit for Caleb to display his bits and pieces.

Anders also made a new TV unit because previously the boys had a portable TV then when my eldest first started to work he bought this one and the old unit was far too small. Another reason why they needed a new one was because their old game consoles used to be stored in the loft but if Anders ever went up there for something one of the boys used to ask for one of them to be brought back down for them to play on. Over time they all ended up just shoved under their bed. The unit has made everything more accessible for them, given them a spot to store the laptops (I used to just tip toe around them on the floor) and cleared out under the bed.

Above the TV unit there used to be four shelves but with those removed Caleb had a space to put his Jaws poster back up. My sister bought it for him years ago and I can't see him ever getting rid of it. Caleb had some Zelda tea towels that he had got inside one of his arcade blocks so I purchased a black picture frame from Ebay and mounted one of them for him.

Now all the bedrooms have been done I love to peek in the rooms when I go upstairs. Next year we need to tackle to living room.

Little L's Room

This weekend we began to redecorate Little L's room. Trust me to decide to do it during the UK heatwave. This was the colour of her room before we got the paint out

( I cropped this photo a lot as you could mainly see in to my neighbours houses )

and this is after.

The colour Little L chose is a bright aqua, Dulux paint 'High Hopes'. We opted for a washable paint when we had it mixed, easier to get rid of little hand prints. The duvet set I bought on sale from BHS.

I bought blackout curtains this time as there is a street light directly outside the bedroom window and after the tree in the front garden was chopped down too much light was shining in. (Believe it or not I did press those crumply looking curtains, I'm hoping the rest of the creases will fall out)

The only new things that I made for the room were this shark canvas

and this bunting.

Little L loves her room and has been spending more time in there over the past couple of days plus she is even trying her best to keep it tidy.

Redecorating

I'm pleased to say that the bedroom we were decorating before Christmas is now finished  (well except for one thing). It took us more time to sort out the things that we wanted to keep than the actual decorating bit. Apart from the bed frame, carpet and curtains, everything has been replaced.

The light beige walls were painted duck egg blue. It took an age for us to decide on the shade we wanted. The testers we tried at first were either too blue, too green, too bright, etc. We ended up with the shade that we settled on by having a piece of duck egg blue wallpaper scanned.

The beech coloured furniture was replaced by plain white furniture. It's surprising how much more brighter and bigger it makes the room look just by replacing the furniture and changing the wall colour.

Anders made me these shelves at work for my cameras. Previously they had all been stored in cardboard boxes.

It wasn't until I first sat on the new mattress to put my socks on and my feet didn't reach the floor that I noticed it is slightly deeper than our last one. The new duvet set was bought from BHS in the Black Friday sale (it doesn't look quite as bright as this photo shows).

The old lampshade was replaced with this one which throws out considerably more light because of the open design. Looks quite pretty to have dancing light cast about the room too.

When sorting out what was going or staying in the room, I found this blanket which I had forgotten about. I did make it quite a while ago for this room using this dottie angel pattern.

This old dressing table was brought down from the loft.

 After they had been washed I saw that the curtains were in a terrible state. Very faded, stained, with quite a few holes. You can see on this photo how much the curtains had faded compared to the fabric which was covered by the glass top. This is the last thing that needs to be done in the bedroom, I just need to go fabric shopping.