More Progress!

 

 

So a bit more has happened with the kitchen. 

 

We now have a windowsill installed by Jonathan, under-cabinet lights installed by Jonathan (totally safe, honest!) and some wall tiles! yay!

 

 

Windowsill now painted and looking smart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Best bit.  Tiles....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curtains!

 

I bought these nets from Ikea and convinced Jonathan they'd look good in the bedroom.  He is still not really convinced - thinks they're too 'old person' and impractical.  Whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

Outside

 

We re-did the guttering as the old one was looking a bit rubbish and the paint was flaking off.

 

 

I painted the stone pieces white which has made a bit of a difference but we are unable to reach the top windows.  Even with a big ladder, we couldn't get over the bay to paint. 

It's going to take some thinking about as we have seen some neighbours using some unusual home made scaffolding constructions to get theirs painted (although with success!) anyway that's the next problem to deal with!

 

 

So a lot of progress but the front door still looks like this...

 

 

 

...which is grim.  So I'm going to end with this.

 

 

Roses from the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



This is how the downstairs looks now...

Front room

There isn't much in here at all at the moment.  Just the TV, sofa and a lamp!  I don't want to put anything else in until I'm sure about it.

This is how it used to look...

Then this...

Then this...

So although it's not finished and looks pretty bare, I'm still glad that it is decorated.

This is the hall, stairs and landing as it is now...

Not looking that great.  There is a lot of work to do in here.  Firstly, we need a new front door as the current one is really old letting out so much heat.  Nearly all the walls need plastering.  The floor needs tiling but we wanted to continue the tiling from in the kitchen/dining area.

So much still to do!

I don't like to think about the amount we still have to do too much so here's some picture that I took in the garden to distract myself...

Pretty purple flowers

rhubarb in pots and a peonies soon to flower

the Hawthorne tree already has little white flowers

The Dining Room/Kitchen

This is the area of the house which saw the most change.  

We had the wall between the dining room and kitchen taken out.  The Kitchen floor was dug up as it was concrete but soaking water up, allowing the level to alter and causing massive damp problems.  A window installed where the back door used to be and new French doors installed where the dining room window was.

This whole area was re-plastered and decorated and a new kitchen put in.

Although all this work was done last year, we still have not finished this area.  We totally ran out of money so have no tiles on the floor (we were thinking of black and white or a Victorian style design) or on the kitchen walls (Probably white Metro tiles as they will go with this kitchen well)

Hopefully this year we will get this completed!

This is how the kitchen looked when we bought the house.

After the plaster was stripped off we found another doorway.

New floor going in.

This is the old doorway into the kitchen, now blocked off.

New Kitchen window where the back door was.

New French doors in.  All walls re-plastered and kitchen had been delivered!

Kitchen in!

This is how the Kitchen/Dining area looks now...

Garden Update

Most of the garden is still a total mess.  We've not been able to get outside as the weather has been so bad.  I'm really surprised that the Hawthorn tree managed to withstand the gale force winds the other week! This weekend I ventured outside and found that some of the bulbs I had planted last year are starting to come out! Yay!

Looking forward to these coming out!

The Garden

When we first viewed the house it was during summer so everything was growing and in full leaf. 

One side of the garden borders an allotment and has a kind of hawthorn hedge/tree border.

The other side which borders next door's garden had no real fence or obvious border.

Everything was overgrown and trees had formed a canopy over the garden.

I actually quite liked the garden as it was because it felt like it had a 'secret garden' theme to it but after summer once everything had died back it was pretty obvious that serious work needed to be done.

A lot of the trees that were growing had not been planted there, they had just grown randomly and a big tree had fallen a few years earlier and continued to grow along the ground and then up again.

To get the full benefit from the length of the garden we would need to cut everything back and start again.

Jonathan got a little too close to the flames...

I love this hawthorn tree next to the allotment.  In spring it has white flowers and as the year goes on it has orange and then red berries.  It is covered in Ivy and always has little birds flying to and from it.

The best thing about having this garden has been seeing the progress as we have gone along.  Seeing the potential and getting ideas for what to do with the space. 

We planted this little Virginia Creeper in summer and it has since grown to above the back door.  I think we'll have to keep an eye on it!

Things we have discovered...

This is the current state of the garden.  We have a fence!

I really don't like the garden being so boring and devoid of any plants so this year we'll be thinking about what to do.  We have lots of ideas for this garden but it seems to take a long time to see any changes.  Hopefully this year will be a good year for the garden!