Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...

...it's off to work on the bathroom they go.

And they're doing a cracking job.

The downstairs toilet, the half bath, the cloakroom, whatever you want to call it, that's what we're having redone at the moment. When The Boy moved into this house oh those many moons ago, the little downstairs cloakroom was clad in orange TEXTURED carpet, with an ORANGE sink and an ORANGE toilet. I suppose it was more a terracotta color, but ugly is ugly, no matter WHAT name you give it! The sink was too tiny to be functional, and you needed to be a weightlifter in order to have enough strength to flush the toilet. The COLORS, too, just made an already small room look EVEN SMALLER. Add a strip of really ugly coat hooks along the length of one wall, and you had a disaster of a room!

For the longest time we've talked about changing it, but we were complacent, and just never got around to doing it. But now, seeing as we are about to sell our house for our big move (back) across the pond, what we "would like to do some day" has become a vital necessity for marketing our house.

For the years that I've been here, I've seen around the area a red van belonging to a local company. We needed some general repairs done, and had them round to give us an estimate. While they were here, we showed them the bathroom and asked for an estimate for that, as well. They gave us a reasonable price, so we scheduled the work to be started today.

So the guys are downstairs now gutting the little room, ripping out that nasty, yucky orange carpet, pulling out the UGLY cabinet someone had knocked up in a hurry to sit the sink on, and GETTING RID of that awful orange toilet!

In case no one believes me about just HOW DISMAL it was in there, I have pictures!

(Mind you, the walls look like that because we've just recently ripped the painted over wallpaper off of the walls in there, and taken out all of the FUGLY tiles!!)

I've got some high hopes for that little bathroom, and I think we'll see it REALLY come together. When the tiling and suite installation is finished in there and it's time to paint, we'll go with a really nice, soft white to lighten the room. I'm DEFINITELY excited to know that it's all starting to take shape!

New..

So the pictures are now up over the bed, and as of this evening the radiator is painted a fresh, new shade of "Hemp". Over the weekend we actually found some really awesome wooden picture frames, so intead of our photos being printed on canvas we're getting just straight prints to put into the frames.

The carpet arrives in one week, and hopefully the installation won't take TOO long. I'll be in town, though, when that's happening, so hopefully by the time I get home the carpet fairies will have swooshed in, waved their magic wands, and left again effortlessly. Oooh, I can't wait for the feel of nice, new, soft carpet under my feet!

In other news, we watched Angels and Demons tonight. It was great. And even though the twists didn't show up until the end, they were INCREDIBLE! I can usually figure out the "bad guy" but I was SO SNOWED by this one, until the very end. I like that; it gets a bit boring when you're watching a movie and already have everyone sorted as to who's what in the first ten minutes.

In MORE other news, I made my first loaf of bread today! My friend Emma gave me her bread machine --I'd JUST mentioned a few weeks ago how I'd wanted one, and here she comes with it Saturday afternoon! She'd even prepared me the basic ingredients for a plain white loaf, and included a packet of yeast! Emma's SO awesome. So I had a chance to fiddle with the new machine today, and in less than four hours, I had my very first loaf of bread! The kitchen smelled DELICIOUS, and I felt like Betty Crocker ALL. DAY. LONG. In fact, I need to look in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, and see if there are any bread machine bread recipes in there?! NOM.

Okie dokie, I'm running along for now, but I'll write again soon. I'll leave you with a picture of the Two Cats from earlier this year:
I woke up around 3am one night, and for some reason decided to just take a picture of the back bedroom in the dark, and see what turned out. This is what I saw after taking the picture in the dark, with only the flash lighting up what I was taking -AS I was taking it! This picture STILL makes me laugh!

Slow and Steady Wins the Race...

So some of the pictures are on the wall in the freshly painted bedroom now, and we've ordered the carpet. We've also had to order the mirror because it wasn't in stock at John Lewis, and it should be here in a few weeks at the absolute latest. I've chosen some of my photographs to be printed up on canvas, and the E.M.'s in the process of choosing his. When he decides, we'll get those printed up.

On the garden front, the second border has been turned over, and the weed control fabric will be laid down today. The plants will start going in later today, and hopefully will get established before it starts getting TOO VERY COLD here. For the garden, it's a race against time now.

But this is where these projects stand; I'll try to get some pics up as soon as possible.

So Far So Good.....

So this is what we've got going so far. We've got the walls painted, and the headboard attached. The carpet estimate came in yesterday at approx £200 LESS than we'd expected it to be, and that's WITH their full labor costs (they move the furniture out of the room and back in when they're finished, they take up the old carpet and remove it) included!! Surprised with the low cost of the really nice carpet we chose, and from a really reputable place, we're considering which bedroom needs it next. ;)

It'll be about two weeks from Wednesday, when we place our order for the carpet, until they put it in. That gives us enough time to finish all the little decorating projects involved, now, like hanging the pictures, choosing and hanging the mirror, getting our photos printed up on the canvasses, putting on the new switch plates, etc.. So not long until it's finished! And we get to move on to the NEXT room. UGH...


And here's one of the Two Cats, enjoying THEIR new bedroom!

Bedroom Redo

As if totally reconstructing the back garden from the ground up these recent weeks wasn't enough challenge for us, the E.M. (my British husband, the "English Muffin") and I have decided it's high time to revamp our bedroom: headboard, paint, window treatments, new carpet, new wall art, the whole shebang.

So far, we've chosen the new color --William Morris and Co's "Sage" the third square in the bottom row of three colors-- and have chosen a roman shade made from a heavy, taupe colored beautifully woven fabric, with a delicate, leafy vine pattern running through it. The headboard is "Ardo" from The Original Bedstead Comany. The radiator will even get a new 'do, with a lick of oil-based William Morris and Co's "Hemp" the second color in the bottom row of three squares. The new carpet we REALLY took our time to find, and have decided on a really SOFT, but really dense and durable pile. The carpet color is called "Hessian".





All of these elements in combination with our bedroom furniture set --all the pieces match! Who do we think we are, grown up, or something??-- give us the really organic, comfortable retreat look AND FEEL we've been wanting for our bedroom.





On to the wall art, now. We're talking about getting a large, wood framed mirror to go over the dresser and move our much loved forest triptych over our bed. Scattered on some of the other walls, though, we're talking about using some of our own photography and having our own loved and meaningful pictures of places we've visited put on canvas and set in the tiny nooks of the room. I seriously CANNOT WAIT to have the whole project completed so we can enjoy the space we've created together!





And speaking of completion, hopefully the fact that the carpet layers are coming to measure the bedroom this coming Monday will get our asses in gear for getting the bedroom painted and the shade installed over the window so when the carpet finally arrives, that will be the LAST MAJOR STEP in the bedroom project!



I'm getting tired just THINKING about all the work, but I seriously can't WAIT to get stuck in and get it all done!!