Kitchen strangeness!

Now that the washing machine and tumble-dryer have been moved to the utility room we have a space in the kitchen.  For reasons best known to themselves, the previous owners decided that this wall should have horizontal cladding fixed over the (probably) original vertical cladding.  The old grease splatters on the wall and cabinet sides attest to the fact that they had their cooker here ~ we had the very old cooker socket replaced last year.

They also made a cooker hood of sorts ~ well, I guess that was the general idea they were aiming for!  Basically it was chipboard covered with a sheet of copper and it looked decidedly ugly.  So down it came, to reveal.....

.....all these holes!  And yes, that is indeed daylight you can see 😕  The holes line up with the air-vent outside.  There was obviously some kind of extractor fan in place originally ~ the outer fan blades are still visible in the cavity!

I suppose it was too much like hard work to remove all the workings and make good the wall, so up went the "cooker hood".  Or perhaps they felt the holes would be good ventilation for cooking smells???

Anyhoo, Adrian has now filled the holes as best he can (he still needs to rub down the filler), which has cut down the draughts quite considerably LOL

It looks a mess right now, but we are planning to give the kitchen a bit of a spruce-up at some point this year.  It's going to be a looooong time before we can have the kitchen stripped out (like the downstairs bathroom) and refitted.  As you can see in this old post, the kitchen is not terribly attractive but it is functional.  Like the rest of the house it has suffered from years of dampness, particularly in the cabinets on this "cooker hood" side of the room.  I'm planning to revamp these cabinets and I'm still mulling over what direction to go with them.  I'll share ideas and photos in due course 😊

At the moment I can't quite decide whether to simply paint over the wallpaper on the other walls or strip if off first.  It appears that these other walls have had hardboard or plywood fitted over the original cladding.  Decisions, decisions!  I'd also quite like to have a new ceiling light fitted, one of those spotlight bars would be a good idea I think.  We currently have a single light, which isn't even in the centre of the room and is less than ideal as I'm sure you can imagine!

We don't want to be throwing more money at an interim kitchen refurbishment than we have to, but it would definitely be a more cheerful room if we can tidy it up somewhat 😉

Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Just a couple of doggies...

...doing what they do best!  Matty spends even more time sleeping these days ~ and greyhounds are well-known for their ability to spend many happy hours snoozing even when they are a lot younger than our lovely boy is now!

Bonnie (our little day-boarder!) sleeps a lot less than Matty.  She is, I think, three years or so younger than he is but even so she is a lot livelier than he was at her age LOL

One WIP finished....

.....plenty more still to be done!

You may remember that back in November I decided to make myself a shawl as part of my stash-busting exercise.  I started making it with granny stripes, but after a few rows decided that I would prefer a pattern that was less "holey".

I finally got the shawl finished last week!  It may not be the prettiest shawl on the 'net but it is snuggly and warm ~ plus I have  whittled away at that stash just a little, which is a good feeling.

Of course, there was still some of the yarn left but not enough to actually make anything with.  So I decided to simply knot the ends of the little leftovers together and wind them into a ball of "crazy yarn".  I will keep doing this with all the little odds 'n' sods of yarn as I work my way through the stash.  Eventually I will have enough crazy yarn to make something useful, and in the process nothing will be going to waste.

Beverly gave me this cute little bag at Christmas.  I am a sucker for the lovely eco-friendly shopping bags that Tesco sell from time-to-time and have collected rather more that I need for actual shopping LOL  This one, though, is really more of a gift bag rather than being suitable for taking shopping, so it's the perfect size for coralling my balls of crazy yarn 😊

Little words of wisdom

Dreaming of spring!

Of course, technically we are still in the throes of winter but a girl can dream, can't she?

In the slight lull between Storms Ciara and Dennis, Matty and I took the opportunity to make a quick inspection of the front garden.  Well, I say "Matty and I" but really he was much more interested in sniffing the air and staring up the road than examining the garden borders!

Masses of work waiting to be done.....

but the ground is so wet and cold at the moment that even on the odd dry, not-too-windy day the thought of getting my hands in the soil is quite frankly more than a tad horrifying!  The grass on this side of the garden gets much more soggy than on the other side ~ look at the muddy path that we've worn into the grass taking the doggo out at night!

We didn't get far clearing this side last year but hopefully we'll get to grips with it over the coming months.

And yet, there are little signs that spring may be just around the corner.  I was thrilled to find these buds coming through on a willow.....

and these sweet little narcissus are blooming.

This little group of narcissus are just a couple of feet away from the previous ones, in the same border and facing the same direction, but they haven't started to open yet. 

This little primula flowers so heartily!

I was delighted to see these little snowdrops coming through as they are in a part of the garden that we are planning to alter somewhat.  Now that I know where they are, I will be able to lift them when they've finished flowering and move them to a new home in the back garden.

The little nature pool is somewhat overgrown and tatty-looking at the moment, but despite this the water is beautifully clear.  The birds have been making good use of it right from when we first put it in; it's lovely to watch them drinking and bathing.  Makes me feel a tad shivery, though, to see them doing their ablutions as the water is very cold!

Matty was obviously feeling a little tired and bored by the time I'd had a good poke around, but it was good for him to get a breath of fresh air.  Having a mooch around the garden is as much of a walk as he wants to do these days.  I'm really not sure how much longer he will be with us, so we are just making the most of whatever time we have left with our handsome boy 💕

Oh look, we have a functioning dining room!

Once the downstairs bathroom and utility were finished, I was finally able to get the dining room sorted out.  It hasn't looked this tidy in the whole two years since we moved in!  Our shoes still are having to live under the window, unfortunately, as the porch is just way too damp for them to be out there.

Like the rest of the house, this room needs redecorating but that is a loooong way off yet!  Hopefully the walls will look a little better once we get some of our pictures and prints hung on them.

It's nice to have a little area where one of us can come and watch TV, or just sit quietly listening to music and reading, when the other is watching something that we don't both want to see.  There was a fair bit of head-scratching from Graeme (and Adrian joined in too LOL) whilst he worked out how best to get the TV cable from the roof space down through to the dining room but he (they!) got there in the end 😉

We had this TV at our old house but when we moved up here, found that it was a little too small really for our new, somewhat bigger, living room.  So, we bought a larger-screen TV for the living room and this one went in our bedroom.  To be honest, I'm not terribly keen on them in bedrooms but Adrian has wanted one in there since, well, forever really LOL  I feel much happier that we now have this one down here in the dining room, and a much smaller one (which we had in the spare bedroom at our old house) in our bedroom!

All the furniture is what we brought with us, except for the new armchair and TV cabinet.  I'm now storing my glassware in one side of the cabinet, and my sewing-basket and tablecloths in the other.  

Shug very kindly hung the mirror for us and his son hammered out the tile and concrete of the old hearth, which has given us more floor space; the fire surround will stay put until we decorate.  The rug is hiding the cut-out section of carpet! 

Adrian and I moved the little white wall cupboard and dark wood table from the wall opposite the window.  We've hung a print there instead ~ you can see the reflection in the mirror ~ which has made it easier to walk behind the dining chair.  No leaning to one side to avoid hitting one's head now required LOL

We haven't got as much furniture in here now, either, as I've been continuing the down-sizing exercise and have rather less "stuff" to have to find a home for!  This cabinet houses my blue and white china collection (which I also thinned out), along with our "best" china, cutlery, etc.  The clock belonged to my Grandma, a wedding gift to commemorate the occasion of her marriage to my Grandad from his employer; hearing it chime (four times a day!) always reminds me of her 😊

My houseplant collection has sadly been downsizing itself.  I lost a few plants during the move ~ I don't think they liked the overnight stop in the cold January weather en-route.  It must also have been quite a shock to their poor systems moving from our old centrally-heated house to the coldness (despite the ancient storage heaters) of St Abbs.  The plants which are now left are obviously pretty hardy souls!

We're making the most of the dining room at the moment because once work is due to start on the guest bedroom, it will yet again have to become a storage area.  That won't be for a good few months yet, though 😉

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Downstairs bathroom: ✔; utility room: ✔

image from Clipart Library

I am super-dooper pleased to report that the downstairs bathroom and utility are finally finished!  It's certainly been an extremely long process, with a few unexpected hiccups along the way (although by now, we really should expect the unexpected little issues that St Abbs likes to throw us LOL), but it's been such a worthwhile renovation despite everything.  Now that it's done, I find it hard to believe that we lived with the state of the original bathroom ~ it was such a relief when we had the new shower room fitted upstairs!

As the work has taken so long, you might like to have a quick look at this post, which shows more of the work-in-progress, and this one which shows the work almost done 😉  The following photos (which are totally crappy for some reason ~ I obviously need much more photo-taking practice!) show the finishing touches ~ the part I really, really like doing 😊

It's been so nice to get my bits 'n' bobs out on display again.

I think my plant, which used to be in the old bathroom, will like living here by the new window.

Between taking this photo and the couple above I had a mini rearrangement!  We have a stack of pictures and prints that we brought with us and just haven't got round to hanging yet.  I was convinced that I had another colourful print that would be ideal to hang in the bathroom and here it is LOL  I also slightly rearranged the things on the cistern as I had a group of shells that I wanted to display.  I was going to put them in a china bowl but I thought it looked too big, plus I really wanted to use it in the dining room for pot pourri.  I had a rummage around and found the little glass dish, which was just perfect for the job.  It's great to be able to go "shopping" with what you've already got in your own home 😉

The lovely large shell now sits in the corner of the shower tray.

I decided not to continue the beachy, sea theme out into the utility as I had a few vintage laundry items I wanted to finally be able to display.  I should have taken this photo further back then I would have got the whole of the washing dolly in the picture, rather than just its handle!

The curtains in here and the bathroom were a pair I originally bought for our bedroom when we first moved in.  I was never all that thrilled with them in there, to be honest; they were a bit of a purchase-in-a-hurry as we had no curtains for the window at all.  Although they do have a lining, they are very lightweight and consequently the light comes through quite considerably.  I recently bought a rather lovely pair of vintage curtains on eBay to replace them, which are much more suitable for our bedroom.  I do like this pair in the bathroom and utility, though.

I came across these little Mr Cuthberts "guide to" books on eBay a long time ago ~ the colourful covers caught my eye.  I decided to frame them as they are so pretty, keeping the booklets intact behind the mount and plexiglass 😊  It's nice to finally get this up on a wall as I didn't get round to it in our old house.  The fairy windchimes lived in the lean-to of our old house for a good few years.  She has lived at the kitchen window here since we moved in, but when I went on my little shopping-at-home spree I decided to move her to the utility.  

The airer was a purchase from Orvis so many years ago that I can't even remember exactly when it was now!  It's another thing that didn't get put up at our old house, and lived in its original box in the loft for years.  It's really handy here in the utility, though, for hanging those little things that really don't like being put in the tumble-dryer ~ mostly my bras LOL  I've had the wooden laundry tongs and glass scrubbing board for years, too.  

The plant, like the one above, also lived in the old bathroom.  I'm hoping that it will get enough light in this corner.  The tiny teddy was found in our front garden here after having had a slight encounter with a chainsaw!  I felt so sorry for the poor abandoned little chap that I decided he could live with us.  I chucked him in the washing machine, hoping that he didn't disintegrate, as he was in a terrible state as you can see in the photo below!

Anyhoo, the little chap lived through his ordeal but I still haven't gotten round to doing the surgery needed on his burst seams.  He's probably just grateful to be living in a warm and dry house, though, rather than a cold and wet garden 😉

So there we are, the bathroom and utility finally finished.  We had intended to plough on with the guest bedroom next, but to be honest we feel like we need a wee break from house renovations for a few months so we've decided to have a bit of a breather! 

Little words of wisdom

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Little words of wisdom

Peace...Little words of wisdom

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)