I have had my eye on these for quite some time now and can’t wait until they go on sale so I can snatch them up for our bedside tables. They would be perfect for tossing in some bobby pins, earrings, spare coin, or any of the other nick-nacks that seem to accumulate on bedside tables.
Set of 2 round mirrored boxes, £15.66 from Laura Ashley
The move-in went well last night.
Everything for the kitchen is in and unpacked! We’ve got everything we need apart from a kitchen rubbish bin (which we have ordered) and frying pans (which we are getting today– Tefal like yours!). There are cupboards which have nothing in them yet - too much space!! Everything has its own home now and Chris is looking forward to cooking almost as much as I am!
The bathroom is a dream. I had a shower last night and it was glorious. Lots of water pressure and nice hot water that is not interfered with if someone runs a tap downstairs. The floor tiles absorb warmth from the hot shower and stay warm even after you’re done showering, and in the winter months the under floor heating will dry the tiles.
The bed feels gigantic because it is raised higher than our old crappy IKEA bed and sleeping was much more pleasant. The silence is deafening; Chris can sleep without earplugs and I could hear the tick-tock of my alarm clock. In the morning sunlight pours through a crack in the window blinds and you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to greet the day!
In the morning we had breakfast and we’ll look forward to putting our dishes in the dishwasher and not worrying about them until they are clean and dry with no spots. The dishwasher has a built-in water softener.
Gravy and Pipsqueak have 3 staircases to play on and lots of windows that will be great for bird watching. I think they will be really happy there!!
Can’t wait to have you and Paul over for a proper roast meal. Thanks for all your help painting, gardening, and providing moral support throughout this whole process.
Love,
Amy
We haven’t written in ages, but here we are with a quick update.
Tomorrow is moving day!!!!!!! And it couldn’t have come at a better time. The boiler and fridge have broken in the flat where we have been living, and part of the ceiling has actually fallen down as well. The mould has been affecting my asthma and we’ve been stepping on each other’s toes.
“It’s your turn to do the washing up!”
“No way, those are all your plates!”
The long-awaited day has finally come, the builders have finished and we have been able to give the place a good clean. Now it’s just a matter of shuttling all of our belongings over! Needless to say, we are both looking forward to the luxury of living in a home we put so much thought, effort, blood, sweat, tears and money into!
Over the next few weeks we’ll be updating our before & after pages and blogging about each of the different rooms, so stay tuned!
One eight-yard skip later, the garden is finally cleared ready for us to begin our garden-makeover. This was the last major rubbish-removal blitz in the houses renovation. 116 black sacks, lots of sweat, pouring rain, and a really sore back! Garden clear out…done.
Some of the black sacks piled thick and high
A sea of black sacks en route to skipsville
Before & after: we haz garden
Left over stone against the wall that we'll find a use for
The garden sans gravel
The top of the garden
As one of the requirements for our loft conversion, we had to install an emergency exit in the bathroom. This is one of the structural changes that is completely finished, bar one cat flap!
Unfortunately there isn’t a before photo, so here it is mid-process:
A hole in the wall!
We got Ian, our wonderful stone mason, to fit the door.
Ian, the mason, fixing up the stones around the emergency exit
Drainpipe needs to be moved
Ian did such a great job that we had him conjure up a set of steps using stones we found in the garden. We even had him add an extra step for Gravy!
Door fitted and new steps!
Fully pointed steps with treads
One room that is nearing completion is our kitchen. It’s also the room that has required the most work. From the early days of stripping the 1960s cladding, preparing the floor for concreting (this meant digging 45 cm below the existing level to provide solid foundations), to plastering and tiling. I would say this room is 80% done and we’ll be adding more up to date photos soon now that all the kitchen units are in and the joinery complete (staircase, windows, tongue and groove finishing).
But you can see a step by step process of how it has evolved below…
The kitchen in the beginning
Just some of the rubbish found in the original attic
The kitchen laid bare
Leveling the floor in preparation for insulation and concreting
Laying the concrete with Ian
Laying the screed over the concrete
The first lick of paint to the newly plastered walls
The kitchen units go in!
Far view of kitchen with staircase
The kitchen tiles sans grout
The spanky new granite worktop (at this point, we're keeping everything protected with cardboard and sheets)
More photos to follow
During our home renovation project in Bradford-on-Avon, we’ve been living in a Georgian building in Bath that is owned by Chris’s dad, Neil. This building is in need of some TLC, but we’ve been so busy that we haven’t given it the attention it needs. I currently hang my coats on picture hooks in the lounge.
The ceiling in the lounge is held up by wallpaper. It’s an original lath and plaster ceiling, but over the years it has begun to sag. Last week it gave way, unexpectedly:
The damp patch in the ceiling gave way
Now we’ve got to live with this hole in our ceiling until we move out, at which point we can have the entire thing repaired. Oh, joy!
Chris and I spent this weekend eliminating a huge, overgrown bush in one of the two small gardens flanking our front door.
Here it is as I first saw it:
You can barely see the front door in this before photo
Here’s a different angle, before:
Chris and the crazy bush
This next one is from inside the garden walls, so you’ll see a bit of foreground garden wall and shrubbery:
The bush from inside the garden
I’ve always wanted to see this bush go, but we originally decided just to heavily prune it and see what happened. Once I got in there, I realized that most of the bush was actually dead, despite the leafy exterior. It was time to say goodbye to the bush!
No more bush!
No bush means a new garden!
“Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were.”
Our first house was built shortly after 1812. It was the last house on a terrace atop a hill in the Wiltshire town of Bradford-on-Avon and has an amazing view of the town below. Chris purchased the house after a crack in the exterior wall forced the property into auction… more
Amy & Chris are web designers who met online in 2006 - aww! The trouble was, Amy lived in Canada and Chris lived in the UK. After 1.5 years of dating, Amy moved to the UK and the rest is history… more
