Not a penny spent

I am really pleased with my weekend's work.  First I transformed some pine fitting from our downstairs cloakroom from this..........

...........to this

and the room from this..........

..........to this

All that's needed now is for hubby to put the light fitting back and the jobs done. I had all the paint so this room has cost nothing other than my time.  There are a couple of pictures that need to go up and I do need some frames for these, but hopefully I can pick up some in the charity shop and paint them.

I also managed to get a cardigan finished, its currently blocking so once dry I will take some photographs and share them with you.  I have now started another hat and socks with some more of the Regia yarn, the pattern is from the Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders book I got the other week.  It's knitting up so nicely, I love these yarns.

Out with the old?

Its too easy these days to just chuck out what we don't want just because its old and tired.  In one of the guest rooms we have some pine furniture which had seen better days.  There was nothing actually wrong with the furniture, pine just tends to go very orange with age, and it just looked sad and unloved after being moved around when the eldest was living in flats in London.  So I decided I try and give it a new lease of life.  The room needed a revamp too as I have never liked the blue paint on the walls and there had been a damp patch on the chimney breast - which has now been sorted.  I needed to keep to blue as I couldn't justify changing the curtains and bedding. 

Here are the before pictures of the chest of drawers, the wardrobe I still need to paint.  I am so pleased with the result.  I used B&Q quick dry satin paint

The room is now painted in Dulux Cornflower White, which whilst still blue is much softer and lighter.  I also painted the mirrors and side table in the satin paint.  I have a few more pictures to put up.  I feel very pleased with how the room looks for a very small outlay, just lots of rubbing down



Top row before.  Bottom after

In other news -

• I knitted another bathroom mat for the youngest, but forgot to take a picture. 
• Finished hand quilting my lap quilt, the running stitches may not be perfectly spaced but it is a first attempt, so just the binding to do on that. 
• I have done 2 pattern repeats of the mohair shawl, I can spot a couple of mistakes, but I think I can live with them.
• Finished reading Peaches for Monsieur le Cure by Joanne Harris, so enjoyed this, infact refused to get out of bed yesterday until I had finished it. If you enjoyed Chocolat and Lollipop Shoes you will enjoy this one.
• Went cycling in 30C temperatures - we did however do two pub stops for refreshment and Peter got a puncture

Relaxing weekend........not

My weekend was anything but relaxing.  On Friday I decided that I really must get started on some more decorating.  The front sitting room has stood empty since the garden room was completed, readers of this blog will know that we are planning to turn this room into a library.  I washed walls/paintwork, filled cracks, rubbed down, made myself sick and dizzy - I must be getting old, all that bending up and down plays havoc with my head!  Anyway the palette was prepared for painting on Saturday. 

I was home alone this Saturday as Rebecca took her Dad off to the cricket.  First coat on the ceiling and above the picture rails by 11am.  Whilst waiting for that to dry I went down the garden and picked some veggies.  Made another batch of spiced pickled bean relish, then on with the second coat, had a mishap with the paint tray and ladder which took me 15 minutes to clear up!  No harm done.  Once that was done I was able to get straight onto the walls.  As you will see I kept the same colour - the reason being I found a full tin of paint in the shed and it was still ok, plus it goes with the carpet. I finally got cleared up at around 5:30.

Hubby got home just after 6pm full of the joys of a win for England, and took me out for dinner, much appreciated as I hadn't even given dinner a thought. 

On surveying my handy work on Sunday, we decided that the woodwork looked good enough to leave, what a relief - I hate glossing.  I hung the curtains, and we placed in the sofa kindly donated by Rebecca and Tim - looks good doesn't it? (don't think you will get the other one back either, it looks great in the garden room)  The book shelves will go on the back wall and either side of the fireplace.  I plan to fill the wall above the sofa with pictures but will wait until the shelving work is complete.  Possibly another chair, side table?

Feet up now? - not a chance.  Helped weed the veg plot, dug 10lbs of new potatoes, re-arranged some furniture in the garden room, then made some apple juice with a load of wind-fall apples.  We prepared and cooked a Sunday roast together, stuffed leg of lamb, new potatoes, carrots, beets, and beans (all from the garden), quick soak in the bath whilst it was cooking.  Feet up now? - naw - 3 loads of washing done and hung out, then we weeded the flower beds round the garden room and swept leaves.........then we sat down.

Hope you had a relaxing one....... forgot to say in all of that I got stung by a wasp too

WIP Wednesday #9 - not much to show

Can you believe we are coming towards the end of another month, well its the 20th today, where is the year going.  My weekend was busy with my grandson so not too much knitting achieved.

once more round and a bit

this is my weekly progress since 22 June to last week, so you can see its growing, each side takes longer and longer.  I'm not sure - in fact I know I won't have enough yellow to keep the pattern going as planned, so I either have to buy more or change tack

a few rows on the 2nd side of the tea cosy

this room is awaiting my attention its been empty now for 5 weeks, the furniture went out into the garden room!  We tend to only use this room winter time, so we are thinking of turning it into a library. We have books all over the bedrooms and it would be good to have them all in one place.  The walls don't look too bad in the photo, but there are cracks to fill and I really don't feel like decorating at the moment, so I guess this qualifies as a work-in-progress

To see more WIP pop over to Tamis

WIP Wednesday #4

I missed last week as I was too busy with other things, so I have made a fair inroads on the Ten Stitch, almost finished just one more repeat all round. I'm very pleased with it and I hope my youngest is too.

I have been asked to make four more so I have started putting together some yarn combos - greens and cream, navy, lilac and cream, burgundy, browns and cream. Its funny when you are knitting these, when adding the next colour I get panicky thinking it doesn't go, but once you've done a bit and then lay it out you can see that it all looks fine. I love that my stash of charity yarn is reducing, so these blankets are costing next to nothing. I plan to make knitted slippers to go with them.  Then the recipent will have everything they need for a cosy winter cuddle up on the sofa.

This is my other work in progress, I still have the gloss painting to do, the bit I hate.  I am taking the day off tomorrow to try and get it finished as its windows and doors so I need to have them open all day. I'm pleased with the wall colour, hadn't realised how sick of the yellow I was.

Who knew I was such a magpie!

With the garden room complete my thoughts turn to the house.  The kitchen to be precise, having had it retiled I can no longer put up with the yellow walls. 

I have spent all day sorting - firstly I sorted cupboards in the utility room to try and make more space, rearranged shelves and tidied.  I then found a new home for the hundreds of photographs that we possess.  I did manage not to look at them otherwise I would have got nothing done; that will be a job for the winter months, go through, chuck out and finally get whats left put into albums.  Boxed up all the old video tapes that we've not watched for years, these will be going off to the charity shop. Sorted drawers under the bed.  Sorted yarn for two more Ten Stitch Blankets. Cleaned brass.

Next job was my sitting room, now its furniture has been moved out into the garden room, I have space to decant the contents of the scullery shelves, I am ashamed to say they aren't very clean.  Why do we collect so much stuff, everything needed washing then packing into boxes so that I could stack them in some kind of order.  Tomorrow I will be washing down the walls and woodwork, filling cracks and trying to get the room painted.

Following the kitchen will be the sitting room, then the lounge, then carpets to be cleaned its a never ending job.  I shouldn't complain as the decorating is long over due, we have turned a blind eye to it for too long! So you all know what we are up to this weekend. 

We are managing to spend our evenings in the Garden Room though, its lovely and peaceful, a TV free zone, just music, books and knitting .....bliss

Enjoy your weekend, hopefully it won't rain, though we are offically in a drought area so need more.  Now off for a bath then put my feet up, yes you guessed in our new room

So the new tiles

What do you think then? I know the yellow walls look truly awful against the tiles, but we need to redecorate. The kitchen seems so much lighter and brighter. Also in this collage is the newly washed down beams and the hearth for the wood burner.  So as you can see we have lots still to do, so I should get off of here and get on with something!!

A big thank you to Steve and Aaron Jolley for the brilliant work; if you need a plasterer or tiler in the Cambridgeshire area then Steve is your man, just look him up, based at Bar Hill.  The cat is pleased you have finished though, no more running the gauntlet with Milo