Slouched out!

We have now slouched.

Now we have proper things in the living room, it does show
that door up a bit - maybe we should change it d'ya think?
The other side of it is covered in all sorts of paint as it is where
we cleaned off our paint brushes - quite a work of art you know.
This little oak chest (which Bob made before we moved) is only
here as a temporary coffee table - we have a big lump of elm
to make into a coffee table.

We really weren't sure what size telly to get so we found
a likely-sized picture and put it in a bin bag to see what we
thought it'd look like turned off . . . take the bin bag off and
it becomes a telly turned on!  This could catch on you know -
the picture is probably more interesting than most of the stuff
that's on telly!

So, here's the real thing - took us all afternoon on Monday
to try and work out how to use it!  I have finished the curtain
for the other window, so it's nice and cosy with them drawn.
This cupboard was one of the pieces donated to the cause
by some friends and it fits brilliantly and looks just right.

It has been a strange week really - we are having to learn a new way of living again (like we did moving into the caravan, then again moving out of the caravan and now having more than one 'living' room).  This morning I heard Bob making a coffee before I came down, but then he wasn't in the kitchen so I just assumed he'd gone to the workshop, so I got on with unloading the washing machine, etc and then I found him relaxing in the lounge with his coffee - I didn't even think to look there!  We now have two woodburners to juggle and decisions about which to light.  As it's still quite chilly once the sun's dipped behind the trees,we light both!  The one in the kitchen is useful for cooking and heating water so that gets lit first, but after tea we don't keep it going, we light the other one for the rest of the evening.  We have to walk miles now to re-fill our wine glasses!  Do you think we should get a little fridge in there?!  It still feels a bit like a holiday cottage - we haven't put much in the way of nik-naks and pictures to personalise it yet.  We need to get the rest of our ornaments and pictures out, look at what's already out and have a good think about where everything goes and move things around.

It certainly seems strange not to have all our building paraphanaelia in the house anymore and we have to think where we have re-housed it to.  Where do we store the chicken food now?  Muddy boots, where do they go?  We like it really, don't worry, it's just strange.

So, now Bob's in the middle of making a second single bed for the oak room and should get that finished this week coming.  I have made the quilt covers for them both.  The second mattress should be delivered on Thursday, the second settee should be ready to collect on Wednesday and the second duvet is on order from M&S and should be in on Tuesday - we are using Ben's old mattress and bed which is longer than normal (he is 8ft tall!), so we have had to get a kingsize duvet for the length and then I'll cut it down to single width.

Couple of disasters this week - well, not disasters really just annoyances.  On Friday we went to Shrewsbury for lots of bits and pieces and to have lunch and got a parking ticket.  I sent the cheque off straight away so we only have to pay half, but forgot to put a stamp on - oops, they won't be impressed with that will they?  Yesterday I had the bright idea to dye the white quilt cover for the double bed because it is really quite boring.  I'd quite like to make a patchwork quilt for on that bed one day, but that could be some time off.  So I thought I'd dye it bright red and do some tie-dying into the bargain - cooool!  Just before lots of visitors seemed like a sensible idea to me!  I put three lots of dye in to make it a nice deep colour and spent ages trying to convince myself that the results weren't really pink!  There's no way round it though, it's definitely PINK, very PINK! So, today while Bob was off in Bolton looking at lathes I went back to Dunhelm (second time in two days) and was so thankful that they had lovely bright red quilt covers - phew!  Disaster averted.

On Friday we had an amazing rainbow which lasted
absolutely ages.  This picture really doesn't do
it justice - it was beautiful.

Back to work tomorrow!

Tomorrow we can slouch!

I'm so excited - tomorrow we can move the settee into the lounge.  Just how darned posh is that?!!!!  I worked different hours last week and so worked the early shift on Thursday and then when I got home we started laying the floorboards.  We started either side of the hearth which is the most awkward bit to do and so we were quite pleased to get that bit all worked out and cut to shape and ready to glue together on Friday morning.  We were also quite pleased with our cunning design for the hearth.  To allow for the boards expanding and contracting, you are supposed to allow a bit of a gap all round the edges.  In a normal room, this would be hidden by the skirting board which is put on after.  Now, obviously, skirting board would look a bit silly round this brick hearth, but equally so would a gap round it.  So, when we laid the bricks for the hearth Bob built a little frame slightly smaller than the finished size and a bit higher than the thickness of the floorboards and underlay and filled that with concrete then built the hearth on top.  This meant that when we took the frame away, the bricks were 'floating' above the screed and we could tuck the floorboards underneath so there's no gap to be seen, but there's still an expansion gap hidden underneath.
When you are laying floor boards it is always recommended that you buy extra to allow for wastage - little bits you have to cut off so the boards fit, but are too small to use.  Our floor area pretty-well matched the coverage given by whole packs and at £75 a pack we decided to ignore the wastage allowance advice and hope it all worked out OK.  It did mean we had to be really careful all the way through to use every offcut and make sure we didn't have any bits less than a foot long.  That, along with trying to ensure the joins didn't form a pattern and that the few boards with scratches would be under the settees, meant that a lot of thinking and planning ahead had to be done.  But we got on quite well and got it all done on Friday and were very pleased not to have to go and buy an extra pack just to finish the last six inches which is what we were dreading - look, this is all we had left!  Phew we got away with it again! 

Bob's socks were either too fluffy or too dusty for doing
this job - don't want sock fluff as a permanent feature
of the floor! 

We then had to leave it all alone for the glue to dry properly.  We just ran a bead of glue inside the groove of each board which got pushed in by the tongue when they were pushed together.  They are not actually fixed down to the floor, but should stay where they are because of their own weight and the weight of the furniture.  Yesterday we put the first coat of the oil/wax mixture on to seal them.  It was Bob's birthday, but if you are going to do a job on your birthday, this is a really good one to do.  It doesn't take long, is really easy and is very satisfying.  It's like magic as you paint it on and it brings out the grain and colour of the wood and completely transforms the floor.  I think I've said before, it reminds me of the magic painting page in the Rupert annuals we used to get when we were little where you just paint water on the picture and the colours appear by magic.  It also reminds me of our summer occupation when my sister and I were about 3 and 4 - Mum would give us a bucket of water and a big paint brush and we would spend hours painting the concrete garage and paths and then start all over again!  Today we put the second coat on and that will be dry by the morning and we can put the settee in!  Whoop, whoop!  Yeah!!  WooHoooo!!!  Tomorrow we can slouch!  We might go and look at tellies too and so we'll have our great big, massive 80" TV in there . . . . . . well no, OK, it's not going to be that big, but it will be bigger than the tiny one we've been watching for the last four and a half years and we might not have to leap out of our seats to read any captions or writing shown!  I am  little bit excited.

The little tiny windows are also in between the lounge and the two bedrooms.  These were draft holes in the barns and we didn't want to brick them up, but obviously the bedrooms need privacy.  So, we got a local glass artist to make little glass panels with coloured bits in so they are opaque.  She also incorporated some of the original roofing nails into them.  We got these years ago and kept them safe all the time we were in the caravan and through moving in until a few months ago when we broke one - oops! 



We thought we might try and get a little candle holder
on a spike that sticks into the wall for here . . .
is that called a pricket?

This window has a little light behind it and there was
supposed to be another piece of glass on the other
side, but that is the one we broke and so . . . .

. . . Bob has made a tiny oak frame and added an old
iron bar so it looks like some of the little windows or
arrow-slits in castles.  Or, a tiny little prison - I might
get a little troll or something to live in there!

As I said, yesterday was Bob's birthday (the big 50, but don't tell everyone).  After a lie-in and breakfast in bed while he opened presents and cards, we pottered around for a bit and got a picnic together and then went for a walk.  It was a beautiful sunny, warm day which was lovely after recent snow and big winds.  The Spring flowers are picking up and the hedge banks are full of primroses, celandines, wood anemones and forget-me-nots.  We had our picnic sitting on the panoramic pointer stone on the top of a hill.  I'm sure they have a proper name, but I can't think of it.  It's a big stone with an engraved metal plate on top with the profile and names of all the surrounding hills and mountains, so you know what you're looking at.  Anyway, amazing views and usually we don't see anyone up there.  Yesterday though it was quite busy and we had to keep moving our picnic in case anyone wanted to look at the plaque.  This walk was a bit of a test of my knee which actually held up very well and didn't give me much trouble which is good, even after doing a fair bit of kneeling the day before laying floorboards.  When we got home we oiled the floor then, after a cuppa and a piece of birthday carrot cake we had a nap - it's tiring having a lazy day you know!  In the evening we walked to the pub in the village and had a really nice meal and a few pints.  All in all a very nice lazy day.

Today we've been doing some furniture restoration on a piece some friends gave us.  It was supposed to be a fairly quick smarten up job, just sanding out some water marks then oiling and waxing it. Trouble is it just about fell apart when we took the drawers out and so we ended up pretty much taking it apart.  It is now all sanded though and glued back together and in clamps.  It shouldn't take long to finish it off and then it can go in one of the bedrooms.


Tomorrow we slouch!

Catch Up

Well, the snow has almost gone at long last.  There are still some patches stubbornly hanging on.  The weather has actually been pretty good for the last few days with lots of sunshine and, if it wasn't for the melting snow, it might actually feel like Spring.  I'm hoping that the plants and wild flowers will suddenly spring into life, but there's not much sign in our little bit of woodland which is usually carpeted in wood anemone, violet and sorrel leaves ready to thow out flowers any time.  The primroses seem to have thrived and we have plenty of those and there are lots of bluebell leaves, so we'll see.

We have a job to do to fix the gutters which couldn't hold the weight of all that snow for so long.  Some of the rise and fall brackets are actually bent at right angles and the spikes in the wall are bent downwards meaning that the gutters are almost hanging off and not really very effective.  Course, the parts we can easily get to are fine and it is only the bits above the extension where it is right awkward to get to that need dealing with . . . .ho hum!

Talk about cutting it fine, this is how much tile
adhesive Bob had left when he finished the
floor!

So, what else have we been up to?  Well, poor Bob had to do the floor in the oak room all by himself as my knee is still not right.  Despite a second trip to the doctors for a second opinion and me asking him very nicely to please tell me it wasn't arthritis, it appears that it is which is a bit of a bugger really.  I've been taking ibuprofen for a couple of weeks and have been on till-duty only at work and it is much better than it was, but i guess it's something I'll just have to learn to live with (concrete over the garden and put ramps in everywhere!!!).  Anyway, nuff of that . . . . Bob did the floor in the oak room and so that is the end of the tiling and we just have the oak floorboards in the lounge left to lay and we are going to get on with that at the end of this week - I think that will probably make the most difference of just about anything we've done.

The end bedroom is now habitable and has been christened by Jan, Bob's stepmum, who stayed on Monday night.  Jan and I went up to Scotland for a couple of days to see Laura (at the Tibetan Centre near Lockerbie) which was really nice - it was the first time Jan had been and so Laura could give us the tour which was interesting even though I've seen it all before.




This curtain took a bit of planning - the bottom
of it is at head height, so it couldn't be just an
ordinary one.  Thankfully, it works quite well!

The others were much easier - I'm really pleased with the
material, even though Bob thinks the little hearts on it
are a bit girly!

Bob has been working hard on all the little wooden bits we need to finish things off like the tops of steps, tiny frames for the glass in the draught holes between the loung and the two bedrooms, pattress plates for curtain pole brackets, shelves, etc, etc.  At the moment we have bits of oak of all shapes and sizes all over the place.  I have a picture in my head of Bob with a stack of bits in his arms flinging them out from the centre of the room and they magically fall into place and everything gets finished all at once.  Might not be quite that dramatic, but it should all come together quite quickly.

Just for a very short time (while Bob was doing the oak room
floor) we had a settee in the lounge.  As soon as we saw it, we
immediately sat on it, closed our eyes and imagined the luxury -
lovely, even though it didn't have the cushions on it!  We've ordered
the second settee (bright red one from DFS) and we should have that
in a couple of weeks.

At last, the chaps came to fit the woodburner last week.
We had to wait a few days before we lit it to let the mortar
round the flue dry out naturally.  So, we had the first ceremonial burn
on Monday evening using the rest of the sticks we found in the bread oven to
light it - they'd been there about 30 years, so were properly dried out! It
did a good job of warming the room and also the end bedroom.
It was actually really exciting - a snug and comfy lounge is now
so close . . . can't wait! 

The Chickens seem to have used the snow as an excuse to go on strike and three of them aren't laying at all.  Good old Horse is the only one we can rely on!

Oh, nearly forgot to tell you, we saw a Red Kite over the quarry the other day.  Having lived in Northamptonshire where there was a big re-introduction programme and we got so used to seeing them all over the place, it was really exciting to see one here.  It is only the third we've seen since we've been here.  It looked as if it was just passing through rather than looking for somewhere to live, but you never know.