Kitchen Tiling Is Finished!

My parents were back from France for a fleeting visit at the weekend and it was lovely to see them. While Dad stayed with us he very kindly finished the tiling in our kitchen and just left me a little bit of grouting to do which I got finished the other evening; I can now add grouting to my growing list of DIY skills!


I was quite worried that the 'Pistachio green' tiles would be too bold but now they're finished I love them! The contrast with the 'soft stone' coloured walls and the white grout is lovely and is made the kitchen feel jazzy, modern and clean. These are what they call subway tiles and were from Wickes, surprisingly good value too and came in an array of colours (subway-style tiles seem to be rather expensive). I love it!

The house decorating is really starting to make a difference now; it might seem a bit slower than I'd hoped but work and other commitments as well as finances mean you can't do everything all at once! The house is starting to look like we had imagined anyway; cleaner, tidier and full of the things we love. Jack still looks exasperated when I bring out the list of all the other things to do on the house and garden... it's about three A4 pages long! Thankfully there's not a lot left to do in the kitchen; I bought a new roller blind from Dunelm yesterday so that needs putting up, I'm yet to finish sprucing up a plain cork notice board that hangs in the kitchen, then we just need a few accessories like a display shelf and clock, and then it's all finished in there. It already has a nice tiled floor so it's easy to sweep and clean - I love tiled floors!

I'm yet to silicone around the bottom of the tile line (before anyone points it out!)

Onto the next house decorating task!


Em x

Easter Weekend

Morning all, I hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend with family and friends, ate lots of chocolate and hopefully none were too affected by storm Katie! We had gales and torrential rain all of Saturday daytime and night time and woke up to find the two new fence panels we'd bought had been thrown half way around the garden (they've not been fitted yet and were leaning against the conservatory) Thankfully they are still in one piece and my plants had managed to avoid being squashed.

I did Roast leg of English Lamb on Friday, cooked with rosemary and garlic and some white wine too. It made the tastiest gravy!

Friday however was a beautiful day and we spent most of it outdoors with Jack's parents who had arrived on Thursday evening. Sarah did some gardening for me while I was cooking us a tasty roast Lamb dinner. Jack and Richard managed to lay electrics to the shed and we now have plug sockets and a working light in there which is great. I've also now got a plug socket in the conservatory so we've moved the tortoise's table into there as they will soon be spending the daytime outside and just coming in to sleep at night for the warmer months of the year (before hibernating in the winter). We now have a big space in the dining area of our living/dining room so our small dining table now looks tiny. I hope to get a bigger dining table soon, but it all costs money and we can't do it all at once. We keep an eye out in the local community project centre where you can take old furniture as we've picked up a few bargains from there in the past.

The Torts enjoyed their first proper day outside of this year in their run, lovely sunshine!

Jack's parents headed home on Saturday morning, so Jack and I braved a trip to Wickes in the pouring rain to get a few bits we needed while there was 15% off. They had 15% on top of the deals they already had in place so we then came home and ordered tiles that we'd seen in store that we liked. We've got some big square 'taupe' ceramic floor tiles to do the conservatory floor and we have finally chosen the tiles we want for the splash-back area of the kitchen and have gone with some lovely subway tiles in 'pistachio green'.

Jack had to work on Sunday and Monday so I was on my own and wanted to make the most of the time off of work to get back into the swing of decorating as there's still so much to do in the house. As we now have the kitchen tiles arriving this week and my Dad coming to do the tiling in a few weeks' time, I was conscious that I needed to get on with painting the kitchen in anticipation of the tiling. The kitchen was probably the grubbiest room when we first moved in and the walls were full of huge holes where things had been moved around over the years. We were very lucky that the kitchen was nice and modern though so it's saved us a lot of money in terms of needing to replace it and all the kitchen needed was a thorough clean and spruce up. I spent the last two days scrubbing, filling holes, sanding and then painting! I had to shut Barry in his crate while doing the decorating because he loves his Mummy so much that he wouldn't leave me alone and kept coming into the kitchen to have a scratch and send his hairs flying into the wet paint!! He loves his crate though and by shutting him in he realises he can see me but that he can finally have a snooze.

Clearing, Moving, Cleaning, Filling, Sanding, Painting, Glossing and putting back together again! This is the start...

... And the finished look. We went with 'soft stone' on the walls and then we're being bold and going with a 'pistachio green' tiled splash-back area. I can't wait to get a new oven too - this one is over 12 years old and on its last legs (no working grill, oven can be hit and miss too!), but it's served us well since moving in.

It's back to normal today; a quiet-ish day at work before the next month end arrives and outside of work I've got more decorating jobs to do; I want to make a start on freshening up the two hall cupboards. One sits next to the kitchen and we think we might turn this into a pantry (I do have a lot of kitchen appliances and cookware after all), so it just needs some holes and blemishes filling and sanding, a lick of paint and then shelving putting up. We also then have a much larger cupboard which we hope to turn into a downstairs toilet. We're just waiting to save up a few more pennies before we get builders and plumbers out to work out the feasibility of it all. It could mean digging up floors and a lot of mess so we will see. That cupboard I intend to paint for the meantime so it's tidy. At the moment we just use it to store our bikes, shoes and coats so it really is a very big cupboard and would be perfect to be a WC/Cloakroom.

A quiet week is planned here and then Jack goes on his annual rugby tour with his rugby team. They're off to Edinburgh this year; lots of beer and not as much rugby is involved I think! My brother's girlfriend Jenna is coming to stay for a girly weekend, so that will be nice.

Hope you all have a lovely week!

Em x

Hello February; Bargains, Cooking and Lots Going On!

 

Morning All, did you all have a nice weekend? Where did it go?? Weather wasn't too bad for us here in West Berkshire; sunshine prevailed on Saturday which meant Jack could get on with shed jobs while I got on with indoor jobs with all windows flung open to give the house a good dose of fresh air.

 

We bagged ourselves a bargain on Saturday and I have to tell you about it. There are perks to living in a tiny village and when I spotted on the village Facebook group that someone was getting rid of a dresser I jumped at it. We've been after a dresser for some time and having seen that prices start at about £700 for the ones we liked in Oak Furniture Land we decided a pre-loved dresser would do perfectly for us (even if just for the interim until we'd saved some money). Sadly someone beat me to it on the post and so I didn't think we'd be successful until the dresser owner messaged me late on Friday night to say the other interested party didn't want it as it was too big, result for us! We arranged to pop round to their house on Saturday morning to have a look and it was so funny to be greeted by a lovely gentleman we've already met a number of times up at the field with his lovely yellow Labs who Barry loves to play with. He recognised us too as "Barry's owners" and we had a good chat before having a look at the dresser which is beautiful! He and his wife had it bespoke made and it's a stunning solid oak dresser. They have however changed their mind about it and no longer want it, it's not very old either and looks brand new. He refused to take any money for it despite the fact it must have cost them well over £1000 to have it made and he was ever so helpful in helping us move it to our house. Jack borrowed the work van which was a huge help as the dresser is extremely heavy but it looks amazing in the dining area of our living/dining room and I'm in love! I was so grateful for Chris helping us move it and still refusing any payment, so I ran round later that day with a bottle of wine for him and his wife by way of at least saying some extra thanks, to which he was very grateful. I can't wait to start arranging some things in the dresser; as yet we've just stored all the drinks and wine glasses in it, but I can finally get my ornaments out of the loft and put them on it. I've got a beautiful little Murano glass horse that Jack bought me in Venice; we even watched it being made on Murano Island, so it's a very special ornament to me. I love a bargain/freebie!

 

The beautiful solid oak dresser in its new home! Excuse the plug socket beside it, Jack pointed out to me that I'm yet to fill and sand this - cheeky little...!!

 

So as you can tell, I'm very pleased with how lucky we are to have this lovely piece of furniture in our house and I can't wait to get decorating the living/dining room so it really sits proud. It was definitely the highlight of my weekend. We didn't do too much else this weekend; Jack had to work on Sunday so I got on with planning our meals for this week and had a good cook-up. We had a whole chicken to use which I cooked for our lunches and dinner this week; I roasted some lovely vegetables too so we've got chicken and roasted veg couscous for lunch at work this week, nice and healthy :) I cooked a pork joint too and as always the crackling is my favourite bit! We've got pork stir fry for dinner tonight with the leftovers and I think it'll easily stretch to do some sliced pork warmed up in my homemade gravy with mash - one of my favourite dinners! I also made Jack a healthy granola. I made it just the same as the recipe on my recipe page here, only it's a healthier version made with coconut oil instead of butter and no sugar, just a splash of maple syrup. I didn't chop the nuts up this time either, decided to leave them whole (mostly because I was being lazy!) and Jack enjoyed it for breakfast this morning with fat free yoghurt, he's on a health kick and being a good boy.

 

Lovely colours of the vegetables for roasting

We've got lots planned this month and seem to have something on every weekend which is a bit unheard of for us; we much prefer the quieter life at home. I'm looking forward to this weekend as I'm going to a pottery painting studio local to us with a couple of my friends. I can't decide what to paint and will probably end up doing more than one piece! I'd love to do a personalised food bowl for Barry and perhaps a small vase too... watch this space, I'm sure I'll blog about it early next week. We're also off to the Harry Potter Studios later this month which I'm very excited about, I'm a big Harry Potter fan and I loved the books and films. I've also been busy scribbling notes in an empty notebook I found of what I want to achieve in the garden this year; I'm going to put another spreadsheet together (another one you say!) so I can keep note of when I planted seeds, where I intend to put them etc. and at least then I can hopefully look back on the success rate next year. That's the intention anyway! I also only have 3 weeks left at my current job before I start my new job, which is very exciting (and also very daunting too!!). We're also having a day out in Bristol for Valentines, I'm itching to go to Bath too but I'm not sure we'll have time in just one day. So lots going on this month and lots of being positive and happy :-) What plans do you have for this month? Are you making the most of the extra day we get this month? Don't forget pancake day, Jack's favourite day of the year!

Have a good week everyone

Em x