The last blog. Except one...

There's really very little that's happened this week...

We put up pictures in the spare bedroom:

And we made crab apple jelly:

Naturally, it's called 'Atlasta Jar Of Crab Apple Jelly'.

So I think this will be the last blog post. Apart from one, sometime yet to be determined, when the floors are in. This may, with a fair wind and fingers crossed, be before Christmas. Or it may not.

We've done pretty well.  We started with this:

And ended with this:

We went through this:

To get to this:

And the kitchen's lovely too...

So, would we do it again?

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

Not in a million years.

I mean, seriously, look how young we were when we started:

We saw things...

That's 'we saw things' as in using a saw, not things wot we have seen.

We've been clearing out the barn which, when the builders left, was full of wood, ply, metal sheets, oak skirting, painted plinths, cement, paint, more paint, internal oil, external oil, guttering, pipes, drain bits... you name it, it was in there.

We had intended to tidy up and seal the floor but well, you know how it is, we kept putting it off...

The weather was good, so we started. Everything tidied out, what was left moved to one end, sealed two-thirds of the floor, wait 24 hours, moved everything to the sealed end, sealed the remaining third. Sorted!

We've even got the tractor back in:

The thing under a cardboard cover at the front is the world's heaviest coffee table. No, you can't see it yet, we have to wait for the house floor to be finished before we can move it. Although we're not altogether sure how we're going to move it...

Once we'd sorted the floor and tidied up, we got going with the saw...

We have old roof tile pallets:

Which, if you chop them up and re-work them, become a store for kindling. 

We have a lot of kindling...

I've also taken over the music room which will, henceforth, be known as the Sewing Room. Hooray! It means I don't have to put away the sewing machine while I'm tackling the curtains.

I think it makes rather a good sewing room.

Yes, those pictures ARE wonky. The kittens like having fights on the back of the sofa bed and the pictures take a bit of a battering. Still, on the bright side, none of them has fallen off the wall yet. The pictures, not the kittens...

Curtains. There has been progress, although it's been slow... There are now 3 Roman blinds upstairs:

I've not made them before so I'm quite chuffed. They fit and they go up and down. That's about all you need really, isn't it?

I have, of course, had help...

The plan for this week is 'more curtains, more curtains and more curtains'. With maybe a cushion or two thrown in for good measure...

We finally have a gate...

Ok, it's fess up time to start with. The curtains aren't exactly galloping along. I've made one Roman blind, but can't hang it until the Velcro has stuck to the rail. I can't make any more until I know from the first one that I've done it right. I've made a start (let's call it planning) on the kitchen curtain (note the singular - it's REALLY been planned) but I need binding tape for the edges, which I don't have. It'll be in on Tuesday. I could have started on the music room curtains but I don't have the eyelets which are still in storage.

Sigh.

Instead, we FINALLY got the stair banisters sorted. Phew. Atlasta banister and all that...

This is what the stairs looked like without it:

And with it.  

Simple, eh?

Well, no, not very simple at all... We've had three revisions, and we still had to saw through 2 inches of unnecessary top fixing.

We had help:

But it does now look lovely. From the top of the stairs too...

The clever thing is that it is hinged, so it opens. Just in case we want to carry an enormous wardrobe up the stairs. Which, at the moment, we don't, but you never know...

All this is, of course, exhausting for kittens.

The flower patch is still going strong (hooray) and this week produced this little lot. I am SO chuffed!

Update on the floor: The concrete STILL isn't dry - we're now looking at having the floor put down in November. Possibly.

Purchases of the week:

Later in October we're going to have 4 guests for dinner, which makes us 6 around the table. We only have 4 chairs...

So we bought two more (thank you IKEA). And I've covered the seats (because I can't get on with the curtains).

Yes, that is a new rug - we bought it for the sitting room but it was too loud. Looks great in the music room though!

Pressies!

We have some lovely friends. They give us things! We have been given very many gorgeous presents for our new house - and they're all perfect!

There's this beautiful crocheted blanket from Theresa - it must have taken MONTHS! It's so soft - I am currently fighting the kittens to see who gets to cuddle up with it. Generally I win.

This is two presents - from two totally separate people yet they work beautifully together. Aren't they clever?

The top uses our party invitation to make a 'New Home' picture - we LOVE it! Guy drew the pictures and I designed the card, so it's lovely to have it framed as a memento. This one was from the lovely Kath...

And the bottom is from Emma Wot Reads This Blog... The hearts at the bottom are for Mopsi, Wooster, Izzy and Fidget. Poor Emma had got this all organised when Ruby died... slight adjustment necessary, so we didn't have the heart to tell her that Izzy had gone too... However, Izzy moved in with us and saw Fidget and Wooster become proper little cats, so it's fitting that she should be included.

This next one is from two ladies at dog training whose names we don't even know - although we do know their little dog is called Jenny! How brilliant is this? We've put it on the shed...

... near the compost bins!

Yes that is a cat disappearing out of the frame - Wooster, we think!

And then this from Mac who lives in the village. When we give people sloe gin as a present it's a very polite bottle. This is a demijohn. We like Mac a lot...

The level was a fair bit higher when he gave it to us - it's very smooth and VERY drinkable...

This next one is a present for Mopsi, not us, and it STILL matches our style and home:

It's a hook - so we keep her collars and dog lead on it in the utility room.  Obviously the kittens have now discovered that they can get the lead off it, which makes Mopsi think she's about to get a walk...

And this from my auntie Annie last Wednesday - it's an old school bell! It came with the instruction 'If one of you rings this the other must come running immediately'. What a brilliant idea! We can see ourselves using it to get the other one in for lunch...

And finally, just to lower the tone a bit...

Yes!!! It's a TOILET sign! The only reason we haven't put it on the outside of the outside loo is that people on the bridle path will think they can use it... This one's from Louise, Mark and Charlie. Thank you!

As you may have gathered from this round up of presents, we haven't done a lot this week.

Next week it's curtains. With help from kittens.

Oh dear.

Sew far, sew good...

After last week when, frankly, we did absolutely nothing, we're back in the swing of things this week.  For me, this means getting to grips with making cushion covers for seats and the window seats.

My pal Alison has made curtains. This is how organised she looked at the beginning:

This is, quite obviously, How You Are Supposed To Do It.

Clearly I hadn't read the manual...

I had help:

And then Wooster joined in...

This clearly wasn't going to work.  However, I'm not entirely stupid, so I waited until the kittens fell asleep.

Sorted!

After everybody got banished, I managed to get the cutting out done and moved on to the sewing machine.

Notice the tongue sticking out in concentration...

Luckily, kittens find all this activity exhausting...

And I managed to actually get something done...

The window seats aren't actually, like, SEWN yet. It's just fabric wrapped around foam.

Works for me.

We decide to veg out...

Now that the build has finished and the party has happened we seem to have lost a little impetus...

We still have a long list of things to do:

Get floorboards
Put in plinths and skirting boards
Choose rugs to go on floorboards
Fit upstand in utility room
Make curtains
Make window seat covers
Put up iron banisters (currently being adjusted to fit by the blacksmith)
Paint one last coat of oil on the oak at the back of the house
Fit chimney top bit
Mow grass, mow paddock, mow other paddock, mow odd little paddock

So what did we do off our list this week? Precisely nothing...

It's been lovely.

We have (oh, OK then, Guy has), however, harvested a LOT of vegetables:

Peas:

Some sort of gourd...

Spinach...

Beans...

Apparently this one's a pumpkin. Looks like another gourd to me...

Strawberries!

Courgettes...

And different coloured courgettes making a bid for freedom outside the raised bed...

And what did we do today? Precisely nothing. We lit the fire, watched the rain go horizontally past the windows and took pretty pictures:

That's Fidget, who met the fire for the first time today. She rather liked it...

We watched the Tour of Britain, excitedly pointing out scenery that we recognised as the poor cyclists pedalled through the wind and rain from Worcester to Cardiff, and we ate the strawberries.

BIG thanks to Emma (her wot reads the blog) for a really lovely present... It had to be slightly adjusted to cope with the death of poor Ruby, and then we didn't have the heart to tell her that this week we also lost Izzy, our eldest, at the grand old age of 19. It's nice to have a reminder of her though, she was here when the house was finished!