Really the last post!

It's 18 months since we said we were nearly finished...

The floors did get put in just before Christmas 2017 - we even had a Christmas tree...

The cottage was SO cosy and festive, it was truly lovely.

We brought the incredibly heavy coffee table down from the barn - we pushed it across the grass which was relatively easy (it has wheels), then had to wheel it on planks across the gravel - think Wallace & Gromit laying railway track in The Wrong Trousers. Yep, you've got the idea!

The wonky end is what we in the interior design business call 'quirky'...

We had so much garden to fill that some of our lovely neighbours gave us plants - a LOT of plants. We were told to 'split and separate' them. We didn't, we  (OK, Guy) just dug large holes and bunged them in. Everything has thrived so that now we have a beautiful garden. It's mostly hardy geraniums, sedum and alchemilla mollis (Lady's Mantle!) so we hope it will largely look after itself.

We bought a ride-on mower (essential) which is brilliant...

Part of the huge beech behind the house fell down and we turned it into a bench... Guy did the digging...

We reckon it took us about a year to recover - yes, really! And we're still never going to do it again.

Welsh Oak Frame (WOF - yay!) recently asked if they could feature us as a case study on their website - we said yes! They sent a photographer (the absolutely fabulous Nikhilesh Haval) and we now have the most beautiful photos of our beautiful house. 

We'll leave the final word to the photos themselves...

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!