Gracie House

So the kitchen sink decided to stop producing hot water, and the lovely man from NPower said it had something to do with the taps.

So we bought some fancy new ones. Kind of space age, and I wasn't sure if I liked them at first, but their growing on me (as much as a tap can after you've seen a £450 brushed chrome tap with a Brita water filter built in).

I know this isn't technically about our house (the one that we own), but about the school's house (the one that we live in), but as its DIY related I'm going to post it anyway, just because it fits.

I've been wanting a chandelier for the bedroom for the longest time (basically since the day we moved in). Actually I want one for the dining room too, but one step at a time...

Anyhow, I found the perfect one - and it was cheap! I didn't want crystals everywhere, because my mum warned me that you have to take them apart regularly to wash them, otherwise they look dull. What I wanted was something rustic, but minimalist. Something that wouldn't look out of place in the BBC Robin Hood series.

Anyway, I found this beauty in IKEA

So we've finally got some tenants in our lovely house.

So we've finally got to a painting stage throughout most of the house. As we now have tenants for September, and they kindly offered to help paint, it's only fair that I let them choose the colours. I am incredibly happy though. They look great.

The front bedroom is now 'dusted damson' which I had my reserves about, but is lovely on.




The hallway has had its second coat of buttermilk ands looking lovely for it.


And from the other angle you can see an 'overtly olive' avocado colour in the kitchen.



The kitchen does need a second coat, but the colour is good.




Into the dining room from the kitchen you can see how patchy the kitchen is, but the dining room is beautiful buttermilk again.


And from there you get just a hint of my very favourite room...



The living room.




This colour is called 'Espresso shot' and boy was it hard to paint on!

It was so patchy and uneven, even with the roller, the first coat seemed to take forever. Fortunately the second coat went on much faster and it's sooo beautiful. I would have done the whole room in this (with a south facing window that extends the entire width of the room it won't look dark) but Christine was nervous, so we ended up doing two walls in this, and two in 'intense truffle'.

I ache all over but it's totally worth it.

Next step is touch ups and skirting boards.
Exciting times...


- Kj
Xxx

Well, it turns out we aren't going to be living in our first house.

The plan had been to lay parquet floor upstairs too, as we had loads of it, but unfortunately it wasn't quite right.

For a start it cost us a lot more (money and time) to adhere, sand and varnish the downstairs floors than we had projected.

Secondly it would be an absolute pain to take up again should anything need rewiring/replumbing. So we decided to go with laminate.

Well actually we were donated some laminate.

It's really nice though. Here's the close up:



You can't really see how deep the colour is, but it's lush.

I should probably wait until we've laid it all and show you the photos, but here is the beginning.




I know it's dark, but that's the hallway going through to the smallest bedroom.

It's got a gorgeous, almost red, sheen to it, and it's textured so it looks like proper wood (as oppose to the laminate that it really is).

It is going down really fast, thanks to the expertise of our friend Richard (who also donated half of it from his rental property).

Can't believe how easy this is compared to the parquet...

- Kj
Xxx

I spent this morning in the garden and I can barely move now!!

That was really hard work. Our entire fence looked like this



And when I pulled all that ivy off inside there was this


Which is a really nasty thorny tree.

Still the hack saw made light work of most of it. I would have taken it all out except I found a birds nest



And it seemed mean to destroy it.

There's so much more light in the kitchen now. It's made an amazing difference. I no longer have to have the lights on in the day!


The fence does look a bit bare, but once I've cleared all the bed at the bottom I will plant something more productive there. I was planning to have a grape vine, but as Elisha is allergic to them, that seems a bit dangerous.

I'm thinking some kind of espalier. Cherry or pear maybe?

Kj
Xxx