Sunday dinner with none of the trimmings

Our Kitchen cabinets have a trim around the tops and bottoms. Not surprisingly in our house, the trim is  not fixed on well. It's coming off in places and it doesn't meet at the corners. So we decided to take it off.

Careful Jon!

Whilst removing the trim from the cabinet above the cooker Jon unplugged the security light which shines into next door's garden but not ours, but is plugged into our electricity through the extractor vent. Oh how well MFI fitted the kitchen, no wonder they went bust. 

Arrrggghhh, in taking the trim off we've exposed green paint! We'll have to do a touch up.

Much better. The kitchen actually looks bigger and brighter without it. We're pondering whether to paint our cabinet doors and this will be much easier without the trim.

House of Pain.

Remember our shed? Here, here and here?

Well this was it the other day.

 Then my dad did this.

 And we suited up like this.

 And my dad did this.

Which looked like this from the outside. 

And this from the inside.

Then we started to wrap up the asbestos roof panels.

 Then we took out the window and celebrated a job well done.

 I nearly died of a twisted ankle when the wood-worm riddled floorboards started to collapse!

Dad got a nail through his foot and we had to put Germolene on it. I didn't take any photos of that. It would have been a bit rude. I think he's OK. I have spoken to him since, and mum said she'd look out for signs of lockjaw, so I'm sure he'll be OK.

Dad balances the broken shed on his nose.

 Heritage alert! - Original green!

 We took two loads of shed bits to the dump.

And now the garden looks like this, innit.

The house gets a bit more homely

Over Christmas Jenny and Stephen gave us some absolutely gorgeous old rugs for the house. It's amazing the difference they've made. The sitting room is so nice and cozy now. I need more time to arrange the others exactly how I want them but I'll let you know when we've found proper homes for them.

Spring bulbs

We were very lucky to get some lovely spring bulbs from surrogate Grandma, Kay Black for Christmas. I managed to get them in the ground before the end of December so I hope we'll have some pretty grape hyacinth around the back door come spring time. 

Thanks also to Kate for the lovely spotty gardening gloves arranged rather artistically (even though I do say so myself) in this shot.

Music/Sewing mash-up!

We had another rethink the other day. With us both (yes; the both of us, thanks!) having hobby/past-times placing demands on our premium E17 space, we realised that something had to give if were ever to have the longed-for and elusive spare room.

 As you can see here, there are keyboards AND sewing machines in the SAME room! 

Admittedly, this is now a lot more cramped than the photo would imply, but...

 ...now we have what you might call a spare room next door.

 The luxurious double-double futon (two layers, for two people) folds up into a sofa for comfortable loft-style living for young, chic, jet-setters whilst interning at famous London auction-houses. Features chill-out zone by the window.

FIRE!

No posts for a while because of Hannah's extended special birthday. Sorry! So, here's some stuff that has happened recently(ish) that we haven't blogged about yet. More stuff to follow soon.

In our shed there was a lot of crap. The previous owner was obviously too scared to go in there because it looks like it's about to collapse and is somehow suspended 6 inches above the ground by a pile of bricks and some ivy (see here). I once went in there and a tomcat who had taken up residence screeched and ran out of a hole in the back, only to return at eye-level on the fence next to me and continue his screechy ways. What I mean to say is that hanging round the shed is a bit scary as plants and animals are actively seeking to return it to nature. It's like Planet of the Apes, or Logan's Run [check memory reference].

However, on one of my expeditions into the shed I found the original [check historical sources] fire surround/mantelpiece. 

I've been cleaning it up and might have to chop out a slightly rotten section. And maybe investigate woodworm treatments/possibility of contaminating our house with woodworm. I don't think the staircase could take a woodworm attack.

Red boudoir

Did I mention we've been to IKEA? We got frames for some our pictures that have spent about a million years in a cardboard tube. Adding this one (a poster from my favourite exhibition ever at Kettle's Yard) to our bedroom wall means we have a bit of a colour theme going on in the boudoir now.

IKEA comes to the kitchen

What did I tell you? We went to IKEA, we bought stuff. In fact we bought loads of stuff. Luckily, Jon had been given some cash for Christmas from his Dad (the famous Dr. Lloyd) so we're not too out of pocket to buy me birthday presents (only 4 days to go!!)

What's Jon making from IKEA?

Oh, it's some shelves. I wonder what they're for...

Marvelous! They hold all our cookery books, pans, veg box and light!