Ladies toilet

The weekend before last we went to Stamford in Lincolnshire. When we arrived we had coffee at the George, an old coaching inn - what a lovely place.

The reason for this post is to show you the Ladies!! Having visited the loo I had to get my camera and take some photos. This must be one of the poshest Ladies in the UK (unless you know otherwise.....) These murals are wonderful. The curtain to the window is then painted exactly the same on the mural. You may not be able to read the make of hairdrier but it says 'Da Vinci' on the side!

I'm wondering whether to have something like this when we decorate the bathroom!!!!!!!!

Eiderdowns and a Rain Hopper!

I have been buying rather a lot of eiderdowns lately to keep for myself displayed along the top of the cupboards in our bedroom. The one on the left is the first I ever bought and the other two are recent acquisitions.

I cheated on the decorating in this bedroom by painting over the wallpaper but it actually looks ok. The artexed ceiling still has to be skimmed (just visible in the photo with fan shapes!!) and I haven't painted the floorboards yet.

Next month we celebrate our pearl wedding anniversary (30 years). The picture on the mirror is one I made several years ago from an anniversary card hubby had given me as I thought it was so lovely. When I showed him he asked 'That's lovely, who gave you that?!! And I thought it had been carefully chosen for these words!

Because hands are meant to be held

Because lips are meant to be kissed

Because words are meant to be spoken

Because tears are meant to be wiped away

Because dreams are meant to be realized

Because love is meant to be nurtured

Because life is meant to be shared -

Because we are meant to be together.

I have spent the last week painting over the wallpaper on the stairs, hall and landing. After the wall coming off with the paper in the lounge I didn't dare risk that happening again. It was all a shade of dark green which has taken 5 coats of white paint to cover!

The next photo will either have a reaction of 'That's awful!' or 'Ingenious!'. I think I like it, hubby does; I think I can safely say it's different. We couldn't find any wall lights we liked for the stairs and landing so hubby decided to polish up an old rain hopper and attach it to the wall over a light fitting and voila!!

What do you think? Now be honest!

Beachcombing

We had originally intended going to the architectual salvage fair at Knebworth on Sunday but woke up too late and felt disinclined to drive all that way so settled for a bit of beachcombing instead (a lot cheaper!).

Several years ago I saw some pigs made out of driftwood at 'The Eden Project' and came home and asked hubby to make me one. Here it is

He also made a heron which acted as a scarecrow for the real one who kept stealing our fish but this didn't survive the recent removal. Wonder what our latest haul will turn out to be....

We also like finding stones with holes all the way through. These are known as 'hag stones' or 'holy stones' in Dorset and 'fairy stones', 'eye stones' or 'witch stones' in other parts of the UK. In bygone days people used to hang these over their doorways to ward off evil spirits. Farmers used to tie them around their horses necks as they believed witches used to tie knots in their manes, use this as stirrups and ride their horses during the night. This practice was known as being 'hag-rod' (I suppose this is where the term haggard comes from).

I leave you with a few roses picked from the garden. Have a lovely week.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I really don't have time to post as often as I would like and I feel really guilty about not commenting on people's blogs every time I read them. Life is very busy on the domestic scene what with all the decorating and trying to keep the garden tamed. We have been really busy on the website too so I'm afraid blogging is taking rather a back seat. I did contemplate taking a rest for a while (from blogging!!) but have decided to try to keep going.

The decoration in one of the living rooms is still on going and I keep changing my mind about the colour scheme and 'look' that I want. I now have almost as many Farrow & Ball matchpots as Homebase and could probably have paid a decorator with what I have spent on them! I don't have an 'After' photo yet but here are the 'Before' and 'In between' images.

Yuk!

When I stripped the wallpaper off the old plaster fell off too so we had to call back the plasterer who had skimmed over the artexed ceilings to come back to do the walls. He asked me to remove any loose plaster in preparation. It turned out that most of it was so I was up to the early hours pulling off chunks of wall with my wallpaper stripper (hubby managed to be away!)

This is now as far as we have got but I hope to be posting photos of the finished room very soon though the colour palette may change several times before I do!

A friend who lives just 5 minutes away has had this fire surround in her garden ever since she moved there seven years ago. She was more than willing for us to take it away as I just love its sun bleached and shabby look. We won't be using it in this room but it will definitely be used elsewhere.

Changing the subject completely I thought I would post a photo of this little workbox I did a makeover on this week. It would look great in our bedroom but I have put it on the website instead.

Back Again

It is 4 weeks ago today that we moved house and, although trying to keep up with reading your blogs, I haven't had time to leave comments or write a new post ...till now. The move went so smoothly with no breakages (I did all the packing); the removal men worked like beavers and had to call in reinforcements as they had underestimated how much we had! Apart from the length of time it took to sell our old house there really weren't any hiccups at all (which I think may be unusual) but it did help that there were only three of us in the chain.

I absolutely LOVE it here and am so happy. Everything is perfect (apart from the fact that every room needs decorating). Our old house was relatively new but I have always preferred older houses. This was built in 1901 so I don't know if it would be classed as Victorian or Edwardian. There are still a few old features but modernisation has crept in too much and we need to put the house back to how it should be. Two days after we moved in we had someone plastering over the artexed ceilings. I have more or less finished decorating our bedroom (apart from the floor) and when I pulled up the carpet I found these tiles where the fireplace had been (I have since discovered similar ones in two other bedrooms).

I want white painted floorboards in this room so am unsure whether I actually need to strip them back to bare wood first or whether I can just paint over them (any advice would be very welcome).

I have painted the bedroom walls white and the accessories are mainly dark red. Laura Ashley sell a lovely chandelier in this colour which is £150. When I went on their website it is out of stock so I bought a can of spray paint (suede effect) and sprayed a metal chandelier I had bought on ebay for £2.20. Here it is - not bad for under a tenner and it matches the Laura Ashley rugs perfectly!

This is the view from where I am at this moment sitting in the office .

The garden is totally different from the one at our old house which was more architectual with grasses and trees rather than flowers. This garden is full of roses and very cottagey. The soil here suits these lilies and there are serveral large clumps of them which everyone admires.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you! Back to the paintbrush and I'll post some before and after photos as the rooms are completed.

Poison Ring

I had forgotten all about this ring. My father bought it for me a long time ago as he knew I liked silver. He hadn't realised that it is actually a poison ring as the side is hinged to reveal a secret place to place any poison! Just open the ring and tip it into a drink, just like you 've seen it in old films! Apparently it is Mexican. I've never come across one before or since and wonder if it was ever used!!!!!

(Short posts at the moment as I am still packing...... 4 days till removal day!

Apropos of my blogging about leaving three items I'd paid for at a car boot sale Ragged Roses tells of actually leaving her car behind after a car boot and only realising the next day! This prompted me to ask 'What is the funniest story you have about forgetting something?' I once forgot I'd left my dog tied up outside a shop till one and a half hours later the shop telephoned me to ask me to collect him. When I told this story to someone they 'black catted' me by saying they had actually left their baby in a pram outside a shop (in the days when this was quite normal practice) whilst they walked home!

How could I have forgotten little Geordie, sadly no longer with us?