Super Shelves

Well we have had a lot of radio silence. Sorry, it's that nursery inhabitant sucking up all our time. Also there are big plans afoot for the House of Love, so everything's kind of on hold until we know what's happening there.

But a while ago we did enlist Dr. Lloyd to put up some shelves for us in the sitting room.

Jon is pleased because now the books will hide this bit of plaster that he's never got round to finishing off and sanding down.

Now we can display all our books (well the ones that make us look clever anyway).

Bolt!

So like all well designed bathroom doors ours is made of glass and doesn't have a bolt. We find it adds to the excitement for visitors to the House of Love; never sure if someone will walk in on you or watch you through the glass. But apparently people actually find this unsettling!

Luckily, on a trip to see the new Grandchild, Stephen brought along his bolt collection.

Inspecting the door - forgot to mention it doesn't close properly either.

Planning away some of the wood will help. 

Stephen supervises Jon's work.

neither of these ones will fit.

bingo!

We've put it really high up so Patrick Jones can't lock himself in and necessitate calling out the fire brigade.

From keyboards to yellow trugs

Not only has Jon been kicked out of his room but now his keyboard storage system has been repurposed too; Jon and his Dad used it to make some new shelves. 

Coat hooks

For over 2 years, we've kept our coats on the louvre doors into the kitchen. Not any more!

Stephen brought us down some lovely wood and old hooks to make an amazing coat rack.

I managed to persuade them not to drill on the coffee table, so they did it on the hall floor instead. Jon nearly drilled through the laminate but not quite - phew!

positioning the rack

AMAZING!

Composting

While I was spending a few days swanning around Pisa with my cousin, Jon got his parents over to the House of Love to put in some work. I came back to a tidied front garden (how does it get so messy and weed-strewn?), some lovely new daisy-like flowers in the back garden, and my longed-for second compost bin.

This means I'll be able to move my compost from one bin to the other getting lots of lovely air in there to help the bacteria break everything down that little bit quicker. It also means I can have one compost bin for collecting and one for using, no more having to decant the compost bin into bags!

They sensibly built the new bin over the MASSIVE tree stump in the garden thereby using up some otherwise dead space.

Look, it's got a special door to help me get at all that lovely compost.

What a stylish compost bin, made from reused pallets don't you know.

So now I have a black bin to put all the yuk in while it breaks down and a nice wooden bin for all the lovely tasty nearly ready compost to do it's last rotting.

Stephen's new business

I have to admit this post is rather delayed. Non-virtual visitors to our house will know that we've had this standard lamp for ages. But I've not quite been satisfied with the arrangement until now, so I've held off posting about it. But now here is it, our new standard lamp.

It's actually the result of Stephen's new business venture, post dentistry. At the suggestion of Charlotte (my sister-in-law) Stephen is running a finding service. This is how it works

1. You instruct Stephen to find you something and give him a budget - you have to give him the money at this point
2. Stephen trawls the car-boot sales and charity shops of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire
3. Stephen gives you what he's found for you and keeps any change (that's how he makes some profit)

Unfortunately, the business hasn't been so successful so far. He's got happy customers: Charlotte and James got a new teapot (complete with cups, sugar bowl and milk jug) for £5 and we got this lamp for £10. But Stephen only made 1p from the teapot project and he gave that back to Charlotte. I think Jenny needs to take over the management side of the business and free Stephen up for more boot-sale visiting.

More space for marmite

A last minute midweek visit from the parents Lloyd gave us an unexpected opportunity to put Stephen to work again. After putting up some shelves in the kitchen, we promptly filled them with stuff. So we needed more shelves, especially for Jon's expanding Marmite collection.

The latest addition to the collection

Easy morning porridge here we come

This is an interesting space on the kitchen counter.....

Whoopie, a microwave from Dr. Lloyd to make early morning porridge that little bit easier. I haven't had a microwave since I left home so I'm not sure what else to do with it. What do you lot use your microwaves for?

Space for spices

The boys just didn't feel like they'd done enough drilling recently, so they put up some nice shelves in the kitchen.

They're going to be where we keep all our spices so they are in easy reach of the cooker and not all stuffed in a box in the cupboard so you forget what you have and just use cumin in everything. Actually I quite like cumin so I don't mind so much.

I think I might put some hooks in the bottom too so I can hang tea-towels off them to warm up and dry out over the radiator.

Making the house a little warmer

Jon and Stephen added a draft excluder to the back door in the kitchen. Hopefully that will make it all a little warmer.

The wooden hills

Since when we moved in there has been a rather unattractive, and not altogether sturdy, banister on our stairs. Now with an impressive 45 degree angle, you want a banister you can trust. Also, Tim and Laura got one so we got a bit jealous. Jon and the ever amazing Dr. Lloyd set about replacing our banister.

This is a big hole that was left after removing the old banister. As you can see below, our wall is clearly made out of a bit of old wood and wattle and daub 

(this may not actually be true, I may be exagerating a bit)

But it was quite hard for the dynamic duo to find anything to give our new banister some purchase. That meant there was a lot of prospective drilling.

and here it is! On the wall to help us mountaineer up the wooden hills to Bedfordshire.

or down, if that's the way we're going.

Another surface to collect tea-stained mugs and dust

What's Stephen doing with our fireplace?

He's screwing it into the wall so it doesn't fall over when people lean on it. Wonderful.

Pre-snow tidy.

With shed gone, me and my dad had left a big old mess in the garden. I didn't really care, but Hannah gets annoyed about these things. As usual, I put my dad to work while I pretended to busy myself with important stuff and taking the occasional photo.

 We reassembled the incinerator used by the previous occupant for the disposal of human remains, and got our flame on!

 Rotten wood and the remnants of corpse go up a treat!

 From what I can make out, it was totally legal, innit. (5th bullet-point down - WE considered it essential, and no one complained, so technically it wasn't a nuisance - take that local government!).

Our neighbours must love us. It was too cold for people to have their washing out, so we didn't stink out all their clothes though. I did leave the bedroom window open, so the curtains and all our clothes are still a bit bonfirey. That'll learn me.

 Apparently, there's a patio underneath the weeds and rubbish!

 Bonfire, still.

 This is where barbecues will happen. And maybe Pimms drinking in Summer. It's also where I'll probably lounge to get my Vitamin Ds.

 Here, you can see that the sun is setting and there are some pleasant shadow/light motifs.

 Swept the path a bit.

 This is our house.

I've been doing things too!

With all this news of Jon and Stephen's hard work I decided I was feeling a bit left out. So to prove I have been doing things too, albeit on a smaller scale, I thought I better give you an update on the bedroom.

For my 30th birthday my Mum gave me this beautiful patchwork quilt she made in the 70s - notice the purple. I love this because each patch has a story. I spent a morning with my Mum and her sister Ruth one day, when the quilt was on my Mum's bed, going through all the patches and hearing about the dresses they came from. My Mum and Ruth used to be a bit of a pair when they were younger so every dress had an attached story (and sometime boy)! 

Other new additions come in the form of another one of the lovely rugs from Jenny and Stephen. And two new bedside tables, also from J&S. We had been thinking about using shelves as bedside tables to free up floor space but these are so lovely I think we'll keep them.

Jon also bought himself a new light. There's no bulb in it yet but it looks good none the less.

On reflection Jon carried the tables up and put them in place. And he fixed his light on. And he helped me put the quilt on the bed. So really this post hasn't shown me doing any work at all. Apart from turning 30 and getting a present.