Its the Weekend!

I am so glad it is the weekend.............and that my Missy Moo, who has been off sick from school all week, seems a lot better.

Firstly, a big thank you to all those who gave me crochet tips and websites to look at.  I have had a quick look, but have started an Easter cross stitch kit from Hobbycraft, so will finish that before getting stuck into crochet.

We are having an understairs cupboard fitted today.  So we are all huddled in the living room with the fire on.  No point having the heating on, as the front door is constantly open. It will be so nice to have a space to store coats, ironing board, hoover - anything that needs to be hidden away!  So I am sitting here taking the header tapes off of the gingham curtains I bought from Argos, ready to start covering Missy Moo's screen.


I have also just received 2 of my many house magazines - Ideal home and Country Homes & Interiors.  Between me and my friend, we buy/subscribe to all of the house magazines every month and then lend them to each other!  I really am hooked on interiors!  Once I get mine back, they get stored in the garage until I have time to go thru them ripping out and filing away "interesting" pages.

There was a new mag out last month that was really quite good.  Will have to dig it out to recommend it to you.  I will be adding that to my list. The amount of money we must spend on magazines...........best not think about it!


Have a good weekend
-x-

Crochet tips

Just a quick blog before I go off to work.

I am determined to learn how to crochet this year and I would really love to make a blanket.  I tried knitting last year, but it is too slow for me - I like to see an instant result!

So I learnt, on you tube, how to crochet a flower.  But now I would like to learn how to do some of those fancy squares, to eventually make a blanket.

I have had a quick search and cant find any that are really user friendly.  Just wondering if any of you lovely ladies would be able to point me in the right direction or give me some tips.

Must go now..............

Bye for now

Missy Moo's room

When we moved in, the second size bedroom had built in wardrobes.  Good, you might think.......but no they were handmade -  and not very well!
After using them for a short while, we ripped them out but they had huge nails and screws holding them to three walls and the ceiling! You can imagine the mess and damage when we tried to remove them!
It was hard to take before pictures and only thought of it when clearing it out......

So the whole room and ceiling was replastered and painted white. We had a rustic looking laminate oak flooring laid.  Purple venetian blinds, new curtains and bedding, new bigger bed, pretty light etc etc. We ordered some new wardrobes from Argos, but when they arrived they were damaged and the ones that weren't damaged didnt fit together properly so sent them all back!

In the meantime, I gave her a chest of drawers that had been used downstairs and a double clothes rail

I have also given her an old Dunelm Mill chest which I am going to do a makeover on, to use as a bedside cabinet

As well as a lamp that I was no longer using - with a venetian mirror finish - just need to get a new purple/pink shade for it.  She has also decided she wants a wall of purple flower pictures, that she is going to collect.

I searched and searched for a solid wardrobe that we could fit up the narrow staircase! without any luck.

Then one day I found this on e-bay

I didnt know where I was going to use it, just wanted it! So put in a bid and won it for £1.63!!!!!

As soon as my Missy Moo saw it, she wanted it in her bedroom. So we have been using it to hide the clothes rail, and it does the job perfectly.

Now the pink gingham curtains/fabric I got from Argos, is what I am going to use to cover it.  So yesterday, I started the project.  It took quite a while just to strip the fabric off and remove all the staples and hinges.  But this is what each section is like now.....

 Will update when I get time to do a bit more!

New rugs

Had a last minute cancellation from some visitors today, so decided to go to Ikea, Thurrock to get some rugs for my kitchen/diner.

So what did I buy....

This 3 piece china set was just £2 in the Robert Dyas sale.
 

Another one from Robert Dyas which was 99p!

The kiln jars were from Ikea and the other from Robert Dyas.  The kiln jar is going to be used for hubbys cereal.  The bottle ones are going to have bubble bath decanted into them and the other one is for my cotton wool pads.  Thought I could put some ribbons round the top to pretty them up a bit.
 

Both the cushion and umbrella are Primark purchases.

My Missy Moo has also been busy buying

She has decided to have a wall of different purple flower pictures in her bedroom. She found this one in the charity shop for £2.90.

She got this necklace in BHS it was reduced to £1 but when it went thru the till it came down to 40p!!

These flowers were again for her bedroom.  39p each in Ikea! and she also got the purple vase in there too.

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned which rugs I got in Ikea....................that's because I did not get the one thing I went there for!!  Story of my life!  They just didnt have quite what I wanted so decided to stick with my temporary ones for now and see what else comes out in the new ranges in the shops.

Oh! Almost forgot..........Argos' new catalogue is out and they have quite some nice bits including polka dot curtains, ditsy curtains etc.  Also, I found some pink gingham curtains that had been reduced to £3.99, so bought them just for the fabric!


More tomorrow............

Living Room Makeover

First of all just to link up with one of my previous blogs..........here are my new dining area curtains

They were from Laura Ashley and reduced from £70 to £31.60! What a bargain.  Shame my husband didnt agree! It wasn't the price for him but the colour! More pink! He was liking them even less when he saw them drawn at night - as they give off a pink glow making all the room look pink! 

Now to my living room!
On the day we moved in, before the removal men could put any furniture down, we ripped up the living room carpet.  In my opinion, it was well past its use by date.  So here it is after that..........

As you can see the wallpaper was painted two tones, with a flowery border round the middle and top. It had an inefficient back boiler, lovely orange pine surround and just felt dirty.


Because my husband's workplace is making big cutbacks this year we are not sure if he will have a job in a couple of months time. So after re-plastering upstair's ceilings and walls and doing all the rooms up there properly.  Then the kitchen etc, we had no money left to do this one from top to bottom.  We had got rid of the boiler for a new system when we got here and then, so just to tidy it and make it cleaner, I painted over the wallpaper and borders, repainted the woodwork and firesurround, changed old fashioned walllights, took down old glass shelves and got a carpet put in. 

But I am not happy with it! I have not brought down all my cushions after putting my xmas ones away.  I have painted all my furniture cream and most of my bits are cream, beige and I still have red candles and a few red bits.  My curtains are from the old house and are to make do.  
I just don't know what colour theme to go with........any suggestions?  I do not feel I can subject hubby to more pink! as kitchen and bedroom already have lot of that.  Do I stick with the red, but will that look ok in the summer or do I go for something totally different?!  Although it has to go with the red chesterfield sofa as cannot justify changing that. I am hoping the new ranges will inspire me once they finally come in the shops.  Must look thru a few of your blogs for living room ideas!  Please help!

Collections

I have just been over to Pretty Vintage's blog.  She was asking the question..........can you ever have too many collections?  I don't think so - what about you?

My Gentle Giant collects keyrings and my Missy Moo collects flowered headbands!

I have started collecting mirrors in my living room, pretty cups in my kitchen/dining room and want to collect hearts to hang on one wall in my bedroom.

What do you collect? I'm intrigued!

Its Monday again

Hi
Doom and gloom today?  Mine hasn't been too bad actually!  I have been out and about shopping and got some bargain curtains in the Laura Ashley sale.  They are for my kitchen - will show you pictures another day.

But for now, I need some help! I often see you all raving about Etsy, but I have tried to go on the site and everything I look at seems to be in dollars.............what am I doing wrong? Please enlighten me.
Thanks!

More purchases!

Went to Chatham Dockside Outlet and then onto Bluewater today.  Just felt the need to get out and do something, and what better than a bit of retail therapy!

I was hoping that the shops wouldn't still be filled with just the leftover old tat.............and I wasn't disappointed. 

First of all I wanted a new purse and bag. I didn't manage to find the right bag, but this is the purse that I got:

At one of my most favourite shops....The Range...I got some tea-towels.  They, as always, had lots of lovely bits but I had to restrain myself.

I couldn't resist these at £2.99 for 3, and they were something I actually needed.

The next thing I was so excited about, I nearly bought more than one!  I didn't even spot it in the Next outlet shop but luckily I have trained my Missy Moo (daughter) very well and she knows a pretty when she sees one!!

It is a little bird house and is even prettier in real life!  It even says "Home Tweet Home" above the door.  While we were queueing up to pay the £5!! for it, I said to my daughter that I wanted to keep it in the house so I could keep looking at it.  Her reply was - that she would like to live in it herself!


This has cheered me up from the January blues and really made my day - how easily I am pleased!

Where has the week gone.........

Dont know where the week has gone! and what a miserable one it has been! (weather wise)

One good thing is that my kitchen got finished yesterday. The fitter came back and put the plinths and side panels back on and it is looking "finished" now............if you know what I mean.

I have now booked in a carpenter to come and build us an understairs cupboard.  We currently just have a tiny one, that you can't fit anything in. The only thing I dont like about our house is the lack of storage for things like ironing board, hoover and even our coats.  We have a porch but it is too cold to leave our coats there in the winter, so they get dumped on the bottom of the bannister. So this should solve those problems.


I am trying to decide which room to show you next. I didnt take many "before" pictures of the other rooms so will have to describe them more than show you!


Have a good weekend everyone!
-x-

Family/Chill out room - after pictures!

So, yesterday I told you the tale of the building of our family room and showed you the before pictures.

As I said, we only did a cheap makeover on it and decided on a seaside theme. We painted the wallpaper white and brightened up the woodwork. Changed the hairy floortiles to a whitewash wood effect vinyl. Covered the built in storage seats with blue duvet covers and the same wood effect sticky back plastic on the bar with fabric. Made some bunting and put up other seaside bits and pieces. Bought a Laura Ashley daybed and made some red,white and blue cushions. Then finally filled it with toys, game consoles, dvd's etc!

So here are the piccies I've been building you up for.....

We have since added a table tennis table, mini fridge, disco ball and karaoke machine!!
It is a well used room by the children and their friends, as well as when we have friends round! 

Here are just a few of the seaside bits too

Hope you agree that just a cheap makeover made quite a difference!!

Our family/Chill out room

This is a 30ft room that was already built above the garage.  It took the previous owner (a builder) 10 years to build it! It started off as a play room and ended up as a family room, as the children had grown up by the time he had finished.

When we moved in we thought that we were going to divide it into two rooms, so the children had large bedrooms.  But they are determined that we should not do this, even though the Gentle Giant (our Son) has a really small bedroom - which he loves!!

This is how it looked previously.........

Very terracotta and yellow, with textured wallpaper and polystyrene ceiling tiles

Built in storage seats covered with horrible, pretend wood, sticky back plastic and those lovely hairy greeny/yellow and brown chequered carpet tiles

A 1970's bar again covered in sticky back plastic- which the children begged us to keep!


We want this room to be the last one we decorate properly in a few years time and at that point we will give them one last chance to change the use of it, if they want to.  So in the meantime we did a kind of cheap makeover on it.............To be shown tomorrow!

Next.............

The picture below should have been in with my kitchen ones but at the time I couldn't find the "before" picture I had taken!

This was a dresser that I had bought off of ebay for £40

Then I painted it...........but just need to get round to doing the final coats on the door!!

Since taking the above picture, I have also added a beige spotty oilcloth to line the drawers and shelves.

Some bargains!

I know I'm meant to be blogging about another room in my house...........but that will have to wait until tomorrow.  I just had to tell you about the things I saw, whilst out shopping today.  I say that "I saw" and not "that I bought" as I stupidly decided against getting them and now regret it!

I went to collect my son from an after school club and called in Poundland first.  They had some clipframe type pictures with a union jack on and then there were others with a union jack in the background and other things in black and white on top - like a mini cooper.  Also, there were some that said things like....Dont Panic and at the bottom - Best of British.  There was also one that said something about a cup of tea and Best of British at the bottom.
I have been considering doing a patriotic theme in our little garden room, so have asked my mum to look in her local Poundshop for me tomorrow! Wish I had just got them now!
Also, the other thing I liked, but did not need, were some really cute, flowery or union jack, hot water bottle covers!
And all this for £1 each!!! 
Bargains! Bargains! Bargains!

New Kitchen

Ok and now for the after pictures of the kitchen............... although it still isn't quite finished, as you will see
 

 I decided on plain shaker cream units with a walnut worktop and cream metro tiles.  The walls are painted in Dulux Natural Callico as I thought these plain colours would make all my coloured pretties stand out.

At the moment I still have the previous owners rather tatty cream blind up at this window as I have not found a blind or window dressing to fit in with my scheme.

We looked into getting a radiator put in this room (although there is one in the connecting room)but as we were quoted £1000, we decided on this plug in one! We only really need it on for half an hour at breakfast time and dinner time, in the Winter. This is a bright sunny room most of the time anyway and we couldn't justify spending this money when we have so many other things to do in the house.

We had the vinyl fitted a week before Xmas, and so we are just waiting for the kitchen fitter to return to fit the end panels and plinths for us.

This is the dining area of the kitchen. We still need to get some rugs to go under the table to protect the new floor, the ones above are old ones being used temporarily.  I will probably just get some neutral ones from Ikea.  I also want to get some coloured rugs to go in the centre of the kitchen but just cant find any that are big enough and the right colours.
The curtains at this window are the old ones from my son's bedroom.  Although they are blue they don't really go, but they are doing the job until I can find some new ones............ floral I think - but again I haven't seen any I like.


I also need to get some new oven gloves and teatowels but thought I would wait for the new ranges to come into the shops!


More rooms on the way soon.............