Gosh, where did the last few weeks go?!

Christmas is now but a distant memory, the nativity folk are packed up snug and warm in their little tin until next year, and the tree is stripped of his twinkling lights. We had a lovely break with family and friends, and didn’t do much on the house…Instead we ate biscuits, watched films and chilled out…and very nice it was too!

But, before I put Christmas to bed, I wanted to post another of my latest finds, these retro Santas. Centre back and his wonderfully camp mate on the left are cool, they can stay, the other pair are being evicted though, look at their evil little faces!

On the subject of finding things, I found a £20 note on my doorstep this morning, then this afternoon I was poking around pondering the fate of my filing cabinets in the craft room when I found a book of 100 First Class stamps jammed underneath, bit of a result as they are worth around £50, and the cabinet only cost £30 from Ebay – Lucky me!

Progress on the house is ticking along, new windows are due to be fitted in the back of the house in the next couple of weeks, along with a new front door. Bit sad as the 80’s wooden windows are pretty, but the heat loss through them is ridiculous. We are lucky to have the original front door, though it’s in need of a little TLC.

We’ve been talking lots about the pros and cons of restoring original features, left to my own devices I’d be living in a museum, Ronnie in contrast, would choose a space-pod type abode, our compromise is to ensure we keep as many features as possible, even adding a couple, but to make sure we live in the 21st century, with all the comforts that brings. As much as we love the original door, it’s draughty and not very secure. The previous owners had added a horrid glass secondary door, we’ve decided to follow their lead, updating with modern door that will show the feature door behind and improve our thermal qualities and kerb appeal!

This is how i hope we’ll end up looking once door and glass are in place, along with our new slate sign and light.

I bought an antique letterbox to be used in the new door, which I hope will dull a little of it’s new-door-on-the-block sparkle, I guess this is exactly the type of compromise that works for us.

Through our letterbox this week, we received a parcel of original deeds for our property.

It is incredible to see how the house has changed hands, and names through it’s history – It’s been given several names over the years including Lansdowne and more recently Cheericote, there’s a lot of research to do to see what secrets I can uncover…

Almost there with the wallpaper! Boom! There’s only a tiny piece above the stairs to be done, which we’ll need some sort of magic beanstalk to reach.

Most rooms are now a bit stagnant, as we wait for the rewire to start in a week or so. There’s lots to be done, but I have started to have a think about how each room will look. I’m a great believer in having an object you love as a starting point, to build a design scheme around. My ‘object’ for the lounge is this canvas, from one of our holiday images.

Love the striking yellow, black and white and think it will help to blend our eclectic collections of ‘stuff’ vintage (mine) modern (his) and oriental pieces (ours) from our travels. This is the room as it was when we moved in:

And I’d like it to look a little more like this, but nicer, obvs. I’d normally be quite shy of bright colours, but every room in the house has been vivid yellow at one stage of its history, which is somewhat reassuring.

Finally, I’ve spent hours and hours and hours on the Ikea website planning the kitchen (then photoshopping potential Ebay purchases over the top). To be continued…