Digging and yet more digging

Tuesday was fine and dry, so the work started on the patio 

  

 Compostman taking up turf.

Getting rid of the old patio and finding the not very good foundations - we now know why the old patio went so horribly wonky and sunk!

 The new area of patio. We are reusing all the slabs

Compostman was busy with the JCB and it came in very handy today :)

 Cassi Cat is not impressed by all this

Lovely new terracotta floor tiles - easy to clean up the mud :)

 

In between making hot drinks, answering questions, doing some writing work and my normal chores I also managed to make some Damson Jelly and Cordial

Another busy day here :)
And more of the same tomorrow

New floor tiles and nearly, new chicks :)

 Compostman hard at work laying down the new terracotta floor tiles. They are lovely, but how I wish we had not had to spend the money and take the time to do this unexpected work.

 Oh well, they do look good and won't get damaged if we have any other water leaks

On to happier stuff.  See the pipping? :)

More news, tomorrow :)

A bit of a water leak...

in our kitchen.

Actually it is a bit of  ( a lot of ) a disaster.
We had some friends around today and during the course of the visit I thought I could hear "hissing"  but thought it was the cider fermenting on the bench
And then later in the evening ...we saw water oozing up between the wooden floor covering

A water pipe ( not a joint!) behind the internal insulation wall had corroded and leaked water down and under the wooden laminate flooring

So all the lower kitchen cupboards and benches ( and contents!) had to come out so we could check for the damage.

After we lifted the wooden flooring, unfortunately it looks like the wooden flooring is too damaged to re use :(

Squelch, squelch.

Our new bedroom - gaining inspiration from on line shopping sites

As some of you may remember, Compostman has been refurbishing and redecorating our guest bedroom with a view to making it our bedroom. He has been very busy, rehanging the door, putting in new skirting boards, new flooring, he also did a complete repaint with a lot of preparation needed first as the plaster was so bad.

When we moved in to Compost Mansions we chose the smallest bedroom to sleep in, mainly because it had the chimney breast in and was the warmest room in an otherwise very cold house.  But it was rather cramped in there!

The guest bedroom is much larger and has two windows rather than just one and we always planned on moving in "eventually".  But "eventually" ended up being 16 years...

Well you have to think about things before you act, don't you?

Anyway, the room is finally completed, Compostman did a terrific job and we are so pleased with the result!

The colour scheme in the bedroom is similar to that which we chose ( after much argument discussion ) for the sitting room. With the wooden floor, furniture and doors the effect there was (in our opinion) really lovely - lots of earth tones. It was only after we finished that we realised the colour scheme was similar to one we had seen in an online paint catalogue!

Regardless, these are our favourite colours and we wanted a similar, warm, cosy effect in our new bedroom. Compostman and I discussed colour schemes but in the end we decided we liked the caramel/terracotta/chocolate theme so much that we would use the same colours again. And of course we still had lots of paint left over, so it was a thrifty move to make as well.

So in our new bedroom we have one terracotta wall,

the other three walls are caramel and we have picked chocolate coloured blinds for the windows. 

Obviously to turn a painted room into our new cosy bedroom I had a wish list of things we needed;  a bed, headboard, mattress, wardrobe, lighting fittings, several chests, new curtains/blinds and at least one bookcase (!) as well as blinds, a rug or two, a blanket chest and pictures, candles etc.

I did a lot of looking at various Pinterest boards and magazines and on line shopping sites to get ideas - there are lots of lovely things to look at, and I get a lot of inspiration from on line stores even if I don't buy that many items from them. I  always come away from an on line browse with design ideas for colour schemes - both for the house and in the garden.

After a good clean up and polish we re used our old wooden wardrobe and chests and with the new wooden floor the overall effect is pretty good, although I do say it myself :)  We removed the old carpet and took it away - we inherited it when we moved in and it was old, even then, but not in a good way.

We have moved our divan bed and headboard from our old bedroom - I would love to have bought a new bed, something like this Auvergne divan from Tempur which I spotted on the Olrids and Downtown on line shopping website. It is exactly the right colour to go in our new bedroom. But we have a perfectly good divan bed and headboard with a new-ish and expensive mattress, so sadly this lovely bed had to stay on the wish list of things I would like, but can't have. I have ordered a chocolate brown valance sheet for our divan bed, though it is a poor substitute.

Another thing on my wish list were blackout blinds - I got the idea to replace the (very old and rather faded) curtains with blinds when I was asked to review the Hilary's Web Blinds site and I realised just how much better blinds would be to shut out the light. I managed to find some blackout blinds in exactly the right colour chocolate from Argos. The old curtains have been washed and cut up for patchwork and rags.

The room had some old and very tatty down lights, which we wanted to replace so I was really pleased to spot the lovely down lights we now have, on the Homebase website , for an on line discount price. I have only recently realised that things can be cheaper if you buy them on line and then collect in store, rather than buy them in the store!

One item on my wish list was a rug and I saw one (again on the Olrids and Downtown site) which I was quite tempted to buy. Then I remembered I had a wool rug stored away in the loft which we inherited from Compostmans parents' house. I got it out and it was a very similar colour scheme and design (which is why I liked the on line one, I guess!) and it is just right for the room :)

There are still bits to put away and more pictures to hang on the wall, but we have been in our new bedroom for a week now and are very pleased with it. I do have a small amount left over from the budget and we would like another bedside chest so I may buy this one.

Or I may not, and instead put the money toward redecorating our old bedroom (last room and then we are finished, for now!)  or even towards fabric to make the log cabin quilt I have in mind for our bed in the new bedroom :)





The view from one of our bedroom windows.

Bumblebee print for our new bedroom wall :)

 Remember the SnapBox review I posted about last week? Well I was most impressed that the print arrived the NEXT DAY! I ordered it at 11 am and it arrived the next day by courier at 2 pm. What about that!

The parcel came well wrapped up in recyclable stuff - I will be adding this cardboard to the compost bins.

The print itself was well cushioned on a separate card.

And this is what I chose - it is one of the Bumblebee images I took from the Centaurea next to the polytunnel door.

I am so pleased with this print - it looks just like I wanted it to and  the image quality is excellent.

I shall be putting it up in our newly finished bedroom, which we MOVED INTO TODAY! YAY!

A before and after post is being put together, but for now I am just so happy to be in a lovely, clean, decorated, pretty room.

With a lovely SnapBox print on the wall :)

Saturday - in the house, in the garden, in the wet, in the dry, in the polytunnel, out shopping and getting lucky.

First of all, welcome to my new followers, Joshua Heaton, Jille and Rose :-) Hope you are enjoying yourselves.

Today we had very very changeable weather but I managed to dry some washing and do some planting out in the veg patch while it was sunny.

I am planting up one of the raised beds with my Rocket Gardens Constant Gardens selection of veg plants - they have grown well in their pots and it is now time to put them outside in their final places. But because of the naughty hens and cats, as well as the ever present wild life, I need to protect the bed. 

I am rather proud of what we (mainly Compostman)  came up with.

Some blue water pipe ( free, from the Scrapstore) and some bits of metal pipe ( free - have been hanging around in the Barn waiting for a use by Compostman)  But I then found that my horticultural fleece and mesh fabric lengths were all too long but not wide enough - so to cover the bed I had to use two sheets and have a lot of spare fabric at one end AND work out a way to fix the sheets together. Hmm will have to think about this!

After working outside on the raised bed, the heavens opened, the rain fell and I got soaked, so retreated to the shelter of the polytunnel. Still at least the raised bed plants got a good watering!

Compostman very kindly tied the tomato plant canes to the roof for me, so they stay upright :-)

 Growing well :-)

I did a lot of potting on of my veg plants, and re arranged the peppers into their final position.

I do wonder why, when I plant out plants, I still seem to have more on the bench?

This is my version of a Salad bar :-) I can go out with my basket and cut some salad and it grows some more :-)

Later on this afternoon we are going into Hereford. I am a member of the B and Q club and this weekend I have a 15% off voucher and as we need to think about paints for the bedroom decoration ( yes it is now at the "what colour paint shall we have" stage!) we are going to have a look at what they have to offer.

Update later this evening. 

We went into Hereford to B and Q and bought all sorts of stuff we needed, including solid wooden flooring for the bedroom (gulp). The 15% off voucher saved us a lot of money on the floor and paint for the bedroom. Hopefully we will be moving back in soon and I can't wait!

We also popped into Sainsbury and got items on the shopping list and then I spotted some garden netting  which was the perfect size to cover the supports we had put up this morning for the raised bed.  On offer and reduced to £3.50! I bought four packs, one for each raised bed, for a total cost at full price of one pack :-) 

And so when we got home, before it got dark and in the pouring rain, I did this

Exactly what I needed to cover the raised bed we had been working on and I used tri pegs ( bought many years ago and used for all sorts of jobs since) to fix it all down. This had been worrying me and now it is sorted

and has made the bed secure from cats, hens, etc . getting in there and digging up or eating the plants. Should stop the Cabbage White butterflies laying eggs on the brassicas as well.

Later, later still, well actually at silly o'clock when we should have gone up to bed, Compostman and I watched the first two episodes of The Black Adder from the Blackadder Complete DVD set, which I found in a charity shop ridiculously reduced in price :-)

 It is 30 years since we first watched it, and time has not dimmed the laughs for us and we can still sing the theme tune! And we raised a glass in honour of Sir Baldrick and Blackadder, CBE

So all in all, a good day, if a long one but my bed is calling me, now.

Blinded by the light - on being woken up earlier than I would like, and how to stop it.

At the moment we are sleeping in a bedroom which has one large window, facing East.  I recently noticed that I am being woken up, earlier than I want, by the early morning sun streaming in and hitting me in the face. We have lined curtains, but obviously not lined with thick enough material to block out sunlight.
 

Thinking about "covers for windows" and how well they work has become a higher priority for me because the Pink Bedroom, which Compostman is currently refurbishing, has not one but two large windows, one facing North and the other facing, yes you guessed it, East. So when we move into this room (soon!) we will have the same issue with early morning sunlight in our faces and an additional window letting in light. We can't turn our bed around, so we don't look at a window, as the shape of the room precludes that.
 
We always planned to move into this room when it was completed (only waited 16 years!) As we are now fast approaching the "choosing paint and fabric" stage of the works I need to find a solution to the problem now.

What I have done in other upstairs rooms is use blinds; to me they seem to block light without shutting it out altogether. Thinking about it, we actually have blinds in all the upstairs bedrooms except ours and the Pink Bedroom. Compostgirl has blinds and curtains in her (South facing) room and all the South and West facing windows downstairs have blinds. It is only the sitting room and dining room which have curtains.

So, problem solved - I will be getting some blinds for our new bedroom  - so the question is, what sort and what size? We want to measure and fit them ourselves rather than have someone do it for us, so after a quick Google search for bedroom blinds, I had a look at  Web-Blinds and found lots of helpful advice.  I had no idea there were so many different sorts of blind!

The Web-Blinds site also has lots of useful information on how to measure for a blind and a wide selection of different patterns and colourways. I also found easy to understand fitting instructions for all the different types of blind :-) And if you would rather someone measured and fitted them for you there is a link to their sister company, Hillarys.

In the other rooms I have simple roller blinds but I think for our bedroom I would like Roman blinds - although I am very tempted to get some roller blinds made using one of my own images (they call it a Digital blind on the Web-Blinds website)

Maybe something like this, from when I went to Garden Organic last year?

The bee garden at Ryton.

or this?

Marigold Hen

I think Compostman would prefer this, though!

The JCB

Hmm. Maybe just a nice, lightly floral pattern, instead?






Disclaimer - I am looking around for ideas to decorate the newly refurbished Pink Bedroom (may need a new name as it may not be pink much longer)  This post features a paid link to a company I would be happy to order from, in the future. As always, the words I write are my own and are my honest opinions.

Tidy-up Tuesday and more on the Christening robe.

Evening all

Another dry and sunny day here - Compostman has been incarcerated in the Pink (guest) bedroom all day Doing Stuff to walls, windows floors etc - this required all the contents to be removed and redistributed around the rest of the house, which was entertaining!

As a result I now have a car FULL of surplus stuff to take to charity shops/animal rescue centres. And I mean FULL. It's a Skoda Octavia  - which means it is quite huge - and it is FULL.

Ok, you get we have decluttered a lot of stuff out of the house, right?

I have also washed numerous sets of curtains, written some articles ( for money yay!) and negotiated for some items to be sent to me for reviewing here on The Compost Bin - stuff I would actually like and want to buy but now do not have to spend money on, and stuff which I hope you, my gentle reader, are interested in, well, reading about! And I planted many more of the summer flowering bulbs into pots and put them into the Polytunnel to grow.

So good all round I hope.

Compostgirl and I have tonight watched some of last Saturday's The Voice  and she had been doing all sorts of experiments ( Thank you Horrible Science box set...!) and leaning how to make toasted sandwiches. She has also been making us numerous cups of tea - Compostman because he Is Busy and me because my sinuses are infected ( again) and my face really REALLY hurts and I feel rubbish today.

Thank you dear, I really do appreciate the tea and sympathy and the hugs - they really do help :-)

I have also managed to get the wonderful Christening robe clean! It is now drying inside the house, wrapped in towels to protect it. My hands are now in a dreadful state, however, from all the washing I have done recently  and I have smothered them in some of my magic working, home made balm. It usually fixes most problems with skin!

The hens are not laying at all - they seem well enough otherwise (apart from old) so I think I may try worming them again, failing that new extra hens will have to be obtained so we have a reliable source of eggs. A trip to the hen stockist! Squee!

How has your day been?

Moving back in to the sitting room...at last!

Progress on sitting room refurbishment

So, we left this room with a new hearth and newly plastered chimney breast back in July - and now look at it at the end of August!

A lovely new wooden floor! and paint! and skirting boards! and no dirt!

We are still not back in the room at this stage, but it wasn't going to be much longer :-)

The plastic wrapped object is the new Burley Brampton woodburner, waiting to be installed - it was actually not installed until the begining of September ( a hint as to when we eventually moved back in to our main room)

Sitting room - finally near to completion!

Compost Mansions was two, 1906 semi detached cottages which were knocked into one house in 1980. It is made of brick. Although this chimney breast is local stone, and the beam is local oak and the hearth is a very old local stone Herefordshire Cider pressing trough, they are NOT in keeping with the house and actually took up loads of space in the room.

 From this

We have lived with all this for many years but always wanted to get rid of it as well as improve the internal insulation of the room and also do something about the not great concrete floor ( especially around the edges of the room!)






So in Nov 2010 we started on the huge renovation and building work to insulate the walls, re lay the floor and re build the sitting room.

This involved a LOT of work, including taking up the concrete floor and re laying it with insulation underneath, taking down the fake stone chimney breast and taking out the old and rather useless woodburner.

 See those cobwebs? There were some seriously HUGE spiders living behind that false stone wall!

In early spring Compostman hurt his back in a fairly major way, which put a stop to work for a couple of months as I am not able to do the heavy work needed, either dueto MY bad back etc  - this was a bit of a blow as all came to a grinding halt.

BUT we got back to work eventually and then we got a local builder ( he lives 2 fields away from us!) to come and quote to re instate the fireplace opening and move the cider pressing stone into the new opening. Compostman and I could have done this work, but it would have taken us longer AND  we both still had bad backs, so we paid someone else to do it.

They came this week and did a terrific job  - doing this we have gained so much extra floor space - more than 15 inches of floor, due to the edge of the hearth moving back!

 Then Geoff the plasterer arrived yesterday and in the space of 6 hours turned rough brickwork and damaged plaster into a marble like finish. - amazing to watch him at work.


Filling in all the gaps with render

 Final polish - it dried to a pale pink finish!

This is what it will look like with the new stove in situ.

We are off to get flooring and choose paint tomorrow - Nick the stove fitter is visiting on Monday morning to see what is needed to fit the new Burley woodburner, which is also arriving sometime on Monday.

After being out of our main living room since last Nov (!) I am SO excited that we are near to the end of a very long building and renovation process. I am SO proud of Compostman for all the hard work he has had to do, there is SO much more work I have not mentioned as I have only talked about the floor and stove and fireplace stuff, but he has worked so hard on all the other stuff and it has been a huge load of work for him , especially as he has work, things to do on our smallholding, the wood and all sorts else to do.