Children's bathroom

 Ok we have been busy, and  procrastinating when it come to the children's bathroom, but seven month's later, we have made some progress. a new sink, and new cupboards, new shower and bath ( a real bath that delighted all) later, this room is slowly taking shape.

We work slowly, but it is so much better, especially when you look at what it looked liked before.

 More photos to come...eventually. Here's one photo before.

And before, the old sink, which was giant and took up so much place.

Corner of Marie-Kate's room

Mari-Kate has a new chair, this time not a thrift shop find but a Skruvsta chair from Ikea. She has a new desk too, again from Ikea.  Her desk gets pretty messy, but she loves it, and actually does her homework here. She chose the chair, she loves it, I so do I.

I took this photo last night, Marie-Kate is under her duvet, fast asleep. She still has her mushroom night light. She tends to look after her things, like her sister Charlotte. MK is by far the tidiest child in the family, this is about as messy as it gets.

An Ikea gingerbread house failure and my first attempt at curtain making

We went to Ikea yesterday and came back with all we needed and more.

Gaby and Marie Kate found a reduced priced gingerbread house that they just had to have (see above)

I bought some fabric to make curtains and a ds case for Marie Kate, and we sourced out which bathroom sink we're going to buy...yes, we are doing the second floor shower room in March (photos of it as it is coming soon).

Anyhow today,  while I got on with my sewing, the children worked on assembling their gingerbread house, which was fine by me.

Before

And I measured, cut and sewed a curtain for this window (first floor landing).

 I even lined the curtain.  The birds on the fabric are really cute and I just love this colour blue and cheap costing 4.99 euros per meter.

 

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I can't wait to do more things with my sewing machine...but not now, just this took about four hours to finish

 Last photo on the way down to see how the children's house was looking.

 Ok no great, they didn't follow the instructions and their sugar glue didn't work so they called this heap of gingerbread, icing, and sweets an earthquake house...it tasted good though and I just love those raspberry and blackberry jelly sweets...yummy

Ikea lamp and cushions

Last year, we bought some expensive cushions and cushions covers from The Conran Shop. The children used them sit on, flopping down on them, especially when you are a 17 year old who weighs over 80 kilos can kill a cushion cover, that's what happened here. They just gave away at the seams, such a shame.  One lesson learnt, no more expensive ones, instead a trip to Ikea and two new covers that cost 5.99 euros.  Alexis choose them, I preferred the orange velvet ones, though they were double the price.  Marie-Kate chose the lamp, and I love it. I kept my Tse Tse garland in the same place and our tv room cosier now with two light sources

Marie-Kate, Miss Geek, at her favourite place, in-front of the Mac.  Lunch-time at home isn't that bad, she told me today, especially when two boxes of chocolates arrive from the UK for Christmas and she gets to eat two before I hide them.

Landing wc finished

A very small room, our downstairs wc, well on the first half-landing is finished at long last, yes, I had been procrastinating about finishing the painting for months but last week I decided to take the bull by the horns and finish it before December arrived.

We kept the tiles, the sink and the toilet and just bought a couple of things from Ikea.

With some Sophie Blackall prints, a 1945 Alexandria water colour (that's been on the top of my wardrobe for ages ...lots more to frame where this one came from) and one of Marie-Kate's paintings the room is so much nicer. I used White Tie on the walls and Down Pipe behind the shelves and on the door.

Now I've attacked the mud room and I've got my work cut out in here. I am doing it now as I've enough paint left over from other rooms, it's going to look good I hope, painted in Skimming Stone and Charlotte's Locks.

Procrastinating less

our problem, wires, concrete and grey

We kind of finished our kitchen in the spring, but were left with a problem of flooring. Mr H had tiled the kitchen in the 70's and only tiled up until his cupboards and under the these there was (is) some concrete screed. Now I don't let the tiles, but we'll have to put up with them for now, besides we don't know if we want some cork flooring in the kitchen or something else.

I had originally wanted to hang some kitchen wall cabinets off the ground in the sitting room, like over on Door 16, then I thought about doing it in the kitchen, however this wasn't possible if we wanted to hide the horrible floor, so we opted for this option, Ikea kitchen cabinets placed on a wooden base. You can still see a little bit of the grey, but it's better, beside we couldn't place it better because none of the walls in this house are straight.

I really wanted to have a space downstairs to regroup the children's school books, for two reasons, firstly so they work downstairs, instead of pretending to work at their desks upstairs and secondly, because our children are lazy and if they forget a text book upstairs, the last thing they want to do, is climb over 40 steps to go and fetch it.

So five cupboards for five children, each with a colour different apart from the end two doors.

This area is working out so well. Alexis and Marie-Kate work happily at the kitchen table, Oliver likes the square table in the other room like Charlotte, and as for Gaby she still prefers the sofa but at least I can see what she's doing. For now we're using post-its to remind me and them what tests (or assignments) they have coming up, this is great for me as I know I have to allow time to check. For example Gaby, has a Latin test today, music tomorrow and Civic Education on Friday. Marie-Kate just a poem left to recite one more time, Alexis has finished everything and lets not even start Oliver's and Charlotte's list.

We bought everything Friday, and finished everything apart from the wooden top for 5pm, just giving us time to get showered and off to see Salomé at the Opera de Paris(Bastille).

What a night...more later