snug before and after...Sporadic Monday Blogging

Still need a new low table and curtains, but for now here's a part of the snug(tv area) before painting it Mizzle

The walls were really dirty and it took me 3 days to clean them before painting.

And after it looks like this (think we should look for a radiator shelf, perhaps). Considering the window leading out of this room on to the garden is north facing, we get really a lot of light here now.

We found two chairs yesterday in our favourite thrift store, one is here on the photo with printed fabric, I'm not sure if it will stay here permanently, we'll see

Lets get started on the kitchen

Fridge in place, doors to put on under sink and washing machine and a whole lot of work to do next weekend, and that light has just got to go.

Things have been busy a round here. The snug (tv room) is more or less finished, so is the sitting room(photos in next post). Even the kitchen was started yesterday, after buying a new sink and washing machine* at Ikea...Yes, I have a washing machine after almost 7 months without and more trips to the laundrette. The stove arrives here next Saturday which will go just after the machine and then we'll put our butcher's block just after and a Ikea tall cupboard at the end.

1970's green kitchen, so so dirty

As for the splash-back I'm going to cut my old school blackboard in half (vertically) then place it against the whole length of the wall a part from behind the stove (inox panel here). Finally our buffet cupboard will be painting either aubergine or black and that will go where the butcher's block is now, leaving us lots of place for the table and chairs.

Before on this wall there was floor to ceiling green cupboard, you can see the dirty marks left behind. Buffet to be painted, I tried blazer but I won't be using this color on it.

I thought maybe I'll get a bookworm for my favorite cook books, just leaving me the job of finding which wall to put "Bliss" bought from Kidimo way back in December.

*when the laundry room is done, we'll put a dishwasher here

11th Birthday

Gaby turned 11 on Tuesday. Poor her, she had to go to school all day (8.30 till 5) and suffer two hours of sport and two tests.

When she got home she discovered that Alexis had gone to a friends house for the "gouter" and that Charlotte preferred to hang-out with her friends and send her boyfriend here instead.

She loved her carrot cake (Breakfast Lunch and Tea recipe) and she received lots of lovely presents including some super headphones, as seen above, plus lots of clothes, manga's and books and a super light for her bedroom that I found in the Conran Shop.

We are going to have another party for her on Saturday, and hopefully everyone will be present this time.

Corner of our soon to be finished sitting room

One week of work (all on my own) and the painting is almost finished. We painted the walls in Mizzle and after worrying about it being a little dark after the first coat of paint, (north facing window and it was cream before) it just became better and better with each coat of paint... five liters later. Lots of finishing touches to make and then I'll take a couple more photos

Entrance with the sun kind of shining

still have to do something about the lock system, it's ugly and I haven't painted it(on the right hand side it's an original metal lock that enters the floor when secure, whereas on the left, Mr H has it changed for an more modern and rather ugly model and as for the handle I loathe it

Our house has a north south exposition. The front door is a round the back, north facing, but we do have south facing sitting room window which is in-line with the door, so we do get lots of light providing the sun actually shines.

I took a couple more photos of the work in progress, still have woodwork to do again and lights..and I would love to change the tiles...but not possible right now....why did so many people do so many stupid things with houses in the 70's, I bet there was a lovely oak floor before..:(

As you can see, on each photo the color comes out a little different, or so it seems. We are going to use this color again on the first floor landing which is quite a good size, an area with the same configuration as it's just above.

I love our front door, the little windows open via a latch (nice in summer perhaps), but I have noticed it's really drafty at the bottom, middle and top. Going to have to find a way to keep the cold out, maybe a nice curtain on one side...black, blue, red.....we'll see)

12 pages of art homework in 8 hours

Gabrielle is lazy, she always does her homework at the last minute, sometimes the morning it's due. Over the holiday's she had French homework and art. The French was finished the night before, however she only wrote it out neatly just before catching the school bus.

As for Art, she had to make a notebook on her favourite colour, which is blue.

She finished it this morning (well I did, she was to scared to bind the pages together).

She really worked hard and didn't finish till way after bedtime, but she did it all on her own, which won't be the case for everyone in her class, some parents will do anything to make sure their children have the best mark.

In Gaby's class there are 28 children and 8 of them are excellent pupils and very competitive too.

Gaby is a year or more younger than all but two of class (3 pupils including Gaby who skipped a class to go in to a higher grade) and she is the youngest for all, she's only 10...for another week

When one goes to bed late

Charlotte has a boyfriend called Valentin. He has stayed over a couple of times, this time he played X-box with Oliver till 4am (school vacation) and even though he had the choice between three sofas and a fatboy we found him on the same sofa as Charlotte who had fallen to sleep hours before.

when she woke up to have his smelly socks within centimeters of her nose, she wasn't happy.