Transformations

Remember when the chimney breast in our dining room looked like this in early August;


And then we found some rather fetching wall paper;


And then it all got a little messy and disheartening;


And then it got a little cleaner, a little nicer and a little nearer the end;


And then it got painted properly and the walls around it changed colour and all it needed was the new floor;


And today the final ingredient arrived and it's a snuggly cosy place to stash the train track at the end of the day and a place to sit for stories and snuggles;


It makes me smile everytime I go past it!!

Daisie xxx

Oh Dear

I do wonder why on earth we thought this was a good idea. I have no doubt that it will be amazing when it's finished but that doesn't stop me rocking in a corner sometimes when no one is looking.

This past weekend we dug out the old fireplace;


And Simon set to removing the knackered, old, holey, mismatched ( a bodge by a previous owner) floorboards;





It's so very cold and draughty, no fun at all.

We have had an old door for many many years that gets moved around the house and has never been put to use until now, a great place for an impromtu fish finger picnic;



They reminded me a little of that famous photo of the men eating their packed lunches on a crane with New York as the back drop, you know the one I mean, made me smile.

Needless to say but my good humour seems to have disappeared with the floor, am not such a happy bunny at the mo but last week of work, children finish school on friday and we can get cracking and sorting and be ready for a Davies Christmas to remember!!

Daisie xxx

ooooh, we've had a busy week this week, with Simon back at work and no major works going on I have been able to take the children out and not feel guilty about him working hard at home.

We've had two trips to the cinema, a marathon cake/scone baking session, a food shop (boring), a trip to Ikea for birthday meatballs and yesterday we walked in the sun through the woods over the road and had a fabulous, if a little muddy, time;






There has been some enbriodery, of sorts, and some other crafting going on, we have friends coming tomorrow and a new window for the dining room is being fitted, busy busy busy!!

Daisie xxx

All the rubble has gone!! Ceiling, walls, assorted stuff, all carried out of the house and into a big skip. The lead and copper piping has been removed by FIL to be weighed in for scrap. The plasterboard and battoning has arrived to build the new walls. The chimney has been dug out. I have vacced and mopped about a bazillion times which has enabled us to get the table up;


And allowed room for dancing after tea;


But the feet are still dirty;


I'll be mopping a bit more today and pulling nails from the ceiling joists and later this evening I'll be picking a winner for my giveaway.

Daisie xxx

Dust And Stuff

Even though I have duct taped the doors to within an inch of their lives;


The dust is still billowing through;


Only the walls down so far, I think it'll be a lot dirtier tomorrow when the ceiling comes down!!

The highlight of the walls coming off was finding this amazing bit of wall paper around the fireplace;


The low point was when it was revealed that there was no pretty arch in this room like in the frontroom;


Gutted doesn't do it justice!! I was so disappointed it ruined my whole day :(

Simon and his genius brain (the size of a small planet) has come up with a brilliant solution that has made me smile from ear to ear since he told me this afternoon, it's better than a pretty arch!! I'm not going to say anymore about that now and wait until it's done for a grand reveal!!

I have managed to take two nice picture of all the children together, now pick yourself up from the floor and look: on the window sill before we taped Daddy in;


And tonight eating tea on my bed;


Not a great place to eat steak pie, new potatoes, peas and carrots but needs must. The first evening was lovely and warm, Simon and Nathaniel had gone to Manchester to see the football, the rest of us sat in the garden and ate McMummy's and played hopscotch until bedtime. The second evening it was a bit dull and grey but dry, we donned cardigans and ate meatballs and spaghetti with spicy sauce. Since then it has rained and rained and rained. We are living upstairs. I leave the front of the house in the morning in my pyjamas and wellies and troop round the back to the kitchen and come back later with coffee and breakfast.

It's a glamorous life we lead!!

Daisie xxx

Roll On Friday!

What a week I have ahead of me! Thought I'd blog today to vent and to remind myself that life is good really even when it seems bad.

Today the car is in for it's MOT, this always worries me enormously; will it pass, will it need loads of work, how long will it take? And then I have the fear of excessive cost, will I have to sell a kidney or offer sexual favours to pay to get it back?! All unnecessary but still a worry. So to combat today's troubles I'll show you Francesca's birthday cake. A deep vanilla sponge with a white chocolate finger fence filled with vanilla cream and strawberries;


Tomorrow I am in the hospital all day. I am being steralised, I have reached the point where I realise that emotionally, physically and financially I cannot afford another pregnancy. It is a decision I have thought long and hard to make and am sure it's the right decision for me. Simon will have sole care of all the children all day. I know he is perfectly capable and I know they are safe in his care but I worry that it will be raining and they will get cold and wet waiting for the bus to school, I worry that the bus will be late, I worry that Nathaniel will not like the change in his routine and be a pain for his Daddy, I worry too much really. Again unnecessary but a worry nonetheless. So to combat tomorrow's worries I am going to show you Francecsa's Learning Log (each child at school has a big book and each friday the class are given a word to do a piece of work on, sometimes it links to something seasonal, something they have been doing in school or something really random. Each piece of work is the child's own work so for some may just be a picture, sometimes more), this weeks' word is Valentine's Day. Francesca disappeared upstair yesterday with glue and paper and an endless romantic nature and came up with this;


It says; "Valentine's day is celebrated every year on Februaury 14th. The day is named after Saint Valentine - the patron saint of lovers. Traditionally people show their love for one another by sending flowers, chocolates and cards known as Valentines." I did try to get her to put that we don't do Valentine's day in our house because my Daddy is a tight ass but she didn't go for that!

On Wednesday and Thursday Ofsted are coming to inspect us at the centre. I know that we all do a brilliant job for the families we work with but the inspectors want to come and observe my baby playgroup. I know and understand the EYFS guidelines we wrok to and the Every Child Matters outcomes we work towards, I know what impact the sessions have on our families but fear I may be the sticky cog in the team as I have no formal EYFS training. The peer support role I fulfill I have no problem with, I know my stuff (and was auditted for the BFI last week and came away confident in my skills and knowledge). I know it will be fine but I am worried how my physical state will be after Tuesday's surgery. To combat the Ofsted worries I am going to show you the start of our room finishing;

The walls are coloured, the chimney breast is pointed and painted, the electrics are in, the skirting board is varnished and waiting to go on. It's all looking rather good!!

Roll on Friday!!

Daisie xxx

Lighting!!

It's been a long hard week at work, just getting into the swing of it, think it'll take some time. Just taken over another worker's case load of core visits, hence an extra day at work, of sixty families, yes sixty families, that is one scary number. But atleast my working 'week' will fly by as my days will be so full!

But in the good news, our walls in the front room are all smooth and lovely and Simon has been priming the plaster to paint. He's slopping on a coat of white to the cieling before bed as we speak. I have been and chosen the colour, decisions are so hard. I have a picture in my mind of how the room will look and it took a while to find the right colour, it's called 'Espresso Delight' and is a beautifully warm but not dark tone, like a very milky coffee. I can't wait for it to go on tomorrow :)

As usual time and money have got in the way (or disappeared) so the book casing will have to wait for another pay day to come and go but hopefully there will be enough in the pot to get the skirting board on and get a blind made for the window so we can at least redistribute the furniture and get the telly out from under Seb's cot and up on the wall!

Francesca came with me today to help get the last of the paint and painting supplies, good job she did as I got distracted by light shades, we need three for the mo (hallway, bottom of stairs and front room). There were lots of shades in the sale, not having Simon with me to bounce ideas off I got the camera out of my bag and my lovely assistant helped me record our finds to bring home to my lord and master for inspection.

This is one I liked for the hallway, as yet unpainted, will be glistening white and airy, we have blackened iron coat and shoe racks, pram, wellies (the usual gubbins), as we can't afford to replace the staircase we paln to paint the very worn treads with a high gloss paint, at the moment we seem to be agreeing on a deep green, I thought this shell shade would be nice;


Then on the shelf full of shell shades I spotted this one, reduced to a fiver, that might work in the front room;


But this one kinda goes with my ideas too;

This one is lush, the picture doesn't really do it justice, it's about two shades lighter than the walls will be and has minty green, black and dark brown branches and leaves, also massively reduced to just £10;

But this is the one I fell in love with, it's very seventies in feel, it has a central shade (so you can't spy the light bulb, always a winner) and three floating bands around it;

It's probably darker than what I had imagined but it's all a new game as we have only just taken down the Ikea paper shades we've had for about a million years. Now the question comes about the dining room, it will be (hopefully by the end of the year) gutted and redone in the smae colour as the front room, we knocked through under the stairs and although they are two well defined spaces they need to marry, do I have two shades the same, or the smae colour, texture or completely different, these decisions are so hard!

Francesca was no help at all and found the shade that she would choose;

I think not love!!

We had fun though and looked at mirrors and other finishing touches too. I can't wait for payday!!

My two interior deisgn assistants;

The sky here is so dark and the rain has been falling for days, our moods seem to be matching the weather this week so am going to indulge in far too many cuddles tomorrow and perhaps some popcorn and a movie!

Hope you are warm and dry too!

Daisie xxx

Maud's Having An Outing

I've only put this on as I don't like posts without pictures;

Maud is coming with me and all my handmade goodies tomorrow to a massive (yes really huge) gathering of local crfaters at the ACE centre in a nearby town to sell alongside all the musicky charity fund raising that is Oxjam. There are fifty confirmed stalls, it's going to be a great day, I'm really looking forward to it!

So I have spent today packing and getting ready for that and also cutting out a mountain of felt, I am running a workshop at the LET project as a member of the Art Exchange, I got to do a children's workshop (think I got the short straw) so opted for making christmas tree decorations as the ages range from 5 to 12. I fugured with the shapes precut and lots of buttons, sequins and glittery thread we can make it as easy or as complicated at the child wants. We can sew or stick,. whichever is easiest.

A busy start to the half term holidays! I have also been trying this week to sort out the cluttered space that is my den/cupboard/wardrobe. Remember we built an extra room(ish) when we gutted our bedroom and remember how empty and lovely it looked?
Well, needless to say it doesn't look like that anymore, it is bursting at the seams and with recent mad crafting it has become somewhat of a mess! I took 'before' pictures on monday and am not yet ready to reveal how it looks 'after' - another million man-hours needed I think. Progress is slow with so many small people to get in the way help me!

The renovations are finally coming together, Simon and I (well, mostly Simon) put the hallway wall up this morning and with him at home this week the plan is to lay the new floor and put the ceiling up. It's all very exciting but I feel so near and yet so very far.....

Daisie xxx

My Little Workie Man

Nathaniel is loving the renovations, he likes to help, he has his wheel barrow, which was put to great use the day we filled the skip, he has his own 'measure' and 'level' and likes to poke his screwdriver into holes. He also likes to climb ladders;

Which is very very scary!!

Work has slowed down somewhat beacuse Simon is back at work. We are boarded out upstairs and my FIL has replaced the old bathroom door (that was cut at an angle at the top to fit the badly made hole many years ago, because we have taken the wall down we could make a square hole for it, looks much better), most of downstairs has been battoned out so the walls will be straight with proper corners, no more slanted bookshelves for us!! With the walls to finish, plaster and a new floor to lay we're not expecting to start decorating until the October half term holiday. Simon will plod on doing bits after work and during weekends. It will be worth it (she says repeatedly as she rocks in the corner).

Yesterday was a relaxed affair, Elizabeth and I are planning a late night cinema adventure together later in the week so we just had friends visit and we made cake yesterday. Prue Leith's amazing chocolate and orange cake;

And for the non human chocolate eaters amongst us an orange sponge with orange buttercream on top;

Seb has his first slice of birthday cake and enjoyed it although he lacks finesse;

There have been some crafting activities but they are for presents so I'll share them at a later date.

Daisie xxx

How Clean Is Your House?

Probably cleaner than mine was this morning;

When we left to sleep at my Mum's we taped up the bedrooms to keep out all the dust and yuck. We left the bathroom open so the men folk could pee. It got so bad we left 'I love you' notes in the grime;

An hour and several buckets of hot water later it's a little cleaner;

There is loads more cleaning to do and I'll be back with a building update soon. It's going quite slow but steady so no complaints but I think we have all reached our limit now. We can't wait for a hot bath and a good night's sleep in our own beds!

Daisie xxx

Ours Is A Nice House Ours Is

I remember my Mum singing;

Ours is a nice house ours is

It's got no rats or mouses

The roof's on the top of our pretty little shack

The front's at the front

The back's at the back

Ours is a nice house ours is

It's got no rats or mouses

I don't know where it comes from but I always sing it in my head when I aproach my home, which now has a new front door;


I'm not a big PVC fan but we had one fitted at the back and it keeps out all the drafts and noise and keeps in all the warm and is cheaper than a new hard wood equivilant so it kinda won the arguement. I had a bit of a panic when our lovely window guy dragged it from his van 'I don't like it!' and I did have a wobble and wanted to cry but now it's in I rather like the look.

There is a new window in this big hole too;

And I'm sure the whole operation wouldn't have gone quite so well without the help of a little man taking up residence in the van with his tool box;

And the help of this lovely man has been priceless, my brilliant, hard working, generous, kind father-in-law;

And Simon is still smiling (think it's mania now though, rather than happiness);

Daisie xxx