An Acquisition

Ugh, why is the weekend always such an anticlimax? We'd planned to go on a bird walk in the Forest of Dean on Saturday, but Marno had ordered a log store and logs from a company in West Wales, who ended up delivering it on Saturday morning . The guy told Marno the store would take one person two hours to fill with logs, so there went the morning. Then there wasn't time to go anywhere far beyond Cardiff, and it looked like it was going to rain anyway, so what an ideal opportunity to clear out the garage! And so a day had passed, and its been the same as a week day for me (aside from the log delivery and garage clear out!), but an ideal opportunity for Marno to get stuff done that he can't do in the week. It seems life is just like this at the moment; another phase which will pass in time.

In more exciting news, I have acquired a spinning wheel. Its a very traditional wheel, with no clue as to who made it,. Its double drive, which I found out on the internet -  thank you internet! We were searching for a groove or somewhere for the break band to run, and wondering how on earth Marno's grandmother had managed to spin with it (see below).

Ma's been telling me about it for ages; it belonged to her mother, who had sheep and spun their fibre. One of the bobbins still contains some yarn she spun, which isn't wool actually, I'm not sure what it is, but its a gorgeous pinky colour.

Well this was something that required a clear out to find, and I'm so glad it has been! Spindle spinning is a little slow for my liking; I do like to see more result for my effort, and I certainly am on this.

There's more on here from ten minutes here and there over the weekend, than on my spindle I got at Wonderwool this year. I pinched the fibre intended for the spindle too - sorry spindle.

I can't believe how my consistency has improved over such a short time, though it definitely helped that I knew how to draft already. I'm hoping to get to a spinning class at Calon Yarns at some point. Its a lovely craft studio run by lovely Lynne and her brother, Jon, and they hold loads of different craft workshops. They launched just after Wonderwool, which is where I met them.

Unfortunately, my Apres Surf Hoodie is languishing in a corner and I really want to wear it this winter. Thats one thing I really need to do; improve my knitting speed. I'm so slow (in comparison to people who are fast!).

Have a wonderful and productive week, whoever may be reading.

x Sam

After... and before

Oooh, how exciting; blogger have updated the options for designing blogs so I've given myself a little makeover. I adore the leafy background, and the font I've chosen for the blog title... mmmmm :) So I'm planning on a major increase in my blog usage. Actually, my new design has inspired me to do something I meant to do ages ago. When we moved into this house I documented a reasonable amount of the work we did, but I never got round to showing all the rooms in their before and after states. The reason the design inspired me is because it reminds me of our bedroom - gorgeous, soothing green walls with a few dashes of pink and some lovely charcoal grey. A delicious selection of colours!

So, to restart, and also continue, as I wrote about this a couple of posts ago (which have been few and far between of late), we've finally finished our kitchen! I can't believe its actually taken six months, from first stripping off the delightful beige tiles interspersed with mini cottages, with a truely sensational (!) scene of a whole village above the hob - delightful! to putting my lovely new compost caddies in place, which were just delivered this evening. There are still a few things to finish off - please ignore the hideous electrical paraphernalia above the far left window! It will be boxed in eventually. I need to put more stuff on the larger shelves and hang some things from the hooks, put a clock up and other things on the walls, but thats the kind of stuff that comes with time.

 

 

The kitchen is long and narrow, so I've started with the far end and I'm kind of going round in a circle clockwise (apart from the next photo which is a little detail). One of my favourite details is the tiling between the hob and extractor fan.

Mmmm lovely bread bin by Falcon from Amazon and Compost caddies by Typhoon, also from Amazon. We chose to grout the tiles in grey because the kitchen joins onto the dining room, which is painted in Silt by Little Greene, which is a grey-brown colour, and the writing on the bread bin and colour of the caddies ties in perfectly.

 

You can see the electrics peeping out of the top of this photo.

 

View over the breakfast bar to the far end.

From far end down to sink end. As you can see, there ae plenty of hooks crying out for exciting things to hang from them...

 

And the breakfast bar end.

Our kitchen is really difficult to photograph due to its narrowness, so I hope you get the picture (no pun intended, chuckle). 

Here are a couple more close ups of little bits I love...

 Little bird cup size measures.

 I love this photo of Marno and me; feels like a long time ago now. This was taken at Grantchester, one of my favourite places in England, even though I've only been there once, but it was in an April and the blossoms were all out, and we had the most delicious cheese scones you can imagine.

I love having a utensil pot!

My spice shelves. Marno thought I should buy identical pots to decant all the spices into (yawn, I certainly don't have time for that!), but prefer them to look used - I'm keepin' it real! Hahaha!

A delightful little brown owl, keeping guard over them. 

In the process of writing this, I remembered I did have some things I was waiting for somewhere to hang, so I rushed upstairs and got them, but photos will have to wait for another time.

I have two more photos, but they're both "befores". I didn't want to spoil the beginning of the post with them ;) but here they are just so you can get the general idea. They were actually taken on our second viewing of the house, so please excuse me and the vendor lady.

Delightful, orange pine units. You can even see a couple of the cottages to the right, though unfortunately we are obscuring the whole village scene with our heads!

Horrible glass cabinet with tinted orangey glass and fake lead. Its incredible how many people thought it was nice, including my mum!!! It looks like something is growing out of the top!

Well, there you have it. A ridiculously long account of our kitchen. Oh no, there was something I wanted to add. It was actually in defence of Ikea, where we got the kitchen from. I read the other day on a blog someone disparaging Ikea and calling it generic (ok, I can't exactly argue with that), but not everyone can afford bespoke furniture, and not everybody has the patience, or indeed time, to scour antiques or flea markets to find the right furniture that way. Yes, Ikea is mass produced, but you can still make it your own by using other things, such as paint and accessories, or whatever you like (incidentally, the paint in the kitchen is Rhubarb by Paint Library). Having said that, we have far less Ikea in our house than we had when we were younger and in our flat. You just have to be selective. We have our own original artworks, and collect things when we go away, so it all adds together to make a lovely portrait of the owners of a home.

Thank you and goodnight!

xxx Sam