Before, During and After....

We had 3 weeks of perfect weather, 3 french students, 1 daughter/step daughter joined us and we painted the outside of the house, including all windows (also completely repaired and serviced) and guttering and railings!

Ta Dah!

New Doorway.

We finally had a clear weekend with no rain! Time to do the new door to The Yoga Room.
There was actually a doorway here originally and we needed to block up access to our kitchen, so that both The Yoga Room and the kitchen can be used simultaneously!

Knocking out the first few stones.

Concrete blocks and insulation revealed

 

Rebuilding sections of the stone wall

 

Completely through!

 

Rebuilding inside.

 New plaster and fresh paint to wall and door.

Finished, complete with door logo and logo to inside wall.

Come and see me for some yoga!
www.theyogaroom.biz

How to make amends for buying too many tester pots...

In choosing colours for the rooms on the top floor I was rather indecisive, there were 19 of them!

 

So I mixed them all together to hopefully use in the kitchen, and by some strange coincidence it made almost exactly the same colour as the floor.

 

There was plenty to paint halfway up the wall....

 

So we have finally moved into the new 'unfitted' kitchen now!

 

 

The Kitchen Sink....

Just wanted to make a quick post about our kitchen sink with homemade copper taps and oak worktops......

 

 

 As always, the work of the fabulous husband (apart from the curtains). 

More stuff coming soon, we have done lots on the garden front and back as the weather has been so nice, and the top floor is ready for decoration, pics to follow.

 

First Forage....

Not really anything to do with building renovations, but it is definitely country living......

Wild garlic is everywhere here at the moment and this week I have used it in several dishes but this Pesto was the most delicious and super quick and easy!

Pick and wash leaves.

 

Add olive oil, parmesan cheese,  pine kernels, salt and pepper.

I don't have proper food processor but a hand blender worked fine.

Add to beautiful jar (now empty of its delicious contents of a Pad Thai sauce, a gift brought back from Thailand, thank you!)

Served with spelt spaghetti no less. Yum!

Tarting up a concrete floor...

We are almost done in our new bigger and better kitchen, getting ready to make all those breakfasts. We have bought some really great bargains, all our appliances are secondhand but look like new!

As you can see, there is a rather ugly concrete floor and we didn't really have any budget for anything fancy. So......

 

Take one average kitchen sponge and cut into fairly rough squares...

 

Get fabulous husband to make this.......

Stick sponge squares to it......

Use the tool in much the same way as potato prints, dip in paint and press onto floor. Rotate each time so it isn't uniform.

 

2 coats of clear matte varnish.....

 

Finished! Ugly concrete floor transformed to mosaic tile effect loveliness!

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More treasures....

On discovering the original door to our cottage at the back of the house, we found some more treasures.....

 

We hope this might be the original key

 

 We uncovered 3 layers of beautiful wall paper

 

And this mint condition theatre ticket from 1914!

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Calling in the cavalry....

Planning permission was finally granted and help arrived in sibling form so the top floor of the house has come on leaps and bounds.....

New doorway. So now we have an 'ensuite' bathroom for the Double bedroom. This was a bit of a feat as there was a huge beam diagonally across the whole wall (hence the chopped off corner)

This will be the ensuite bathroom, the old doorway to the corridor is closed up. This is where the bath will be and the boys have got all the plumbing in now, the pipe poking out is for the macerator which is itself going to be housed in a cupboard in the corridor to save space in the bathroom.

The corridor side of the wall, this is the beautiful macerator enabling us to have the bathroom where we want it. The cupboard is going to be disguised as a radiator cover. The extra plasterboard on the corridor wall is a requirement of building regulations for fire protection.

  

Fresh plaster over the extra layer of fire protection plasterboard.

 

One wall complete and ready for building inspection!

 

This is going to be the bathroom for the Twin room. We had to be careful of the weight we are putting on the floor in this area (it is right next to the enormous water tank just the other side of the wall) So we have plumped for a huge walk in shower instead of a bath. The shower tray is in already, you can just see it under the hardboard.

Pretty pictures to come soon. We are choosing bathroom tiles and am ready to step in with my paintbrush!

Big thanks to D, it was lovely to have you to stay xxx

Chaos to Calm

Work has finished on The Yoga Room! This is a lovely little oasis of calm for yoga for small groups of 2 or 3 or private clients.

Before........
It has a heated floor to keep us cosy during the winter months.

Heating element cable.

Cement layer.

More info can be found here....
www.theyogaroom.biz
www.facebook.com/TheYogaRoomHay

Peggy 'helping'!