The dining room floor is in...

The dining room floor is in! And what a difference it makes!

The house was built in 1960 and SOMEBODY thought it would be a good idea to lay black floor tiles in the dining room. How wrong they were.

In the seventies the family that lived here could take no more and carpeted the dining room, hall, stairs and landing with this...

(for good measure, they painted the walls and doors green too!)

Hmm, not my thing. We lived with it for a few years as other big jobs have taken priority, like replacing the condemned boiler, radiators that were so tall, they stuck out above windowsills (!?) and windows that were falling out. Not to mention rewiring, installing a shower and a new fire. In a house where EVERYTHING needs changing, some things have to wait!

We tackled the flooring in the living room and hallway just before Christmas. Then I bought more of the same wood to do the dining room. It's taken this long to change the wiring in there and lift the radiator off and on for redecoration.

But today was flooring day!

It's also been switch the broadband provider day so I couldn't work my computer for 18 hours!

I'm not going to show you the set up room until I have had the light replaced, painted the skirting and finished 3 little painting jobs. I need to swap the curtains for a longer pair I have to hide the pipes. That will take me forever to get around to as they need shortening.

But it is the dining room of my dreams. Everything is ebayed, second hand and painted by me so it hasn't cost a fortune. Even the floor was paid for with pay pal. Which makes it free. I know I'm lucky even having a dining room. There wasn't one in my last house.

I am persevering with my bread board display despite what everyone says. Yes the plates were very pretty. I'm not really after 'pretty' though. I am after 'rustic chunky vintage breadboardery.'
And you can't do that with plates.

Plus, if I don't display them there's no point having them and I will be forced to sell them. :(

I did take on board Max's advice though and add some more. I had quite a few squirrelled away. They are my weakness. I oiled two of them so they look a bit darker.

I'm in the process of painting out that folk design I did. It irritated me. It looked like a stencil and I hate stencils!

I will leave you with a sneaky peak at the window I'm working on...

 

 

before

 

 

in progress

Right, better get off the computer and get cracking...

Continue

Plate rack problem...

Okay so for my dining room makeover I decided I needed a long flat plate rack. The room isn't big so it had to be flat so that people can still squeeze by it.

I got this one on eBay, I've shown you before...

Well, tragedy of tragedies. It's too small. My carefully collected wares (if it's under £1 I'll have it) do not fit on here at all.

So, seeing as I'm now a Master Carpenter I figured I could make one. I mean, how hard could it be? Men seem to manage it and they can't understand a garment care label or use a washing machine properly.
So I set about measuring my crapola and designed a larger plate rack.

It would have been so great. People would have been emailing me just begging me to reproduce it for them. I'd probably have had to start a new company.

But seeing as I'm car-less and struggle to get timber, I thought I'd have another little look on eBay. And I found one. It wasn't cheap but I had pay pal money from selling some junk so that makes it free really. And a lot less hassle than getting timber and having to start a brand new company.

You can see how much bigger it is...

Obviously the one I nearly built would have been just like this. Or better. 

I haven't got much further on at all with the room. The radiator man never came and I've been too busy to track him down. I forgot how hard it is to achieve anything in the school holidays between playdates and day trips. But I'm not complaining. Constance is great company and we are enjoying the lazy mornings.

Continue