Snippets from Bath

Afternoon all, 

Just back from a lovely few days away in the tiny city of Bath.  BEST. WEEKEND. EVER.

Here are some of the things that I saw.

More later. xo

The Stint at 46. And doughnuts.

Good evening all,

Sorry it's been so long, but hey, I've been busy.  ON TO BUSINESS!

Things are coming together a bit at the inlaws (and the sitch that shall heretofore be called 'the stint at 46').  Today I completed the glosswork in the bedroom (skirting, doors and coving) and got another coat of blackboard paint on the cupboards in the kitchenny bit.  I also got to smash 'Bizarre Kitchen Island Unit' with a sledgehammer.  That felt pretty good.  I also painted the wall my old favorite, Chic Shadow by Dulux.  We got a lot of stuff cleared out of the room too, which helped a buttload.

Mid progress:

The grey on the walls really calms it all down a notch.

 And here we have the best shot I took of the missing kitchen Island.

I had to all the painting with a brush and not a roller because it's actually tongue and groove panelling, so that was fun.  On the plus side however, because we did a whole bunch of work there today, this is what we had for dinner:

That's right, you crazy kids.  Homemade sugar doughnuts, fresh out of the pan, smothered in sugar and cinnamon.  They were truly epic.  

So, to recap:

Cons:  Essentially homeless.  Pros:  Doughnuts for dinner.

Oh, we also had a charity bake sale at work, you know the drill.

Check it, yo.

Slow progress and baking

Good afternoon all,

Life has been so busy lately.  Things have been busy at work and then I come home and things are busy here too.  One day last week I pulled 11.5 hours at work and them came home to clean my carpets.

Frankly, I live the life of an international movie star.

So, we've made a tiny bit of progress at the in-laws.  We managed some time there yesterday to:

- Remove an inexplicable plank glued, screwed and no-nails'ed to the ceiling
-Replace above with a made-from-scratch ceiling rose
-Painted all walls in the bedroom
-Painted the bedroom door (including the edge...more on that to come!)
-Re hung the wonky 'kitchen' cabinet
-Got a coat of chalkboard paint on said cabinets

All in all, about an 8 hour day there.  On the plus side, we sent the estate agent pictures of the house and asked if they wanted us to paint it back white.  They asked us to leave it as it is, and also put the rent up £20 a month for the next tenants.   We were due to have 3 viewings last Friday, but the first lot took it in a heartbeat, so no more strangers traipsing through the house.  It is already starting to feel like someone elses house, though.  Anyway, you're just here for the pictures.

Depressingly, the colour on the walls IS a different colour to that on the cupboard doors, but in this pic it looks pretty much the same.

Still, this wall was dark grey and now it's dove, and you can just about see the pink on the edge of the door there.  Little touches like this make me happy.

Pink door edge up close.  (FYI the colour is pin-up pink from Crown Vintage, and the walls are our old staple, Chic Shadow Once, by Dulux)

There was so much work involved in getting this ceiling rose up.  The bizarre plank that preceded it pulled up pulled down a bunch of the wallpaper (yes, wallpaper) when we pulled it down, and the no nails had seeped out and turned everything brown.  We managed to a. find some scraps of wallpaper, b. Pattern match them and c. paste them up with wallpaper paste.  I then painted the new paper and a bit of the old white, which highlighted the fact that the ceiling wasn't white after all.  Meanwhile, the Mr set about finding a suitable sized piece of wood and cutting it into a circle and routing a nice pattern into the edges.  Once the ceiling is fully dry we'll screw it up tightly and fill and cover the screwholes.  All the electrical gubbins is on the underside, so there should be no need to take it down again.

And here's the newly-straightened cabinetry (and cameo from the Mr) drying after it's first coat of magnetic chalkboard paint.  Long way to go in there yet... As you can see, the tiles go to the bottom of the cabinets.  This included the one that was lower than the others, so theres a few missing tiles where the cabinet used to be.  Luckily my in-laws never throw ANYTHING away (like wallpaper used to cover a ceiling 15 years ago...) so there are more tiles around.  After chipping off the existing half tiles, the wall is now ready for some new tiles.

And Baking!

I went to a lovely BBQ today and got burned to a crisp despite wearing high factor sunscreen.  I baked a lemon drizzle cake, but didn't have a chance to take any pictures before we left, so I'm afraid the pictures were taken in the car.

Tune in next time for more exciting developments!

Smarties Cake and Friends...

Good evening,

I've spent the last two evenings baking my arse off in the name of charity.  To raise money for my companies charities we often hold bake sales.  These rather inoffensive events can easily turn into a competitive 'Great British Bake Off' if you're not careful.  Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you I'm not famed for being careful.  So, I baked a cake I've seen over on the Pinterest.  I present...

The Chocolate Smarties KitKat cake (Hell Yes).

In all fairness, it was a pretty easy cake to make, although I never want to unwrap another KitKat, ever again.  It's basically a chocolate sponge, covered in buttercream, with KitKats stuck to the outside and Smarties poured on top.  Simple, but effective.  This cake is going to be raffled at the bake sale, so it had to be robust enough to stand a journey both IN and OUT of work again.

I also baked a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, a regular chocolate cake, some vanilla cupcakes, a ginger cake aaaaaaaand a lemon drizzle cake.  What can I say?  I like to bake.

More epic Smarties cake... Actually, I think I'll dedicate this to my Blog Stalker.  You know who you are ;-)

And on that rather delicious note, I shall leave you!  I'll try and get some pictures of the cake trolley tomorrow laden with goodies, including homemade flapjacks, made by someone else, but from my secret recipe! (FYI, the secret is cornflakes.  Shhhhh!)

The Things Young People Do.

Good afternoon The Internet.

So...in order that we can save up a 10% deposit, procure a mortgage, purchase a house and have a baby to put in it, we have decided to move in with my husband's parents for the next year.  The amount we'll save on rent, council tax and utility bills should set us up with a decent deposit and arm us for house hunting.

There are downsides, of course.  We will be giving up our own home, and living in a bedroom and a conservatory type space, which we have been kindly 'lent' by my in laws.  The bedroom isn't too bad, as before we moved in together, we re-did that space.  The real challenge comes in the shape of the extension/conservatory space.  Currently it houses a set of cane furniture, half a kitchen and a hell of a lot of clutter (read: Junk).  There's also patio doors into the main dining room, and a door into the kitchen, as well as downpipes and plumbing which used to be on the outside of the house, but weren't moved when the extension was built.

The plan is to clear the space, sort out the kitchen-y end, move in our furniture, paint, clean and come to terms with quite literally living in someones conservatory.  This is going to be a real tough one, but in a year we will be finding a place of our very own, so it will be worth it.

Sweet Zombie Baby Jesus.

Good evening all,

I found a photography challenge on Pinterest quite a while ago and have been waiting to start it for ages.  Waiting and waiting and waiting.  Well, I shall wait no more!  I'm just going to jump on in and get started.

Wish me luck!

My own personal Forest

Not much going on around here lately, so here's some allotment updates... We're off to paint the shed and do some digging tomorrow.  My peppers and tomatoes are coming along finely and have been repotted.  Aren't they doing well!?

In other news, I've mislaid my memory card for my camera, so until I find it we're back to iPhone pics.  (Or I could pinch one off the Mr...)

Some of My Inspiration

Good Morning The Internet.

So, you know I've shared some of my inspiration before, in the shape of Daniel over at manhattan-nest, well, the guy's up for an Apartment Therapy Homie Award!  Huzzahs all round!  Please vote for him, he's so funny and true it makes my little heart leap.  OK, I'll share the pics of his that inspired me, and you go vote, K?  Simples.

And of course, the bed.  Without this post, my bed would STILL be awful.

Go! Vote! Now!

Ta and thanks and such.

Planning a new bathroom

Good afternoon all,

I'm in the midst of planning a bit of a bathroom update.  I recently re-did the main bathroom, but I'm after something a bit edgier.  It's currently powder pink, with white and pale pink towels, an ornate white mirror and a frosted glass medicine cabinet.  As a renter, this is pretty much the only thing I can change.  It's a pretty small room, but I want to go DARK in there.  My thoughts are near black walls and ceiling, and hot pink pops.  Think 'goth flamingo' and you're there.

Over half the bathroom is tiled in plain white square tile, so that should balance it out, and the floor is a 'lovely' black faux marble texture lino affair.

So, here is my current thought process...

I LOVE the octopus figure.  Mr E hates it.  Something tells me I'll win this one.
I'd show you a before picture, but currently the bath is absolutely filled with balloons from my birthday festivities a few days ago.  What?  That's normal, right?

EDIT:  Here are the before pictures.  Who cares that the bath is full of balloons?  I'm not normal so I shan't pretend to be.  So this is pretty much the view from the door (Why are bathrooms impossible to photograph?)

Notice the ledge above the toilet and sink.

 This wall is entirely white tile, so nothing can be changed there, although I guess a medicine cabinet could probably be screwed into the grout.  Probably.

The wall on the left there, and the reflected wall opposite show that it's a pretty, sweet pink at the mo.

I've never liked the light, but I hadn't (until now) had a better idea.  There was a horrid wire cage thing over an incandescent bulb when we moved in.  At least this was an improvement.

And here's the last wall.  That medicine cabinet is WAAAY too small, even though we don't use this as the main bathroom.  You can see the grey floor here too.

So there you have it, watch this space!

Chocolate Ruffle Cake

What day is today? It's Mickey's Birthday! What a day for a birthday, let's all have some cake!

I made a lovely ruffle cake, thanks to Pinterest (Did someone say 'addiction'?)  It's Hummingbird Bakery Brooklyn Blackout chocolate cake-my go to chocolate cake.  There's three layers of that with chocolate ganache both inside and out.  This is a chocoholics dream.

My house is in full on birthday mode today, with balloons strewn across the floor...

 And my homemade birthday chandelier.  It's just balloons, ribbons, pom poms and a homemade crepe paper fan hanging from wire.  It makes me happy.

 And of course the epic cake.  This also makes me happy.

Well, the tea party is on Saturday, and I'll be making cake pops, rice krispie treats, cupcakes, macarons for the first time, and some savoury bits and bobs.  Expect more pics! :-)