A Room of Surprise UPDATE

 

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Things are moving along nicely with Grace's room. The carpenter is here today to start work on her sloping floor. He has managed to pull up all the old MDF which was laid badly & unevenly on to original beams.

If you look at the spirit level, you can see the angle of the slope in the middle, over the main beam. If you look at the rear wall, where the skirting board has been removed, you can see how the angle gets steeper. There is almost 4 inches difference between the left & right walls. No wonder Hugh could always be found playing with his cars there, watching them roll by themselves down the 'hill'!

We have decided to move the small radiator from under her window, to the opposite side of the room & to double it's size & make it a double, not single as well. So we are waiting for our plumber to come tomorrow!

 

We also had a rather lovely surprise;

We removed an old piece of boarding which covered where the old fireplace had been. We were told by a previous owner that it had been removed. Well, clearly that isn't the case, because as you can see, there is the original, Georgian fireplace! It even had its own dead bird & a deserted bees nest!

Now to commit sacrilege- tomorrow we are reboarding it back up. We don't think it's terribly practical to keep it in a 7 year old's bedroom. We won't be putting a gas or electric fire in & needless to say a wood burner is out of the question! We can't just leave it open as one of the main reasons for such a drastic overhaul of her room is to try & preserve heat in the winter. This house gets bitterly, bitterly cold & it is a very large house so trying to heat it is a constant battle in the winter.

 

So we are covering it back up and, perhaps, in years to come we might open it up & it would be a fabulous, original feature to our beautiful home.

 

UPDATE

 

Clearly I posted that too early! Becuase this is the lounge, directly under Grace's room.

The carpenter slipped off a beam & put his foot through the ceiling of the lounge below. I know it was an accident, but it still happened. That was the first room we did in this house & it has been absolutely plagued with disasters. From wonky ceilings, to plaster cracking within days of being applied. Just a disaster.

Now this. Oh and this;

 

The woodworm treatment he applied to the beam has leaked through the (badly constructed) ceiling, all down the wall & left a horrendously stained puddle on my very expensive brand new carpet (which we have all gone to enormous lengths & great personal effort not to mark stain or ruin!) it has also ruined my perfect, amazing, beautiful expensive & now discontinued curtains on which the whole room decor was based & which are the same as the ones in the 'mirror' lounge.

Crapitty crap crap crapwits.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrggggggh.

 

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What Eve Is Wearing

My children, particularly my girls have many, many fabulous clothes & I take great pleasure out of picking their outfits (or at least guiding my 7 year old) so I am going to post my favourite ones so I can look back & coo!

Here Eve is in a beautiful top from Monsoon, that was originally Grace's. It is much more of a coral colour than it looks here. The shorts I picked up from Tesco in the sale reduce to £3! I am really not a fan of tesco clothing, I find the quality is very patchy, the materials are usually cheap and honestly, the styles are normally rather 'chav' in my opinion. But I did rather love these shorts!

 

Today is rather rainy & not as warm as it should be in June! So here is Eve, dressed for the school run. Her fab, funky bright egg yolk yellow jeans are from BabyGap. Her top is too. It's very cute & has a cartoon drawing of 'San Francisco' with just a hint of glitter. The rather fabulous red polka dot gilet is from 'Blue Zoo' at Debenhams. The shoes! Oh the shoes! I love these shoes. I think they are my very favourite shoes EVER. Absolutely the perfect shade of red/pink. Funky, but not too fashion forward. Traditional, without being frumpy or a clichė. And they go with everything. I want a pair!

 

They are Petal, in Watermelon, by the fabulous 'Livie & Luca'.

 

 

 

 

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Progress

 

Today is a rather special day. We have had, finally, a carpenter in who has given us faith & confidence in his ability. So he has measured & explained, whilst we are still waiting for quotes, I am reasonably happy that we will use him. And then, my beautiful eldest daughter, Grace, can finally have something that is not a building site for her bedroom!

We moved in to this 300 year old farmhouse almost two years ago. She was just five. It was her first bedroom, that was truly her own. Previous to that we had all, all four of us, shared one bedroom in a tiny terraced house that we rented whilst trying to find 'the' house.

So it is a big deal. A very big deal. For Grace to have a space to call her own. Her very own. She is excited to help design it. She has already picked the paint. And it is already bought. She had wanted Farrow & Ball 'Middleton Pink' but it was just a bit too sickly against the treacle dark beams. So we have gone for Dulux 'Pretty Pink' as it has a touch of sugary lilac in it too.

She has a beautiful window that faces south over our front lawns, part of the orchard & out over the rolling fields of our neighbours at the manor house. I hope to put a desk near it so her workspace will be flooded with natural light.

I have also started looking at furniture. I am having a really difficult time finding anything suitable. I just want some well made, sturdy wooden furniture that isn't flat packed made in China cheap rubbish. This is proving rather difficult. I've looked at a few places but they all seem terribly expensive. I am not sure I want to spend lots of money on furniture for a 7 year old, knowing that she will cover it in glitter, paint & stickers and then outgrow it in her teens.

So my quest continues....

 

 

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