DIY hanging loo roll storage

we had nowhere to store our bulk bought loo rolls. piling them up at floor level meant that they were within reach of wee-j-the-loo-roll-shredding-andrex-puppy-baby. i decided to utilise the dead space behind the bathroom door by making some hanging storage, here's how; i screwed a hook into the door, cut a cross in the top of a tennis ball using a hack-saw, shoved one end of an elastic bungee into the tennis ball (i had to cut a piece of the hook off with the hack-saw to get it to fit!), threaded the loo rolls on and hung the bungee from the hook, hey presto!

world map wallpaper & mum tip #3

hey! we have another finished room... finally got round to hanging the world map wallpaper in o-o's bedroom, we bought it using money he was given for his second birthday so once again we haven't been the quickest out of the blocks on the home improvements. grampy b brought his wealth of experience and knowledge to the project, i merely assisted, mainly by dropping the pasting brush into the bucket of paste. o-o and m spent ages this morning looking at the map and discussing the different countries, o-o likes the 'broken sea bits' (groups of islands!).

wallpaper from here. wheel-y storage boxes from here. solid-as-a-rock-non-wobblesome-so-worth-paying-a-bit-more-for big boy bunk beds from warren evans. the bed linen is ikea and the rainbow big squares blanket was knitted by great auntie g. i customised a jumble sale blanket with pom-pom fringe to make the curtain. my lovely cousin made the bunting.

also, my top mum tip (#3) for transition from cot into a big bed; foam bumpers. they work a treat, you just put them under the sheet, no need to screw anything into the bed frame. kiddo can't get wedged or trapped like with some other guards and they are easy to take on holiday. they make the bed feel extra cosy, o-o clambers in happily very night.

kitchen loveliness

our house is a victorian terrace with no right angles and three floors. the lower floor (with the kitchen and a living room) is in need of a complete makeover. i've been collecting ideas in readiness for the day when we have enough money and time to undertake such a massive project. here's a nice kitchen from the august 2010 issue of living etc.

a bit of green

the tiled no man's land at the end of the bath invites the accumulation of bottles of nearly empty shampoo. perhaps we could install a planter a bit like this one (living etc, april 2011) and grow some lovely curly ferns. it'd be nice to have a bit of indoor greenery.

victory is ours

unfurl the cyber bunting, percussionists of the internet, a drum roll please! two years after moving into the house we have a finished a room.

here are the floating shelves i mentioned earlier, constructed by grampy b with blood, sweat, tears and a fair bit of swearing; this is the building that right angles forgot. we have moved the majority of the books, a task that has proved to be a trial by tessellation. i have put a rudimentary classification system in place, what a geek, but mock all you want, at least we can find things now. some books have been donated to the saint vinnie's charity shop down the road and negotiations are ongoing about the fate of m's collection of slightly out-of-date 'rough guides'. m is loath to EVER part company with a book, i'm more of a 'if-you've-read-it-and-are-unlikely-to-do-so-again-then-let's-make-room-on-the-shelves' kinda girl, what's your take on this home library dilemma? hoard or purge?

the fulfillment of our storage dreams means we're selling our ikea 'besta' bookshelves, locals, have a gander here.

at a snail's pace

we're back! after three weeks away i'm planning to stay put for a while (mainly in order to avoid having to listen to owen's much loved sing-a-long CD in the car). first we spent a lovely quiet week spent in carmarthenshire racing snails, shelling peas, visiting dylan thomas' boat house, digging on the beach and inspecting castles (took me back to happy childhood hours spent perusing my well thumbed copy of 'the usborne book of castles'). 


then me and o-o stayed in manchester while papa m and grand papa b cracked on with some serious home improvements. grand papa b fought valiantly against the walls of cheese and erected some splendid floating shelves in the alcoves in the front room. m completed a decorating task of epic proportions painting the hallway, o-o's room, the window frames and the floor. 


while the patriarchs 'got a bead on' doing the DIY me and o-o had a jolly time catching up with my 'up north' friends, quaffing tea / rum and ginger / frothy milk, visiting grampy m's allotment, blackberrying (so early this year!), deer stalking, reading the millennium trilogy (several years after everyone else) and weighing up the viability of exiting a petting farm with a stolen piglet stowed in the pushchair without being detected (alas in this modern age even petting farms have CCTV). 

seriously though; stealing is wrong, as is throwing things, setting fire to bins, smashing the windows of local shops and generally scaring the beejesus out of people. as idris put it; 

london come on!! this ain't it!! fallback from this shit!!

grandma's lamp

when my dad and his siblings were clearing gran's house i asked if i could have this lamp that had been there forever. my memories of it were slightly different to the reality; i had pictured a grand, HUGE antique lamp. the actual thing is a fair bit smaller and weirdly, part of the upright section had been replaced with bits of an old sporting trophy. it was also something of a death trap with splits in the flex and an un-earthed bulb holder, yikes. here's how it looked then...

i decided to rewire and refurbish it, i got a new bulb holder and bright orange flex on ebay and a white shade in the habitat closing down sale. i garnered a lot of geeksome enjoyment out of the whole process, especially the rewiring. coloured, overbraided flex is another obsession (along with blackboard paint and pom-pom trim). here's the lamp now...

pom-pom fringe

o-o is something of an early bird. i am more of a night owl. in an attempt to encourage some later starts i have been trying to achieve total darkness in his bedroom. a turquoise blackout roller blind has been supplemented with the pink jumble sale blanket hung from an ikea curtain wire. this morning i added some orange pom-pom trim to the bottom of the blankie-curtain using my hand cranked singer sewing machine. pom-pom trim could become an obsession.

illuminating

need to choose a pendant light for the living room. paralysed by indecision.

illuminating by sianuska on Polyvore.com

this is beautiful but for some reason you can't clip etsy items to polyvore. we have the ottava lights in the hallway, i love them but they are a bit industrial and we want the room to be cosy.

which one's your favourite? 

bangs, bikes & books treasury

so very addictive.

i'm too much of a chicken to ride a bike and a fringe wouldn't suit (have spent long enough holding the end of my pony tail over my forehead to know this with some certainty) but i do have glasses as a result of reading too many books (specs from here, worth a visit if you are a four eyes living in the south east).

the sohomode dresses are so beautiful, if i was the marrying kind... 

the door is finished and is, though i say so myself, a thing of beauty, apologies for the somewhat grainy photo. 

things to do about the home

o-o is at b's hanging out with his pal l-man so i am taking the opportunity to continue with the door painting. progress is slow. i am doing it properly, the dad way, which involves a lot of preparation; stripping back to wood, sanding down and then applying many layers of paint (primer, undercoat, top coat). luckily i have a copy of 'things to do about the home' which has provided me with these handy instructions... 

the book is full of pleasing illustrations, perhaps one day i will turn some of them into screen-prints. in a way they remind me of some of the images in this book. anyway, the primer and undercoat are on. the undercoat is a lovely shade of soft grey, i do love grey. have my fingers crossed that the final door colour will be as beautiful. now i'm having a tea break. 

in other happy news; the jasmine is starting to flower. it's right next to the kitchen window so i am treated to its beautiful scent while i complete my housewifery tasks.