kitchen porn

So you must all be wondering what is happening at the Butts? (that's our house name for those of you who've forgot - I know it's been a while but like you could forget that!) You are probably imagining that everything is now complete and the Dunns are smugly sitting in their perfectly polished house too busy admiring its shiny wonderfulness to be bothered to blog. Well, hah, if only, is the answer to that.

I guess I need to get in to a better habit of updating this blog as the whole point of it is to record our progress, the highs and the pitfalls of this Do-It-Yourself game. A tedious long winded game I might add. And recently we've been down more snakes than up ladders. And, we've been up a hell of a lot of ladders.

So, what have we been up to that's not to photograph and share with you lovely people? We've been dealing with a lot of shit, that's what. Can I say shit? Yes, I think so and my mum's not reading this anyway. In fact, probably no one is... Apart from you, my dear friend.

It has been problem after problem, expense after expense since the bells rang in 2012 thus putting a swift halt to the decorating. Firstly, as you know, the trees and fence came down, then a sewage pipe burst (nice, and yes that's the shit I refer to), also we had the leaky roof and then we had solar panels fitted to then discover that the house is not earthed so we can't turn the blasted things on. Needless to say, fixing all of that costs a lot of money but with not a lot to show for itself. Pfffff.

Gardening, gardening, gardening has been the main source of entertainment however as clearing up costs nothing. The trees are finally disposed off (thanks again to those who helped) and we now have enough wood to see us through next winter (yay, a positive!). The grass has had its first haircut of the year and we've started a veggie plot as well as growing things in the greenhouse. My fingers are actually green. Must buy gloves.

Before we can make any progress inside, we need to get the heating installed. Going to go for underfloor heating which I like the sound of as its nice not having ugly radiators. You'd think that this would be a simple process but we seem to be struggling to get anyone to actually do the work for us, for a fair price anyway.

Our next big task is to get the extra wiring done that we need for the solar panels. Craig says we need to dig a trench. That sounds quite hard, think I'll just dream about getting a nice new kitchen instead. Ah kitchen porn, that never fails to cheer a girl up!

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Mmmmmm. Delicious.

Blog progess 0, house progress 1

I am a bad blogger, I am a bad blogger, I am a bad blogger... (repeat 100 times). Although the blog has been neglected of late, please be rest assured that work does continue on the house.  Small jobs have been undertaken: starting to tile the bathroom then, ahem, untiling the bathroom (Master tiler Craig unhappy with his workmanship).  Another room painted, the mighty curtains made -coming in at nine metres wide and two and half metres tall, more wardrobe doors have received a fresh lick of paint with new handles added and shiny brushed steel sockets fitted. 

The biggest excitement has been the fitting of solar panels and then discovering that the house isn't even earthed. Until this problem is fixed these panels are currently blooming expensive roof adornments. The greenhouse has had a good scrub and things are even starting to grow - fast growing lettuce really is fast growing!! More work has taken place in the garden since the weather's been fairly mild recently. Craig has a new toy, a chainsaw, and has been hacking away at the overgrown bushes to create an opening for his veggie plot and potatoes and carrots have been planted. I've tried my hand at topiary and reshaped the hedges (as one does). Despite receiving a lot of help clearing up storm damage, that is still ongoing*groan*. Alas all this means is that no job is fully complete and we can't provide you with any big reveal, no 'changing room' makeovers for you (or us) to enjoy. Instead hopefully these little snippets of images will show that we are still scoring off the 'to do list' at pace.

these curtains are a patchwork of 3 curtains

we have doggy visitors and you can see their paw prints on the white floor here

nearly complete

a sneak peak at the master bedroom

living room and fireplace update

As a little reminder to you and to us, this is what our living room looked like when we moved in. The sculpted artex walls, stone fireplace and dark wood all seem like a distant memory now. We've been living without a living room since the plasterer's visit in early December. Jeezo, plaster/plasterers makes an almighty mess.

before

after

We've been painting like demons til our fingers bleed and finally the walls and ceilings are done. New lights have also been fitted and all (all!) that is left to do is fit the laminate flooring. As you'll see we've gone mad with white, top to toe. The chimney breast wall is painted grey however. It turned out a bit curvier than anticipated as those pesky stones were very lumpy indeed and although perfect straight edges would've been sooo good, we didn't want the fireplace to get any bigger that it already was. I felt that we couldn't go for white here as although I do like interior design from the northern snowy fringes, igloo was not really the look I wanted. However, until we have new heating, I'm sure an igloo would probably be warmer. I'm not caring though as I can see the end in sight for this room and I am very excited about that. The walls will need jazzed up by some artwork but that can happen later. Soon, we'll be able to relax on our couch again and watch the TV. Bliss....
Ok. That's that thought over with as there is still far too much to be getting on with.

Since we're here I also thought I'd include some photos of the old bookshelves that is also a recipient of the white (and grey) treatment. I've painted the shelving white and their backing grey to give them some interest. That's saved me a trip to IKEA for a billy bookcase!

A stormy start to 2012.

 Apparently it has been a bit windy when we were away. We returned from a short holiday visiting family in Skye and on our approach to the house, we felt that the place looked different somehow. "Don't we normally have more trees than this?' I said to Craig as he drove into the drive. Bizarrely the answer was yes, two were not where they were supposed to be. One narrowly missed the house and the other had decided to move in with the neighbours. Luckily no serious damage was done - the neighbours have a squashed wheelie bin and a flattened hedge. So, the news really wasn't hamming up their weather reports after all. We didn't even feel a breath of it up north where you expect the weather to be lousy at this time year. Being a Tiree lass I do enjoy a good gale, nostalgic memories of childhood, that said I was glad we were away when this happened. Two trees coming down either side of the house must've sounded like the world was ending! Exactly why there's no trees on Tiree. Looking on the bright side, we were planning on taking these two down anyway due to their close proximity to the house.

This pic on the right shows how close the tree came to squashing our wee house. So much so it  actually dislodged some of the guttering.

 Here it is from the other side -totally uprooted!

 Our fence is also in bad nick.

And that will be some ex roof tiles. Now we are in operation clean up and neighbours have been coming to our door with chainsaws revving and even machetes at the ready (and that was just one guy! - note to self, don't cross John). This would normally worry me but we've been glad of the help as it's a hell of a task trying to move their mighty bulk.

the dining area - work in progress (with a little help from our friends)

This is our dining area on move-in day. Big ideas planned for this space as we want to knock down the wall between it and the kitchen to create one big area for cooking and entertaining. However, the kitchen makeover is down the list of things to do right now as we need to save up for that one. In the meantime we are trying to improve the space the best we can. This has meant yet another paint attack on the dreaded pine ceiling. I couldn't face it myself so luckily our good friend Asta volunteered her services for beer. We were happy to oblige. Another (also good) friend, Les, helped re position the hall lights in a row. More beer coming right up! Now looking nice and retro and will go excellently with the Seventies Habitat dining table I bought on Gumtree which is patiently waiting in my mum's garage until everything is ready for our first dinner party.

Deer goodness!

Lately I've started collecting images via pininterest (http://pinterest.com/audunn/house-inspiration/)  enabling me to store interior design ideas and inspiration. On sitting back and perusing these delights I suddenly realise a common theme - deer. Perhaps a result of me finally seeing deer in the fields nearby to our house? I was beginning to think that people were winding me up when visiting and commenting on all the deer they'd seen on the drive here as I'd been doing the route for six months and not seen a (venison) sausage.  Then, a wee winter morning's stroll in the woods and I stumble across not one but two deer happily skipping away with their little fluffy white bottoms bobbing off into the distance. So I'm smugly happy now that I'm at last one of the gang, a fully fledged member of the exclusive 'I've seen a deer' club or at least relieved that people have not been winding me up. Anyway, it looks as if this has inspired my interior design choices as my piccies are full of deer/stag imagery of 'must haves' for the home (I've also recently noticed that I have amassed lots of elephant themed 'stuff' over the years). The deer fetish has even influenced my christmas paper buying. So, for your sheer joy and amusement, here are some of my deer little indulgences, none of which I own. Yet.

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From drab to fab, our calming coastal inspired bedroom

before

after: coastal inspired bedroom

First job here was to replace the defective window with help from Craig's brother in law, a joiner (www.finessejoinery.co.uk), so here's a big up to James whose services we hope to use again in the near future (please!). We then ripped out the wardrobes - sorry Caroline and other fans of the built in 70's wardrobe but there's another set we may keep - we also need to accommodate our own that I spent ages sanding down and painting when in our old flat and can't let this hard toil go wasted.  I hope you'll all however agree that the textured zig zags and woodchip wallpaper also had to go? 

Next up was to line the walls and the lining paper we got from Homebase. This simply involved pasting the wall - quicker and less messy than the pasting table approach where everything but the walls ended up covered in paste. I'm a big believer of 'waste not, want not' so, with this in mind, I went for a good ol' rummage around in the garage for some old paint to reuse. Good old Dulux came up trumps with 'before the snow'(I think but painted over the label so not too sure) and mineral mist Once for the feature wall which I used every drop off. Once, hah! The curtain pole and curtains are from B&Q - my old curtains aren't wide enough for these windows but I have a cunning plan for them which you'll see later if you stay tuned. To finish off the look and keep in with the coastal inspired colours, I've hung up a couple pictures of the Isle of Tiree (where I grew up). Still needs a carpet and I need to edit down some of the furniture once other rooms are done, but I'm quite happy as its now a calm oasis away from the craziness of the rest of the house.... and relax!