Somewhere over the rainbow

I should have my Rosie Elmer blanket finished and ready to show you, but oh no!  No, almost as soon as I blogged about it I started 2 new projects haha!

A friend from my WI is having a baby in the next month and I'd been thinking about making her a blanket, although she's made a couple being a knitter, but I just couldn't let it go.  

I grabbed left overs from my Bright Stripes blanket with a few other colours to make a rainbow.  I love it!  

I think I made my foundation chain a little too long so I'm not sure now if my stripes will be horizontal or vertical, but we'll see how I get on; I've got about a week to finish.  Isn't it jolly!

I don't know if any bloggers in the UK saw the solar eclipse on Friday but here's my contribution ♥ Admittedly not the most amazing photo but it's a nice reminder of a (probably) once in a lifetime opportunity.  I was soooo excited, I have to admit I didn't actually do any work at work until around 10am...  It's just fantastic to see the universe at work, we know the Moon orbits our planet and we orbit the Sun (or we wouldn't have seasons!) but normally it happens so gradually we just take it for granted, but to actually see-the-moon-moving-in-front-of-the-sun was phenomenal!!

A little more down to earth, we did a bit of DIY for the cats last weekend.  There's no way for them to go out when they want and we think they may have had access to the outside in their previous home. Dizzy for one gets very restless and I think he needs to stretch his legs.  The only problem is we had no wall space leading to the outside, other than under the kitchen sink...

★ Build me cat door hoomans ★

I know this makes it look like I did all the work...  Good camera work J!

But actually my dad did 97% of it in his very pro looking railway jacket.  We really would be lost without him

★ Stoopid hoomans making holes in walls.  Feed me ★

So now they can come and go as they please, although Dizzy is stupid and insists on pushing the flap open with his paws, so his head doesn't get close enough to the microchip sensor to activate.  We've had to put it into training mode until he gets used to it, but he'd better figure it out of we've spent a lot of money on a normal cat flap!

He might be stupid (sometimes) but he is very photogenic! 

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The end and a start

I can't quite believe that it's January, but I feel that 2014 has been packed full & I'm happy to say that I don't have many regrets.  We finished decorating our bedroom in February which I never thought we'd see the end of.

We also put up blinds and curtains in our living room, painted our bathroom (put up another blind) painted the outside window sills, painted the yard and made a planter

I personally had a brilliant time at Glastonbury and couldn't have wished for a better week.  Ok there's one regret, we haven't (yet) managed to get tickets for 2015!

We had a lovely family holiday to Italy in the Summer, our lesson learnt will be to print maps as well as use a satnav...

We adopted Diz and Mogs ♥

And this happened...  But we got through the first few weeks and we have a well adjusted cat, Mogs was always perfect hehe

I made a lot of stuff!

And as a Christmas / Birthday present to me I've ordered a dressmakers dummy (which should be here by now) so I can get down to some proper sewing, I can't wait!  

I've got a blanket or two lined up for 2015 and I need to finish Dr Who, but mostly I plan to sew if possible and get builders in to rid me of my 70s fireplace...

I hope 2014 saw you right and that 2015 sees you even better

x x x x

DIY part 1

Warning!  This post is all about DIY, which I know isn't very interesting to a lot of people especially if you read my blog because you're a knitter, crocheter or you just like saying hello, so I don't mind if you skip past this one.

DIY is a BIG part of what I'm upto these days so it would be a bit odd not to talk about it.  When we bought the house it didn't look like anything needed to be done, other than cosmetic stuff, but I guess once you move in you start to properly notice all the little things.  Our main bedroom was a pale blue which we wanted to change for something a bit warmer.  I also wasn't mad on the wall paper.

We noticed a small crack running between the two windows but we weren't too worried.  It looked like the top layer of plaster wasn't bonded to the wall very well, bits of it came off when we pulled off the paper, but no biggie; this could be re-skimmed.

And it was okay that when we pulled the dado rail off the plaster came off as well...

But it was not okay when we pulled away the wall paper here.  Er yes, this is brick.  Brick with absolutely NO plaster on it whatsoever.  Hello House!

So the first piece of advice I have for you, if you buy an old house do not pull the wallpaper off unless you're absolutely certain that you wouldn't rather put a picture over it because there's a good chance it's gluing the house together.

Luckily my Dad is a dab hand at DIY.  He built a climbing frame for me and my brother when we were kids, our garage, a conservatory and an extension to our house, but he never did put up my clock (thanks Mum!)

We decided to gut the room completely...  This was all the day after we moved in so I was pretty shattered but OH it was so much fun!  ♥ tool of the moment was the crowbar.

We found some beautiful wallpaper, which judging by how thin it was I think was pretty old.

My Dad got to work building a frame which we'd fill with insulation and cover in plasterboard.

Bye bye brick!

There's some green plastic in the wall to keep out moisture

Starting to look like a padded cell now...

We foolishly (I cannot emphasise this enough) thought it would be a good idea to take the ceiling down.  The original ceiling was quite springy and my Dad was having trouble finding the joists in the loft to drill the plasterboard into.

This my second piece of advice if you buy an old house.  Do not take the ceiling down because you and everything you own will quickly become covered in a layer of 100 year old dust, dirt and soot.  As soon as we realised it was getting everywhere (I mean everywhere) we stopped and decided to try again with finding the joists...  I looked like a chimney sweep and I had to visit B&Q like that for more screws.

Upon abandoning out quest we started to get cracking.  My Mum did an amazing job helping get the plasterboard onto the ceiling with my Dad, the car jack and a wooden contraption that my Dad built.

Over Christmas we couldn't really do much work until the room was plastered.  My Cousin who is a decorator / plasterer offered to come and do the whole thing for us, which was amazing and saved us a fortune.

They came up bright and early (8.30am!) from London one Saturday morning and did the whole thing, with a bit of help from coffee, Red Bull and Radio 1.  My neighbour who is amazing said she didn't hear a thing but I don't believe her :-(



And then we let it dry!



My Mum and Dad put up the coving while I was at work.



I cut some skirting board and it was the straightest cut you'd ever seen, no word of a lie!



Although it was the only cut I did ;-)  I was recovering from a teeny tiny operation, which is all good and I'm fine but lots of rest was in order, particularly annoying as there was so much left to do.



J and I painted the rest of the room and got covered in it.  You have to do a watered down mix onto plaster so it soaks in (otherwise it just flakes off) and believe me it's messy!



I got to work stripping the poor door frame, which I think was covered in about 20 layers of paint so had barely any shape left to it.  This is another project of it's own!  ♥ tool of the moment was a shave hook

I finally got to put on the new skirting.  We toyed with keeping the old stuff and stripping it but after the doorframe I couldn't face it.  We've kept it though so it may do another room.  While I slightly regret not using it here, I know it would have been too much work.

A glimpse of our lovely floorboards and stone flooring where the original fireplace would have been.  We want carpetas it's a bedroom but it seems such a shame to hide these beauties.

And that's it for now!  We are very lucky that my Mum and Dad are coming back next week, because we cleverly kept their tools and they need them back ;-)  We should get the new dado rail cut and then we can start painting properly.  It's going to be well worth it but it's been a lot of work for one room and we're both hoping to get in there soon!

x x x x