@thecuriousglasshouse Lifestyle Blog by Oxford Cottage Gardener
Lifestyle, interiors and gardening – Follow on Instagram @thecuriousglasshouse for daily updates
I love to create fresh arrangements at Christmas and what else is as timeless and decorative as a fireplace garland, a staircase garland and a table centre and what’s more as soon as Christmas is over it can all go on the compost heap and your room can return to normal.
Since I last shared on my blog, things have moved very slowly towards ownership of our new house.
Our offer was accepted back in November, the valuation was done and mortgage was secured then came Christmas and everything ground to a halt. Come the New Year we had a couple of minor setbacks, one was about the additional parcel of land at the bottom of the garden (which is the reason we are buying the house anyway!)
It seems although the seller owned the land it hadn’t been fully transferred into his name with Land Registry so our mortgage company needs further checks. Also our buy to let mortgage, secured on on current house to release funds for the new house, had expired in early February. Due to a miscommunication between the solicitor and bank, but actually due to the banks error our application has been put on the cancelled pile! However as it was the banks error they have agreed to re-instate the application.
All that means we still haven’t exchanged, although hope to by the end of next week! Maybe!
We do however have a completion date arranged of the 23rd March so all being well we still hope to meet that. It is pretty essential as our temporary Monday to Friday rental finished at the beginning of March although the owner has agreed we can stay until 23rd, so there is quite a lot riding on this! Not least the prospect of being homeless in the week, or travelling nearly 1 1/2 hr each way every day!
Nevertheless we have made a start on planning that lovely garden and I’ve been buying all the bargain summer bulbs I can find ready for one of the big plans we have……
More news next time……..
Still trawling Rightmove…… I think I genuinely am OCD over searching on the website, I look probably 3 times a day just in case something new gets added and I miss it ?
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ne.
It's got nearly 1/2 acre✅
It's already had an extension to make a large kitchen ✅
The old garage has been demolished and a modern one built ✅
The garden is a blank canvas ready to go ✅
Ok the kitchen needs remodelling, and an en-suite needs adding but otherwise it's got all the basics.
Unfortunately it's a bit out of our price range whilst we still own our Oxford house but..... I need to be resourceful!
I've booked a viewing for Saturday, in case someone comes along to buy it under our noses (again) Let's see how that goes.
We viewed the house and loved it, trouble is 2 other people have viewed it and one person has had a 2nd viewing already! Hmmm I find the whole thing so stressful, now we’ve got to see if we can raise the extra finance and get an offer in ASAP if we want it.
To be honest if someone does put in a full asking price offer, I’m not going to get into a bidding war with them, the asking price is really what it’s worth so I wouldn’t be prepared to go any higher anyway.
So we’ve had our offer accepted ??? now to pay for a valuation to finalise our mortgage offer. That’s the nerve wracking bit …..what if another seller pulls out!
Lots of us enjoy creating things, whether it’s crafts, cooking, gardenening or DIY and once the creation has happened it is nice to be able to take photographs whether to keep for prosteritory or to upload to social media or in fact to upload to a website to sell.
Taking photographs of the creation is often what people find tricky to do, to catch the detail, to try to incorporate some of the story of where the creation has come from and to show the creation in its true light.
It is often good to take pictures whilst you are creating, to show how you are making your product. Take pictures of the materials you are using, the methods and techniques you have included in the process, all of which builds the story behind the product.
Don’t however be tempted to just snap the picture as it sits on you knee, pay some attention to the surroundings, spend a little time to arrange the work on a neutral background with no distracting elements that may draw attention from your work. Little touches like flower heads or pieces of beautiful lace will help to enhance the picture.
Once completed take time to arrange the items, again paying much attention to creating a neutral background, here I have used a piece of pure linen which I have crushed to add some texture. I have ribbon and lace, items I have been using lately along with the wool and needles used to create the item. I have also snipped some flower heads from the garden to dress the picture.
Happy crafting!
We like to create unique pieces of furniture from everyday items. So when the opportunity came to renovate our dining chairs, we wanted to do something different.
We have some very comfy cream leather dining chairs which when we bought them, looked perfect with our light oak dining table. When we moved house and the large dining table no longer fitted or matched with our gloss white and black granite kitchen we were in a dilemma as to what to do with the chairs.
We had bought a gloss black dining table from Next but the cost of 8 chairs to go with it was another £1000! We decided on a temporary solution of some black stretch covers which we imported from America and they looked fine for the time being.
Last year, having seen Pinterest articles about painting leather with Annie Sloane paint, we thought, why not give it a go. We started with just one and used that for a good 6months before committing, what would happen with the heavy traffic of Christmas or when boys with jeans squirmed on them?
Perfect, the one test chair lived up to the demands so we went ahead with the rest and painted several coats of AS Pure, it went on perfectly covering the cream leather with ease. We also painted the light oak legs with AS Paris Grey……they looked and matched beautifully.
Our last flourish was to add our own stamp on the chairs with a little bit of stencilling. We brought a couple of stencils from Hobbycraft so we could choose and customise our own design.
Armed with a stiff brush, a ceramic tile and the AS paint in Paris Grey,
we found the centre line of the chair and stencilled the design evenly on each chair.
We combined designs from three different stencils to give the chairs their own unique look.
The stencilling didn’t take very long at all, and I am very pleased with what we’ve achieved, a French vintage look.
