Back to the drawing board

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Sunday – We’ve picked ourselves up after the last disappointment and have got back onto Rightmove with gusto, the only trouble is I don’t think there is anything there in our price range in the area we want. It doesn’t matter how many times a day I go on to look, no new houses that match our criteria are being added! Are we really that picky or do houses with good size (I really big BIG) gardens not exist?

Monday – Ooh wait, I just spotted a possibility, hmmm I’m rather put off by the artex ceilings and the property seems to be surrounded on all sides by well manicured but clearly hard work to maintain, conifer hedging! That would be two expensive items we’d have to get rid of before we start.
But on the plus side the garden, without the encroaching conifer hedge, is massive and already contains 2 very large greenhouse and a poly tunnel, they get big ticks from me, you can see where my priorities lie!


It would need a big extension and completing remodelling with a new kitchen and bathroom but that’s fine.

Definitely worth a view, just a question of when. The evenings are too dark now for an evening viewing and travelling next Saturday would be a long way from Oxford.

Tuesday – I rang the estate agent to arrange a viewing, the property has already sold within hours of it going on the market apparently! I’m starting to get the distinct impression things are not going our way, oh well good luck with the artex whoever has bought it, not that I’m bitter.

Another super one came on the market today, so as soon as I saw it, I thought I’ll ring the agent and arrange a viewing clearly this area is popular and things are selling fast, only to be told after placing her house on the market for 2 hours the seller has got cold feet over the timings and has withdrawn her property for sale.


This is definitely not my week, but what is it with sellers getting cold feet, this property buying and selling is turning out to be the most impossible job! I would just leave trying to buy all together for a while but we continue to pay ‘dead money’ for rent on the weekday flat which I’d rather not, so I’ll continue looking, let’s see what gets added tomorrow.

Not Such a Great Idea 

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Continued……

So Easter holiday was a blur of getting the house ready for sale, deep clean, sort out all those odd jobs that have been waiting to be done and so on and finally we could get an estate agent on board to sell. The For Sale sign went up, estate agent details were produced and we were on Rightmove and then suddenly…

Brexit negotiations were announced;

A snap general election was called;

Plans to build 4000 homes on land around our village were announced!


All of which, according to our agent, meant “the market has gone very slow” or should I re-phrase that ‘stopped altogether’ but as the agent said, stay calm, be patient the market will pick up as soon as the election is over. So patient we were, and despite the lack of viewings really felt the house would sell and we would be ready to move to the Midlands for September for the start of our new jobs.

Oops how wrong could we be and by the July summer holiday we had to re-think at least the short term. I had heard of spareroom.com where people would list rooms to rent in their homes. Perfect I thought, until I realised after ringing a few adverts that no one wanted couples! We persevered checking the ads daily until finally the perfect advert came up. Someone’s ‘granny flat’ above a garage was available Monday to Friday on a short term basis. It was in a lôvely village conveniently placed for both our jobs and with lovely views!


We signed up and looked forward to the start of the new term. In the meantime we had a couple of viewings but nothing serious. You realise how many people have a hobby of looking round peoples home even though their own house isn’t up for sale. Others who sell their own house then view houses they can’t afford as they are at least £100,000 more.

Still, with no sign of the market in the area picking up, we still were in need of a plan

To be continued……..

#interiors #interiordesign #home #houses

Renovation – crafting project, dining room chairs

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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.

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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.

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Armed with a stiff brush, a ceramic tile and the AS paint in Paris Grey,

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we found the centre line of the chair and stencilled the design evenly on each chair.

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We combined designs from three different stencils to give the chairs their own unique look.

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The stencilling didn’t take very long at all, and I am very pleased with what we’ve achieved, a French vintage look.

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Is it time for a spring clean?

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Winter has almost gone, says I as I’m scraping the ice off the car again this morning!


Of course by lunchtime that frost has cleared and the clear sky means a lovely early spring sunshine emerges.

 

That spring sunshine however has the less than desired effect of bouncing off all those surfaces covered with a layer of dust, and the cobwebs which have kept the spiders in food all winter.

So now is the official time for a spring clean, well in my house anyway!


It’s a great opportunity to have a good old sort out and a rearrange whilst I’m at it.

What I tend to do is to take a room at a time, I take all my ornaments and bits out to give them a good clean and polish. I pull all the furniture into the centre of the room to give behind and underneath a good vacuum, I then tackle all those corners where the cobwebs have been un-disturbed all winter. Picture frames, top of doors, switches and sockets get a wipe and polish. Then finally all the furniture gets pushed back.

When it comes to bringing all the ornamental bits back in, I like to have a good rearrange and swap a few bits over to introduce lighter, brighter spring colours. Another great excuse for a bit of retail therapy.


A vase of fresh flowers and voila! onto the next room.


Do other people have a good spring clean at this time of year?

Do you do anything special to prepare your house for summer?

I’d love to hear from you

 

 

Creating a home gym on a budget

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We have been very fortunate to have had a free corporate membership of a gym for the last 8 years, sometimes we used it 3 or 4 times a week and other times we could go for 3 months without going. That is the nature of gym membership, some 70% of memberships are rarely used.

download So now that I’ve left the job and no longer have the free membership we were in a dilemma last year when we decided we really needed to get back our fitness and get into shape. We weighed up the options of re-joining our old gym. This gym in Oxford is currently £82 a month plus £30 joining fee per person. For a 12 month package that would amount to £2012 for the two of us. I know for that fee you would get the full facilities including classes and swimming etc but we also knew from our previous use that the only things we really use were the fitness machines and weights machines. In fact my preferred machine was the treadmill and occasionally used the bikes.

IMG_5726It was at this point we looked into the option of a home gym. We were very lucky that the year before we added a summerhouse to the garden the intention of which was to be a quiet sitting area at the end of the garden. The summerhouse measures 10ft x 8ft and cost approx £1000

IMG_5732 We decided however that perhaps this could house a gym, a perfect solution to our dilemma, it would be a few seconds away, so no excuses you couldn’t be bothered to go to the gym and the machines would always be available.

Our next quest was to find suitable equipment that would be professional enough to feel you were getting a decent workout but wouldn’t be too expensive. Ebay was the perfect answer and we found a 2nd hand professional treadmill only 10 or so miles away and only £150. It was a bit of a mission getting it in the car and home, but we did it.

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We also wanted a weights machine which we found in Argos in the sale, £120 and it would have sufficient weights for the workouts we were intending. Again the assembly was somewhat stressful but several hours later it was up and running.

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Over the following few months as we were using the home gym on a regular basis we had 3 or 4 trips to decathlon who do a fantastic range of exercise equipment and added hand weights, kettle bells, an inflatable ball and exercise bench to our set up.

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The total cost of equipping the gym came to approx £350 and since creating our home gym I use the treadmill every evening for 1/2 hour when I get in from work and in the morning on a weekend except during the winter months when the evenings were too dark and I used it on a Saturday and Sunday morning only. A real saving on even one years gym membership and we’ve now had our gym for nearly 2 years. Now we are heading towards the spring again, my evening routine is about to recommence…..

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