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On Saturday morning we were heading off to Berkshire to test drive a boutique hotel for Mr&Mrs Smith. Hey, someone has to do it. (Fortunately great friends Kate and Tom, who live in Henley, took the girls overnight and even though the clocks went forward the kids slept in until 10am. Result.) As we were loading up the car to leave London, the guy who did our concrete counter top showed up to see if he could fix our cracks and sort the lacquer which has lost its sheen in places. Fortunately it looks like he can remedy the worst of it and we'll have to live with some crack "scars" which is part of the charm of concrete. When we got back - after a hard night of drinking various elixirs and a morning of retching into a very stylish Duravit basin - we were delighted to see that Teia had fixed the bottom two drawers in the kitchen below the hob (pictured). Because of the pipes from the top floor bathroom these drawers couldn't slide open, as there wasn't enough space to house the runners once the pipes had been boxed in. The solution was to put the doors on strong spring-loaded hinges. They work a treat, and I've now moved the heavy Le Creuset cookware to the bottom 'drawers' which has freed up the top shelf in one of the cupboards for tall bottles of vodka and what not. They'll remain there for a the foreseeable future as I can't seem to get excited about mixing cocktails right now...
This is my next door neighbour's conservatory. Once upon a time these two properties were identical. The neighbours are selling up to move to a much larger property and listed their home with the same real estate agent we bought ours from. The estate agent started showing people at the weekend and two days later the neighbours accepted an offer. Housing crisis? Bah humbug.
The purchasers are getting a total bargain - they're paying around £50,000 less than we paid for ours just over a year ago... and their extension has already been done. I'm sad our neighbours are moving as we have a friend in common (co-incidentally) and they're really lovely. I'm also rather fond of their cat, who was actually born in our house. I'm particularly sad at having paid *so much more* for our house! Oh well.
Yep, those are daffodils - persistent aren't they? The previous owners obviously planted them, and despite masses of dirt, mud, snow and trampling there they are. I feel slightly bad that this time next year (though hopefully sooner) there'll be a wooden deck blocking the light and therefore these hardy little flowers will be nipped in the bud. (Apologies for the lame pun, I am tired.)
The outlook is starting to look quite incredible, the neighbours tree is thick with pale pink blossom, and further along our fence is the densest jasmine I've ever seen. The smell is intoxicating (which is lucky, given how many cats and foxes roam around here). I'm not sure if it's old age or life in Zone 2 but I've become enamoured with all the wildlife, every day we see different species of birds in the garden. We've lived in London for nearly ten years and this is the first time we've seen Jays and Finches. Good job The Guardian gave a free bird guide a few months back or I'd have no idea what the birds were called.In other good news, Teia was back yesterday for a few hours to do some snagging - he's finished his other jobs and is planning on coming back to finish ours next week. I'm pretty sure I've said that before, so let's wait and see... with fingers and toes crossed.
I just had lunch with a friend who was talking about her beloved Florence Knoll sofa. She doesn't have kids. We have a sort-of 'nod' to a Florence Knoll sofa which will have to do for the foreseeable future (well, until the kids move out probably). This sofa has hardly been used, it got delivered before we actually moved in and then hung around under protective plastic until the extension was built. Not pointing fingers but when someone moved it downstairs in January, our brand new, unused sofa ended up with some very nasty deep scratches right through the leather. No idea how. All I can say is, thank goodness it wasn't an original Florence Knoll sofa or there would've been tears and tantrums... and I don't mean from the kids.
House update - the wood for the deck was meant to be delivered yesterday but this has been postponed to "tomorrow, hopefully" - what was meant to be three days of snagging is now stretching to three months of waiting. I read back over this blog and was mortified to see advice I'd written into the ether that builders aren't motivated if there's no financial incentive and am cursing Rob for paying for so much up front. We've withheld he last 5% but that's not enough of a carrot to make the builders rush back and finish the job. I know it will get done, but I have to admit I am getting impatient now - what should have been done and dusted by the first week of January still isn't looking likely to happen by mid March.
The new Livingetc is just out and in there is a tour of radio presenter Jamie Theakston's mid-century furnished house in West London. The article asks him what his favourite feature of the house is and he replies the fridge that dispenses ice and water. Pictured top is our fridge which also dispenses ice and water. I have to agree - it's been no end of pleasure having a G&T without having to smash up a frozen bag of ice cubes first, and we feel virtuous at reducing our consumption of bottled water.
Still twiddling our thumbs while waiting for the last bit of phase one to happen. Apparently we should see some action next week. In the meantime, here are a couple of pics to show how we're slumming it on the top floor. This our bedroom. I feel like I should say something like "... this is where the magic happens" as per Cribs, but uh, I won't. Our king size bed at least has matching drawers now (pictured top), so that's a bit of an improvement on our last bedroom. We have Kartell bedside tables (and bigger versions for storage in the TV room) and a cheap Ikea rug is keeping us off the laminate flooring until it's time to lay some carpet. I guess it doesn't look too bad in the photo, but you can't see the ye olde panel cut doors, linen curtains and awful light shade.
I've just borrowed a couple of books on how to design a garden which will be really useful as neither Rob nor I has ever got to grips with anything garden related. We haven't even mown the lawn yet. It feels like spring is here - the weather's been mild, the sky is blue - so it's definitely time to start thinking about planting something. 
Curses to Blogger's image compression and apologies for the quality on this photo. The good news is, if you click on it, you'll see it in a high quality rendition. A friend who came round said the house looked quite different from the photos in the blog because it was bigger in real life. So here's a wide shot taken from the sofa in the dining room showing the length of the room from the front door to the sliding doors. This was taken late in the afternoon hence the blueness of the light. Excuse the pile of weird stuff in the corner there, no, it's not normal to have a BBQ inside.
We've got two girls and you can imagine their main decorating concern revolves around when we're going to paint their room pink. I was almost going to cave in and do it, as it would be a temporary colour scheme anyway (Phase 2 would mean their room would be stripped back and re-done... in white). Then I remembered that I know next to nothing about preparing walls and that it would potentially be really messy and difficult.
I've been perusing kids decorating ideas for a while now. There are some fabulous wall stickers out there, like these ones from wallglamour.co.uk - I particularly liked the butterflies and flowers motif, but heck, £28? Then I found toysandinteriors.co.uk who had retro flower stickers for £7.95. Bargain. It was so ridiculously cheap that I got the girls a pink chandelier (£14) from the same place. Photos to come (the one at the top is pre-girly update...)
On February 11th 2008 we got the keys to our house. Yep, it's one year and one week since we officially took possession... this time last year we were enjoying a sunny holiday in Florida with friends and musing over how long the building work would take. Little did we know it would take seven long months before a builder would even cross the threshold.
We've been living in the house for almost three months now, and I was thrilled to leave for work this morning and bump into Teia in the driveway. It was his first trip to the house since Christmas, and he'd came over today to clear out the building debris. A massive pile of miscellaneous rubbish had been leaning against the fence and was beginning to annoy the neighbours (as well as providing a home for local vermin). I'm looking forward to giving the good news to my neighbour who popped over to complain on Saturday morning.
Teia's still tied up on his other job(s) but said he can bring round a crew and that three workmen should take no more than three days to do the snagging and final jobs. Hopefully this will happen in the next few weeks as we have a series of house guests arriving next month.
These photos show the landing on our top floor or "phase 2" as I call it. Phase 2 probably won't start for a year or more. What you see is the space as it was when we took it over, complete with balustrades, curtains and nasty laminate flooring - ick! We're still surrounded by boxes but every week we try and unpack three or four, it's a slow slog but we're getting there.
