Surprisingly, I managed to get down my pile of paper work though it took me two whole days and a lot of concentration to balance the statements, change mobile provider and file. OH signed us up to a new gas provider EDF so we are hoping for savings there and better customer service in the event we need to contact them. I also discovered in checking our accounts that more interest had been added to one or two of our ISA savings which was a nice surprise.
Once the finances were back under control I decided to turn my attentions to doing more decluttering and organising and have been spending quite a bit of time reorganising the storage in the bedrooms.
The new wardrobe in the recently decorated bedroom is now my linen store which has freed up space in the main wardrobe in our bedroom. As luck would have it my younger daughter, who is in North Yorkshire, is moving soon to a bigger house so she will take a lot of the excess towels and linens that I have found and don’t really need freeing up even more space.
I have also assigned one of the drawers to hold my fabrics. I was quite ruthless going through the fabric pieces and reduced the amount I am keeping to a more manageable level. I came across a number of projects that have been hanging around for ages:-
- A knitted cushion made by my mum but it requires sewing together.
- A Xmas stocking that I found had a pin left inside lodged in the padding – this needed unpicking a little at the top edge – the pin removing and then sewing back up so I did this straight away and it didn’t even get a mention on my To-do list. It took all of 10 minutes and it must have been waiting for a few months!
- As we have 3 new family members now – the partners of each of my daughters and my granddaughter – I need to make three additional Xmas stockings. I have the fabric ready to make them I just need some time to get down to doing it.
- Bunting – left over from the wedding I have a number of cut out flags and I always intended sewing these together.The bits and pieces of fabric from the wedding bunting too small for flags will be used to make patchwork squares or strips for a memory quilt for my daughter.
- I bought a set of tea towels from Sainsbury’s with hens printed on intending to make a tea cosy.
- A silk scarf that I bought turned out to be a square with fringing all round rather than a long scarf. I was never keen on the fringing so decided to remove it – a 10 minute job and now I have a new scarf.
and a pile of fringing!
So out of seven sewing tasks I did 2 of them within half an hour but I need to put aside some time to complete at least the cushion cover and the new Xmas stockings very soon.
Whilst all the sorting has been going on we have been putting the finishing touches to the newly decorated room.
OH made the wardrobe door handles as I wanted white-painted wood and IKEA do not sell theses without the free-standing wardrobe they go with. The last coat has gone on and these have now been screwed in place.
He has also put up some narrow picture ledges for the books and pictures, cut down the blind and fitted it today – we have gone for just a plain white one and are not putting curtains up again – I like the simplicity of the blind – you might think otherwise when you see it.
For the time being we have put the old carpet back down. Although it is 20 years old it is still in reasonable condition but the colour looks a bit too creamy now against the cooler grey walls, however, it will be better than having dusty floorboards until all the rest of the house is done and we have the same colour carpet put down throughout.
The duvet quilt cover I have bought is not what I had originally intended either – the one piece of furniture, besides the bed, that we are keeping in this room is a vintage blue Lloyd loom bedside cabinet that once belonged to my mum-in-law and it is something that I have always coveted since I first visited my mum-in-law’s house back in the seventies and now it is ours. To tie in the blue I decided on a duvet cover from Next children range called Vintage Ditsy which features a very similar blue to the cabinet amongst the pink flower print. I had not intended it to be flowery at all in this room – but there you go!
Rather than me trying to describe everything I will take some photos soon. I am back at work tomorrow so it will be later this week. Promise.
Meanwhile here are some photos taken whilst at the caravan the weekend before last and a progress report.
We now have grass again on the seaside side of our garden – the contractors laid down new topsoil and grass seed once they finished the reconstruction of our stream bank – albeit complete with many dock leaves – but our main problem is with the rabbits eating our new plants. We extended the trellis border making it wider to accommodate some seaside plants that we bought in the summer. We are hoping they will seed and spread quickly and eventually provide a natural look along the stream bank. We have had to put chicken wire around these until either the plants recover or the rabbits get fed up and move on to something else – hopefully the docks!
They seem to be leaving the Delphiniums in the Woodland walk alone this year and I have a nice clump of them – some are still to flower. I love this deep blue against the orange of the Monbrettia.
There is not a lot of colour going on around the pond at the moment so I might add some late summer / early Autumn planting to rectify this next year although I often quite like to have a parts of the garden that are just restful – the pond is definitely a Spring / early summer corner.
For bursts of colour you cannot beat Hydrangeas – this is one of my favourites and it really brightens up this spot by the daisy path.
Back at home I now have Sweet Peas to cut at last – I planted them late and so this is the first of them – a lovely velvety deep purple with a sprig of – you’ve guessed it – orange Monbrettia – it colour coordinated so well with my mixed fresh fruits for breakfast today.
During my ‘sorting out’ I discovered some instructions and directions that I had photocopied to turn into care cards – see here if you are unfamiliar with my way of dealing with this kind of information – I have now laminated these and they can be placed where I need them to refer to.
Tomorrow is work again and it will be a day or two before I can get back to the decluttering. My next project is to go through the boxes in the wardrobe in the middle bedroom to reduce the amount of stored ‘stuff’ and get the room emptied ready to decorate. The wardrobe in here which has sliding doors is to be dismantled to make way for a newer version.
Back soon x
where the journey takes me 