freshening up in the bathroom

The bathroom was, as with every room in this house, yellow. A kind of peachy-sand shade of yellow. Yellow is really not my favourite colour. In the last house I used gold/ochre as a contrast against the dark grey of the living room. I had a primrose yellow chest of drawers to brighten an alcove

moving forward: the existing plans have arrived

Three weeks ago the technical surveyor came from the architects to measure up the house. He was here for over two hours taking precise measurements of the house. It wasn’t in itself particularly exciting, he was a nice man wandering around our house in his socks, but the underlying meaning was very exciting: we’re moving

architects

the world of architects, designs, planning and budgets I knew we wanted an architect to help design the

trees

Q. Can you have too many trees in your garden? A. Yes, definitely. We inherited approximately 3000 trees when we bought this house. OK, so not that many, but we have half a dozen rowans, two crabapples, an apple tree, a couple of flowering cherries, a twisted willow and a twisted pear, contorted hazel, magnolia,

heating

who knew it was so complicated? The house only has electric heating. There’s no gas in the village

Introducing Number Eight 2.0

New home, new project, new neighbours, new challenges. It’s a two bedroom semi, built using local materials and

say hello, wave goodbye

It’s been a long time coming. Our plan when we bought number eight was to live here for about 5 years and then move to a quiet village in Norfolk. We were hoping that would be our forever home, but we were also open to it being a stepping stone. Buy a fixer-upper, live there

fencing round 2

There was a problem with the blog hosting and I couldn’t create new posts. It was so far

spring in the garden

Winter wasn’t very kind to the garden. So many plants withered to almost or absolute nothing. We were

uphill gardening

A before and after photo, lest we forget how far we’ve come. We’ve spent most of the past four weekends working on the garden. Once the landscapers moved out, booyaa painted the fence while I kept Betsy entertained (out of the way and not liable to get herself covered in paint). Then we planted the

Rip it up and start again

It’s happening! The builders are here, clearing the gravel as I type. Say goodbye to an unloved, underused,