freshening up in the bathroom

The bathroom was, as with every room in this house, yellow. A kind of peachy-sand shade of yellow.

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

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 and there are no plans to put a pipe in so the majority of the homes use oil for heating and hot water. Our house has night storage heaters and economy 7 heating. That’s not something we’re

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

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,