Discovering Hendrick's gin and other things

Sunday brought glorious sunshine and high temperatures. Light relief after the typically British weather we've been having. T and I spent the morning boxing off odd jobs in the garden.

At the moment we are mostly tackling the garage cum potting shed at the end of the garden. It has potential to be a cute little hide-away (although I'm maybe leaning more towards a cheeky shisha den for double apple delights), but right now it's a bona fide dumping ground for junk, scavenged furniture and tools. That's all for another post though.

Bristol was hosting Foodies Festival.

Was this ripe foraging grounds for two DIYers in need of good food and refreshments? Alas no, not really. But we did discover some gems that are worth talking about.

First up were swordfish patties care of this amazing lady. No, sorry no photos. We were too hungry by far and wolfed those patties down!

I followed this with bay leaf ice cream. Dangerous... I'm seriously thinking about getting an ice cream maker so that I can try this again.

Post-prandial drinks were our next prey... and we snagged some fine ones care of the "Hendrink's Kiosk of Curious Concoctions". A little oasis of civilised drinking in amongst the mediocrity.

Gin infused with cucumber and rose petals was music to our tastebuds.

Here's to some bloody fine tipple!

A bottle may have somehow found its way home. Really not sure how! I found it nestled between some vinho verde, white port and game pies. A happy coincidence as I read this homage to Hendrick's over at "Not without Salt" later in the evening. I now have an urge to try a Bee's Knees. Honey, lemon and gin? Sounds like a winner to me!

Whitewash...

So Sunday I got the bit between my teeth. I've been eyeing up this nasty brick mess ever since we moved in and last weekend was its day of reckoning.

This was back of the house last spring.

There's not a great deal going for it and the faux wood UPVC windows just add insult to injury. Can't do anything about them, the wall, however, is a different story. Now normally I wouldn't dream of painting a lovely brick wall, but seriously this needed to go.

The purple garden walls were also on the day's hit list.

I threw in a bit of demolition into the mix and took out the water butt as well. That's going to be relocated to the far end of the garden with the compost heap.

No going back now!

A quick word about prep. I brushed the walls down and got rid of as much dirt, dust, and moss as possible. I then painted the walls with a 1:5 mix of PVA glue and water. This helps to seal the brick and make it less porous so it doesn't soak up all the paint.

After the first coat.

I managed to get two coats on before I had to call it a day. It needs at least one more coat, but I've put everything back for now as it's going to be a week or two before I get chance to finish this job.

I'm really happy with the result. What took me so long?! Shame the conservatory roof isn't as straight forward to sort out. It's still a hot mess.

Making good

Shortly after moving into our house we went through each room attacking all manner of hideousness, such as wood chip wallpaper that had been liberally applied throughout the house, electrical trunking on walls, crazy carpet and combos of salmon pink and sap green. But, as often happens, we got side-tracked by boarded up fireplaces in the bedrooms. Perfectly plastered, lovely smooth surfaces and yet we couldn't resist doing this...



Which means we're left with two fireplace-shaped holes in two of the bedrooms that need some serious dressing up. Three years later and we still haven't properly tackled this project. Except a wee bit of temporary window dressing in our main bedroom:



The original tiled fireplaces that would have been in our bedrooms are long gone, but the brick tiled hearths have survived and so will stay. Both fire backs look to be in good nick, so all that appears to be required is a surround. Should be simple, yes? So far all I've managed to do is a bit of research and be fantastically indecisive.

Wandering around local reclamation yards and a cheeky peek around a house for sale on our road reveal that the original fire surround would have probably looked like this...



Not a good look! Although on closer inspection those look like tile transfers (why would you do that?) and the plain cream tile fire is actually quite cute. There's something similiar here.

Like the rest of the house we are trying to choose features that compliment the house's 1930s origins whilst trying not to make it look like a homage to the past. I would love to find a pair of art deco enamel fireplaces... but they seem to be as rare as hen's teeth and just as pricey. So after a good year or so of mooching around the internet and procrastinating I've tripped over these cast iron reproductions being offered up on Ebay:



Right style, right price (less than £90 each) , and I can buy a pair. Please, please, please let them be the right size. Where's that tape measure?

42°C in the conservatory...

... so we escaped into the more shaded parts of the garden and DIY'd out little hearts out over the weekend. We got quite a lot done despite the heat:

• Prepped and painted the new planter that Tony built
• Finished the making the water butt lid... still can't work out how to re-site the butt so it's less intrusive :/
  
• Fixed the gazebo and painted with wood protector - it almost looks like new.
• Removed the sink and capped the water in the potting shed and cleared out all the crap "stored" in there.
  
• Squeezed in two trips to the local tip
  
• Cleared out the allotment shed in preparation for fixing it up. It won't survive another winter without making a bid for freedom and sliding down the hill.
• Finished off the shelves in the utility room. Hurrah almost done - just need to caulk and paint.

Bank holiday = rainy weather = jobs to do inside

Tentative to do list for the long weekend of good old British weather that's anticipated...

Utility room

1. Caulk & paint utility room worktop frame
2. Finish cleaning up the old brackets for utility room shelves
3. Make curtain to hid washing machine

Misc

1. Fix squeaky dining room door
2. Sand stair rail
3. Find & fit new radiator for hallway
4. Put up shelf in kitchen, caulk & paint
5. Clean sofas, put one on gumtree!

Hola! Bathroom envy!

Source: Le Boeuf

Loving the way the shower screen folds back flat against the wall when it's not beign used.

BTW way can score a similar screen in B&Q for less than £70 quid.

Under the stairs glory hole

After removing the mish mash of shelving under the stairs to fix a squeaky tread. Need to come up with some sleek, but practical storage to replace...


Source: smart furniture


Source: unknown




Source: www.home-designing.com/2009/10/10-innovative-stair-design-concepts


Here's a fab how-to from Chez Larsson.

Kitchen to do list

1. Prep walls, ceiling, and woodwork
2. Re-fix tiles by the sink (or remove them!)
3. Paint walls (white or something mad like green, yellow, blue or orange? and ceiling (white!)
4. Replace old light fittings
5. Paint woodwork, including back door and internal window (white)
6. Paint tiles (or fit cheap MDF panelling) - have paint already
7. Replace worktop (including fitting in utility room) - £30
8. Fit shelves above washing machine
9. Move small fridge to utility room
10. Paint utensil holder and move away from sink
11. Wax the door
12. Fit rim-lock to door - £10 from Bishopston Hardware
13. Make curtain for larder
14. Paint doors and change handles
15. Replace oven (electric? Stainless steel fan oven on Gumtree for £60)
16. Replace gas hob (stainless gas hob on Gumtree for £25)

Phew!
Notes:

• Ikea's worktop no long enough - need 175x60cm, 294x60cm and 126/7x60cm for the utility room. All not lost though as Wickes do cheap worktop (e.g. Ebony Star, £15 for 3m length!)
  

Shelving inspiration

Totally smitten with these shelves:

Been after some good ideas for a unit to run along the back wall of the dining room, and I think something along these lines will be perfect. There's even piccies of during so that T can practice his new carpentry skills.

But then I saw these Ikea units put to good use:

Damn!

Making an entrance

Spent the weekend sprucing up the porch and the front garden gate...





The magic of white paint...

Bathroom fix

No major DIY magic here. Just a little cover-up job...


It's an interim fix until we figure out what to do with the bathroom and whether we can afford to replace the darn back boiler. Until then, we're stuck with those lovely green marbled tiles.

Christmas and a year living in no. 75

We moved in Christmas Eve last year. Yes, crappy planning, but our defence it took over six months to complete the sale of the house and we didn't get the keys until the end of November.


We've managed to paint the sitting room a couple of months ago and I persuaded T to let me pull up the carpets downstairs.

I've also just finished painting the dining room. I couldn't stand the yellow custard scheme any more (no wall paper to strip here so we were stuck with it!). There was also an element of should be studying, but painting is way more interesting... as was the retail therapy that followed.









It's looking more lived in with all the Xmas decorations, but back boiler. I despair at your presence!

Prepping the sitting room

Walls prepped and ready for paint:


Tacky brass gas fireplace - your days are numbered!


A sort of after picture. I'd love to replace the red sofas we have - they were a second-hand bargain find for our previous flat which came unfurnished, but just not my style. At the moment practicality is trumping aesthetics.

Getting a new fuse box

We're getting a new fuse box installed to replace the old, probably "less than safe if something goes wrong", beast that we have at moment. We also decided to move the whole kit and kaboodle down to floor level. Our thinking is that we can build a small cupboard that will hide all the electrical crap, but also give us somewhere to dump post, keys, and all that other shit that you need/want by the entrance.

I forgot to take a "before" picture of the cupboard in all its glory, but I did remember to take a photo of the vintage wallpaper we found hiding in there:


While we've got the electrician here we're chasing in cables, moving light switches and sinking in surface mounted sockets. The previous owners had a thing for putting sockets on the skirting boards and light switches in weird places. The switch for the dining room? Oh, it's out in the hallway!

Creating a blank canvas...

We took a week off in April to strip all of the woodchip and dodgy wallpaper. That green had to go!






We could have done this room by room, decorating and finishing each one before moving onto the next. We probably should have done this room by room - T has a new job, I'm working full-time and doing an MSc, which means that making this house feel like ours is going to take some time.

I figured that blitzing the whole house like a pair of wallpaper addicted locusts would mean that over time we'd become "blind" to old white plaster walls rather than the horrendous colour scheme we have now.

The upside of this house is that there are still quite a few original features, the original doors (although 2 were hiding under hardboard cladding), rim locks on most of them and 1930s ovolo mouldings.


Unfortunately the previous owners had a teak-fetish phase, guessing sometime in the 70's, and the windowsills (all teak-clad) and staircase didn't fair so well.

Anyway in the front bedroom one thing led to another, and then another! The wallpaper continued on behind some built-in cupboards. Useful for storage, but not so easy on the eye.




So out they came. Along with the plasterboard that was covering up the fireplace...


Alas no fire surround hiding under there, but the fire brick is in good nick:


Our surprise discovery was the remnants of old wallpaper giving a hint of how the room used to look. Not sure, but guessing this might have been the original 1930s/1940s décor. Took lots of photos and kept a few bits of the wallpaper for posterity.






Even the decorator's marks were there:


Empty and ready for painting:


I've also spied the original black and white brick tiles in the kitchen still visible behind one of the cabinets. They've been tiled over, but I'm hoping that we might be able to restore them.