At the top of our stairs.....................

Hello all and thanks for popping in.  And special hugs to Clare at Summerfete for being my first visitor to leave a friendly word, I'm very honoured!  Just for you, a sneaky peak................

 More of that later.

So how are you today?  Feeling perky, shambolic? struggling through? Fancy a diversion into someone else's chaos?  Me too!  I'm dodging the builder's yard that is Number Twelve - and I'll spare you the pictures, believe me, it's not a pretty sight.

Firstly, I caught up on some essential housey tasks - two hours to tackle the backlog of washing up.  Rewarded with a morning coffee browsing in Blogland searching for inspiration - I found loads!!!  Loved the sleeve for an Ikea lamp over at Cicada Daydream so simple but effective, thanks Michelle, I'll  be making a few of those.  And I can't resist room makeovers can you?  Especially when home-crafted loveliness just fits right in!  Blair has some beautiful hand-blocked curtains in her bedroom now which I'd love to have a go at making.  Maybe I should be less ambitious and start off with a napkin lol!  (That's a serviette to our American buddies who are all saying yeaugh thinking I mean something else!)

I tackled a bit of make-do and mend in the shape of cleaning-up two of the grotty but potentially gorgeous lightfittings amongst the leavings we found at Number Twelve.  

 How about bargain of the week number one - two cans of spray paint totalled £4 at the till :) Not sure if matt aubergine is the way to go for chandeliers though, what do you say?

Well, maybe I'm being a bit optimistic, we'll see. 

 Then whilst carefully negotiating various hazards on a trip to the top with fresh laundry - our bedroom is in the attic here - I realised you might enjoy a peak at my workroom-in-transit.  After four years in this house I had only just got said workroom properly organised (sorry I can't locate a picture just now) only for us to buy a new house and now..............  


all my careful organisation gone to pot, aka top staircase.......

 Check-out my labelling system

 Vintage and ethnic

 Thrifted garments all prepared for re-purposing.........

 some new, fat quarters and remnants ..........

and boxes and boxes of bits and pieces....

Typical isn't it?  A mad couple of hours to pack up stash and tools (a stash and grab haha!) and my functional and fabulous workplace was no more, all returned to spare bedroom mode for man-who-rewires to stay for the week.  Ah, well.

 I found bargain of the week number two in a charity shop.  £1.50 for a pair of gloriously pink unused pillowcases.  Now have several pairs, all in strong colours.  Just perfect for appliqued flowers, or patchwork, lovely.  And how do you like the handknitted scarf I finished last November whilst on holiday?  Have to say I struggled with the 8 line pattern.  Think I'll try crochet next time.  Saw a lovely granny-square-scarf by Blair again, she's a clever one!  Don't you just adore 'how-to's'?  I wonder how you organise them?  I try to keep a list but can never find it when i need it.  Sigh.

Another tea-break and a leaf through back issues of gorgeousness for further inspiring pictures...................

I'm on a quest for a Lloyd Loom chair, please:)

 No decision yet on paint colours or bedroom wallpaper.......or bathroom for that matter.  But it's fun trying!

And now two unfinished projects.  One (as peaked above) for grandaughter number one a flower fairies snuggler......

and for Little Sis the student midwife a Thai fabric souvenir refashioned into something a bit special........

and finally, an old favourite of my very own ..................

Hope you've enjoyed visiting, have a pleasant evening, see you soon x x x

Well I just hope it'll be worth it!

Oh dear me.  Saturday dawned,  the day in which our electrician and team (aka my man, his brother, and willing helpers) moved into our sweet little number twelve, and set about demolishing it.  All in the name of  'home improvements!  Haha!  At nine a.m. I was optimistically reporting that all was looking good and we might be in on November the first.  By nine p.m. and following a number of "issues" I'm informed to expect (a shocking) "possibly early January".  WHAT?!

I'll spare you today's set of pictures, sufficient to say there isn't a room that hasn't got BIG HOLES in the floor, and the areas that I'd hoped would not need decorating for some time (being a thrifty sort of lass) are to be TOTALLY RUINED.  Sigh.

So instead of our shambolic ruin in Northern England on a very chilly wet weekend in late October, how about.....

just a couple of holiday snaps of San-Franciscan desirable residences to drool over from mid-May instead.  This one reminds me of wedding cake!  And the one below, slightly more rustic......

And finally.........taken in the gardens up at the Griffiths Observatory in Los Angeles........

....gazing upward through the branches into the canopy....

                                           ......remembering old friends, peaceful souls..........

Ah well, off to bed, sweet dreams all, night-night x x x

Overheard in a thrift shop.........

Looking back I wish I kept a note of all those jaw-dropping, eye-popping remarks and snippits of conversation that I've had the (guilty) pleasure of overhearing along the years - what an epic that would be!

You know the sort of thing, you can't quite believe what you're hearing, have to physically restrain yourself from turning to see just who on earth would make such a comment, or dash off urgently before you laugh out loud. Favoured locations are the bus queue, shop checkouts, doctor's waiting rooms.

Today's little gem went something like this...selection of customers browsing in charity shop.....one says to another  " you know these women who eat the macrobiotics way, apart from being well-off, and undoubtedly a bit healthier than the rest of us, always look so blooming miserable!  It must be something in the way their diet affects them - seriously! watch out for them, they need to get it fixed"!

Immediate note to self as I snuck away....better start smiling! Lol!

Aw, take a look at this.....

Sadly we can't fit in an autumn break this year due to being in the middle of the BIG MOVE, so I'm having to make do with a bit of nostalgia instead.  Here's Lake Derwentwater on a very misty and totally stunning morning last November, sigh..........., hope you like it too.


By the way, I was in the thrift shops searching for fabric (you guessed!).  I had a think last night and have put together a mental 'mood board' so now know exactly how I'd like the main room to look.  Today I went and measured the windows over at the new house (let's call it 'number twelve) and curtain construction will shortly commence......when I can (stay in the shop long enough to)  find the right fabric!

Talking of decor I thought you might like to see detail from a sweet little room we stayed in up in the High Sierra when we made our visit to California back in May.........

Room 'three and a half' at the Outside Inn in Nevada City, a pioneering gold-mining town, got to be one of my favourite places, ever! Sigh..... (and when my blogging skills improve I hope to be able to write code and add links to make things easy for folks to find).

Well here's hoping for a peaceful, productive and thrifty weekend folks, byebye for now, byebye x x x

A fine time to start messing around!

In the middle of a house move, with umpteen unfinished projects to pack up (further delay) and new babies arriving left right and centre (so to speak), could there possibly be a worse time to start a blog?!  We'll see......