A (really fun) DIY Staycation

Hugh has a few days off work so is going to be doing some stuff around the house and garden. Wow - the potential! How much DIY can we get done? Obviously using ‘we’ in the normal sense... we means Hugh. He gets mildly annoyed at my habit of saying we when I mean him... understandably!

So back to my point...
We have a very very long list of stuff to do on the house. We are very bad at making decisions.
Hugh is very ‘thorough’ and therefore something seemingly simple can take much longer than normal... I don’t have much patience, so this is often a cause of ‘tension’ are you getting the picture!?

Sorting out our fireplaces (like the one in the kitchen above) is just one of the items on the hit list, along with lots of decorating of one kind and another and weeks worth of garden fun... (we forgot to think about the work involved in gardening when we were wooed but the big garden that is attached to this house).

So, are you feeling sorry for Hugh yet? I certainly am... (and I think he'd probably prefer to be at work this week)!

For the record, I hate the word 'staycation' and I can't believe I just used it as a title...

A Slice of Summer at the Southbank

On Saturday we loaded up the buggy with a picnic rug, a bucket and a spade (and a baby of course) and headed to the beach at the Southbank...



Coco and Henry played in the sand and made friends with other kids, just like I remember doing when we used to go to the beach. Only problem was the sand wasn't wet enough for sandcastles. So we did miss the sea.
Meanwhile I played with instagram... can you tell!?



Many things are afoot in celebration of 60 years since the Festival of Britain. So we spent the whole day enjoying the sunshine...



We took turns hurtling down the helter skelter...



Lounged around at the roof top cafe... and tried to get Coco to identify the veggies.



We even had ice creams from an ice cream van.



Coco being very cautious about the fountain which loads of other kids were running in and out of whooping...

And just like all the best days at the beach we came home with pink shoulders and sand in our shoes. And we all slept very well.
The End.

A few tweaks in the kitchen...

Baby steps, nothing too radical, don't want to, like, DO too much, who wants to live in a finished house anyway? (Me me!!)

So understated you might not even notice it - a splash back behind the cooker (although I notice it in our bank balance!)
Another new shiny surface to keep clean or the last touch that means our kitchen (area) is now finished!! Finished, how I love that word. Wow.

Also a ubiquitous black board. Nothing like keeping up with the trends... We were a bit optimistic about the magnetic blackboard paint. We expected it to work. No such luck. So where we'd hoped this would be a blackboard/notice board we actually just have a blackboard. I have a few modification ideas, but we should have just bought a sheet of metal and painted it with blackboard paint. Duh, if only we'd thought of that a few weeks ago.

We Have Grass!

Of the lawn-to-lie-on variety.
After having a few days of being ground down by the scale of the task ahead with our house this development in our garden is like a little light at the end of a tunnel. It has meant scraping the barrel as far as money is concerned (cleared out our savings - and some!) - but better than feeling permanently sorry for Coco having a mud-pit of a garden!



It looks like someone just came over and put a green carpet down in our garden.

Coco's Cooker

A toy cooker = hours of fun and a bit of peace for me. Although I do have to pretend to eat a lot of strange concoctions.

A while ago when we were still plagued by moving boxes I decided to put a couple to good use and help Coco to make a hob.
She loved doing the painting and gluing... and then she really did play with her little cooker.



I intended to suprise her by making an oven too, (ie without her around to get too involved with more paint, glue and scissors), but it's funny what a difference six months makes, as the other day I felt confident/stupid* enough to just modify her little cooker with her.



It's not very robust, and the kitchen roll handle has come off already, as has one of the milk bottle lid knobs - due to another child's insistence at attempting to 'turn' it - but still it really has provided lots of entertainment.

I like the idea of getting her a 'proper' toy kitchen...
This one, by Momoll would be my choice (on the left). I've got a feeling she'd prefer the one on the right from the Great Little Trading Co.



But, after our recent trip to Edinburgh we have acquired another 'vintage' toy... a plastic hob, straight from Hugh's childhood. This one has the oh-so-desirable moveable knobs. But it doesn't have an oven or sink, I feel a new project coming on...

*Oh yes; despite the calm look of these 'making in progress' photos it was mayhem! Henry was obviously just pretending to be asleep because as soon as the paint came out he started screaming. Turned my back for a minute and the white on the front of the oven was getting over painted in blue. Then Coco's paintbrush disintegrated, leaving paint coated bristles everywhere. Sent her off to wash her hands.
What sort of imbecile would trust a three year old to get all the paint off their hands properly? Hmmm, crying baby = no brain. Long story short, paint on the sofa, beans for tea and telly for Coco so I could clear up.

Cupboards & Colour at Clifton Nursery

A few weeks ago (before the leaves were out on the trees, as proved by this pic) we went to Clifton Nursery for some garden inspiration...



and, yes, we got what we were looking for.
Inspiration in spades (sorry, couldn't resist the pun)!



For indoors, as well as out... I fell in love with their cupboards. If only I had a few thousand spare I'd take them all. This green one would look lovely in our kitchen. Might not be so picturesque if it was stuffed full of plastic toys though.
Think the price tag was around £1500 if you're interested; although of course I'll hate you forever if you buy it!



I'll take this one for the bathroom please. Could put my apothecary jars in it, and all those lotions and potions that are too pretty to use, above my freshly laundered towels of course!
Oh, those muted greys...



and fresh spring greens...



Buds and colour everywhere.



When I grow up I want to be good at gardening,



and flower arranging.



Before heading off for sustenance we met this charmer... very at home on her patch.



...and not particularly interested in us, in fact, soon something much more interesting caught her eye...

So off we went too; being parents we were of course up with the lark and the cafe at the nursery wasn't open so we headed to the toddler pleaser that is the barge cafe on the canal at Little Venice. And we were back home by midday.
If you want your weekend to feel longer then get up at dawn, it really works!

Todays News...

...is tomorrows chip paper. Or something like that!

(A friend gave me these flowers a couple of weeks ago... just sorting through my photos, that never ending task)!

So, what did you do when Kate & Wills got Wed?

I took Coco and Henry off to a Royal Wedding Tea party on Friday...

Meanwhile, back at home, Hugh was being staunchly uninterested and spent the day painting the inside of our front door, which was fine with me!