A lick of paint works wonders!!

After more than 2 years I have finally got around to decorating what used to be my mother's bedroom. Nothing major just freshened up all the paint work and had a new carpet. I would have liked new curtains but funds didn't stretch that far. Considering I brought these curtain with us from our previous house some 28years ago they are still in pretty good condition, albeit that floral designs are rather old fashioned these days!!

I now have a room ready for when my daughter, Sam, pays me a visit in May!

Day 25 Fun Monday or is it!!

Early start today as the builder is here to repair roof on our annexe. The first thing he did was empty the water butt, good job it's winter and we don't actually need it. You know I really didn't like wasting all that water even though I know it will fill up pretty quickly.

The first thing you do when the builder arrives is to keep him happy.....

He has given up drinking coffee since he was here last but luckily I had fruit tea and I could get rid of one of the mince pies from Embee's raffle prize.
He then got to work putting up a tower scaffold.......

Let the work commence...what's the betting it will be a bigger job than originally anticipated!!

So is it a fun monday............it is for me I'm not out in the cold Piers might think differently!!!

Day 5 Guy Fawkes or Bonfire Night

Yes I do remember the rhyme that went something like this :-

'Remember,remember, the fifth of November,Gunpowder, Treason and Plot, I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot'

I do love a good firework display and will no doubt be seeing some in the skies after dark tonight. So sorry no pictures to show you!

My topic for today is a little project that I have been following right across the road from our house. The chap who lives in the house on the corner sold off his garden (and it wasn't really that big). It took several years and lots of planning applications, before he finally got consent for a house to be built. 
I was really worried that trees which shield the houses would be felled, but thankfully the council would not allow that (I wrote in with my objections to getting rid of the trees), as they did not want an exit onto the main road. They did however allow a walking exit and last week I noticed this being constructed between some of the trees which have been severely pruned. 
I can now see the house taking shape so it will be interesting to see it when it it completed. The guy who bought the plot is living in a caravan and doing a lot of the work himself.
This is what it looks like at the moment... 'view from my front porch'... now that rings a bell!!

Good with heights!!

It never rains but what it pours! That might be an old saying and another one is everything comes in threes! So I was not a bit surprised when a couple of weeks back I noticed a patch of damp in one of the bedrooms near a chimney breast.
As it happened the builder was here doing some work on the porch and took a look in the loft (roof space) where he could detect some staining which suggested there might be some damage to the old chimney stack.
Of course without scaffolding he couldn't be sure and this costs an arm and a leg, but had to be done. I wasn't very happy when I heard them drilling into the side of the house to secure the scaffold (this had not happened the previous times when we had scaffold erected). However builder assured me it was standard practice, and it would be made good!- we shall see;  every time I have something done it results in another problem so forgive me for being a half empty person!

Once the scaffolding was in place the weather changed and became very cold and extremely windy-not the time to be perched on a roof re-pointing and securing chimney pots which were apparently very unstable and replacing a couple of broken tiles. I had thought all this had been done when we lost a lot of the tiles in gales back in the late 80's.

Today is bright and sunny (although still cold) and work is in progress....I can't get up there to check, and neither can Embee so I'll just trust the phone pictures the builder is taking to show me!

Oh and the third thing, yes there is something else, will be for another post sometime, I hope, in the not too distant future!

Wish I was this brave!

Beccy is getting impatient because she came to read today's post and she had to look at yesterday's banana bread. You now know who hates bananas! The amusing thing is she loved them as a baby.
What I'm sharing today is that at long last the piece of fascia board, that came off in a storm way back at the beginning of the year, is finally being replaced. I have been waiting for my neighbour, he's a carpenter, to do it all summer and finally the scaffold arrived yesterday evening. It really isn't a big a big job but as the house is around 65 feet high it can't safely be done from a ladder.
John was here at 8am and soon got down or should that be up to work! I took a couple of pictures. Embee is away and won't be back until this evening so I know he'll be wanting to see how things went.

John(my neighbour) was up there at sunset yesterday and he said the view was amazing, now if only I was brave enough to climb up the vertical ladders, alas I'm not well I don't think I am!!!

John had just told me he can see a joint in the guttering that is leaking but it's not within reach which is a nuisance so it will have to stay as it is for now. He's clearing a bit of moss in the areas he can reach so that will be a good job done.
We then have to keep our fingers crossed that we don't get any other problems this coming winter.

Archives:
2008: Not a lot to say
2007: Witty Wednesday-19

A house with two views

A couple of weeks ago I took this picture of the sunset looking out across the back of our house. At the same time the view across the front of the house was of huge dark clouds scuttling across the sky. It's hard to believe one can get two such different photos within the space of a few seconds!



Archives:
2007: Scattergories

Fun Monday # 46

Kitten has given us and interesting assignment this week she wants.......

'to hear about the story behind your home and the road you live on. It doesn't have to be historical, maybe just something that stands out to you. It would be nice to have pictures to go with your little story. I also would like to know who has the oldest house. Whoever has the oldest house will get a little Christmas treat from little ole me'.


My House is Victorian and was built in 1851.
I have written about it before so I will not mind if you pass on by. I think in it's heyday it would have been quite a substantial home for a wealthy family. When it was built it would have been surrounded by fields and in a pleasant position. The house once had a huge garden and orchard and a stable on the back. My neighbour can remember the people who lived here before us actually keeping a horse in the orchard. The person we bought the house from had used it to run a 'bed and breakfast' guest house and it was in very poor condition. The stable had been converted into basic accommodation. They had, together with neighboring houses, also sold off all the land behind for building. The side of this house being used as the access road to the new housing development that was in the process of being built when we moved here in 1986.
Another interesting fact that we have been told about this house is that during the second world war the cellars (there are five rooms down there) were used for the A.R.P(Air Raid Precaution) Wardens. We did actually find some posters and photos in the cellar so we think it was probably true.

The top photo was taken from a neighbour's house possibly in the 60's or 70's. You can see that the house has a nice entrance from the road and abut's next door. Now compare it with the second photo taken by Embee this weekend from the same neighbour's garden. I know which I prefer!

This is the aeriel view so you can see just how long the original garden was if you follow the line of the houses down from us on the corner to the bottom garden.
This was originally the stables. The entrance to the back of the house is now in the side road and the original ornamental stones you see in the first photo have been used for the pillars supporting the gates.

In our cellar we still have the original hay basket as you can see from this last photo.

The house originally had its water supply from a well which is no longer accessible as it is under the oil tank.

If anyone is still reading I think I have bored you enough so I will stop here!

Archives:
December 17th 2006: Catching Up