A few weeks ago I meationed that I was making a start on removing the last of two huge Hawthron hedges, I finally managed to get the last of the 30 main trunks dug out a week ago, there is no photographic evidence as it would all have been pictures of me looking seriously pissed off which no one wants to see.

This weekend was the fun part, Rich and I had brought some poles during the week and yesterday my boy was good enough to put them up for me (thanks Lovely!). I decided to use poles and wire to give the fence a structure to grow against , that doenst seem to be totally necessary when working with willow but as we get such high winds up here I felt it would help it until the willow become established. 

I laid the willow out to get a rough idea of spacing then just got on with it, it turned out to be super easy, just dig a little hole and pop them in!

I went for a really simple cross hatch/diamond pattern as it seemed the easiest, also it locks itself together making it really strong. Heres the finished project...

I cant wait to see what this is like a year from now, willow grows really fast so Im hoping it settles in well this summer. 

Im so happy with how it came out, the willow really was a lovely plant to work with, so bendy! The plants where as ever supplied by the wonderful chaps at Victoriana Nursery who really do supply only the very best quality plants and the fact that they arrive on your door step all parcelled up and ready to go always delights me! Heres the type of willow I used (FYI I used 100 plants to do roughly 5 meters of hedging)...

I would highly recommend this fencing idea as an alternative to panels, give it a few years and it should thicken up nicely.

One more job ticked of the list!! 999 more to go!

Last weekend we had glorious sunshine here in the West Country, so we took the opportunity to got out to the Carboot sale at Frome on Sunday morning, unfortunately most of the population of the county decided to go as well, this combined with the girl taking the entrance money moving at a glacial pace meant a 30 minuet queue to get in! Luckily it turned out to be a really good one and worth the wait!

I picked up this gorgeous 1970s curtain fabric for just £1.

I've really gotten into theses 70s big repeat patterns, not the flora stuff and mostly the stuff in shades of green. At the moment this doesn't seem terribly popular but Im sure it will become so just like the 50s stuff came back into vogue so best the snap this up now while I can afford it!

Rich got this cool retro set of bathroom scales for £1, I like that there is a glass bubble over the numbers to magnify them especially for blind people like me!

Rich also picked up another old radio that needs some tlc, it will be added to the collection and I got two more 50s tumblers for 50p, they are very similar to a set we already have with gold feathers but these have leaves.

So all in all a pretty good morning, especially given than I think we spend about £3 each! We've had a few good things lately, at a bootsale a few weeks ago I managed to pick up a couple of Babycham glasses for £2, added to the ones my Mum got me for Christmas means I now have a set of 6.

I also picked up a few more plates, two Homemaker dinner plates from eBay for 49p as they both have slight chips, this doesn't both me too much as I want to use them day to day, I don't believe it keeping things for best! And another 60s look one from a Bristol junk shop for 50p.

A little while ago I was also lucky enough to get given this 50s bevel-edge mirror (that I mentioned in the previous post) from a lovely lady I work with, this was in exchange for a load of top soil to help sort out the garden of their new house. The mirror sat in the kitchen for a while as I couldn't make up my mind where to hang it , but last week I was repainting our stairway and decided to try it there along with another mirror I have of a similar age...

I think they look great, they really help to bounce light into what is quite a dark space, so I have decided to make this my mirror and butterflies collection space!

So a busy few weeks, I have also been listing lots of stuff on eBay recently as we re now having to operate a 'one in one out' system when we buy new things!

Someone recently asked me what I meant by living on a shoestring and if I have any tips, so I thought I write a few here, of course none of them are new  in themselves but added together it's surprising how you can manage on little or no budget when doing up a house!

1. Get Stuff For Free. Before we buy anything these days we check out sites like Freecycle, Freegle and Gumtree you would be totally amazed what you can get on here and if you can't get it straight away wait, give it time, ask around and don't be in a hurry. Give some stuff away, place a few 'Wanted' adds, chances are karma will come your way. I am eternally amazed that we where luckily enough to get given an Ercol three pieces suit in perfect condition from Freegle, to even the universe out I then gave away a couple of really good things I could have sold on ebay. Pass it forward people, it will come back to you in the end.

2.Buy Second Hand. I used to work with a lady who claimed to hate second hand stuff, thought it was really cheap and nasty to buy anything  that wasn't new, one day I happened to mentioned I had been into a local antique store to which she replied that she adored furniture from there and bought stuff all the time! Evidently what made the difference was the setting and the price!! 
Whatever you want to call it, second hand, vintage, retro, thrifting...antiques it's all essentially the same thing, stuff that has been preowned. I would say about 90% of our stuff is second hand, all but two bits of our furniture is preowned (the exception was our sofa bed which was from Ikea, my mum threatened to never visit me again if I didn't get a decent replacement for my secondhand futon!),  the down side of course is having to wait to find the right thing and not being able to  walk into one shop and kit your whole house out in an afternoon. Personally I can't think of anything worse, I have lived with our tv on a garden table because I was waiting to find the right unit to fit a particularly tight alcove. This has never bothered me as I know the right things is out there and will come along in its own time. I like the uncertainty of not knowing what we'll get, I think this leaves you much more open to buying stuff because it speaks to you, you see an item and love it instantly. I buy clothes and shoes in the same way, Rich buys cars like this too in fact we have been shopping in this fashion for long we both get a bit edgy going into normal shops, it seems really odd to be faced with rows of the same thing !? This leads me no to...

3. Be Flexible. When buying secondhand or getting it for free you have to be willing to change and adapt your ideas depending on what comes your way. Don't be too fixated on one particular item, be willing to look at other stuff or be willing to have to wait quite a while. When we started the revamp of our bathroom last year I had already spend the year before scouting out bits and pieces that I knew we would need. Taps brand new can be really expensive so I started scouring ebay, I had it in mind that I really wanted Bristen 1901 taps, it took me months but eventually I found some  nearly new basin taps for £10 but then I just couldn't find any bath taps. I did however find a really nice mixer tap by Bristan but a slight different style for £5. I reasoned that as there would always be a shower curtain between the bath and the sink you would never actually see them side by side so it was highly unlikely anyone would ever notice and I would save nearly £100 in taps that could go on tiles instead (of course I realise I have now told everybody but I don't care, matching taps really isn't high on the priority list but making our small budget stretch as far as possibly is).
 

4. Get Your Hands Dirty. Paint a piece of furniture, try a bit of plastering, tile a wall, try your hand at some simple plumbing. These days there's not much Rich I won't at least have a crack at, mostly this has been born of necessity as we never have money for tradesmen or at least try to save it for stuff that's really beyond us (anything to do with gas or electrics or welding, although Rich wants to change that last one!). If you don't know how, find someone to show you or try YouTube which I have discover is a great way to give you an idea of how to do stuff. Quite often if you are buying second hand stuff it will need cleaning up or altering to fit your needs, also if you buy furniture that's a bit rough you can probably get it at a knock down price. We bought a 60s G-plan side board last year, these normal go for £160+ on ebay! we found one that had some really bad scratches up the front in a junk shop! It was £40 because it need so much work, fine by me, some sanding and some paint added in the worst area and the sideboard is totally transformed and it hasn't cost us a fortune.

5.Repurpose or Upcycle. Which even you want to call it, before you make a purchase very clearly think do I need this? Is there any chance I can repurpose something I already have? Obviously you cant do this with somethings but defiantly for storage ideas or decorative stuff for the home, have you got an old packing case that can be remade rather then going and buying that simple but expensive shoe storage rack? I repurposed an old wine crate we had been using as a coffee table to store towels in the bathroom, ok not everyone wants to keep their towels in a box but I love it and it cost me the price of some rubber casters.

6. Sharing, Trading & Bartering. My mum, sister and I have what we generally refer to as 'The Whelan Pool of Furniture', this is stuff that has lived with at least one of us at one point or another then be swapped back around for something else, luckily we all pretty much like the same sort of stuff (not always the cast). The rule of thumb with most of this stuff if that none of us are allowed to sell or repaint any of this stuff without checking with the other two first. That way we keep sentimental bits in the family and none of use are ever without an furniture even if we only use it for a few months. 
Trading is also a great way of getting stuff, having a skill you can barter with is always useful, Rich regularly fixes our one neighbours computer when it goes wrong and in return has unlimited access to his fully kitted out workshop. This has saved us hundreds of pounds and probably weeks of our life which would have been spend driving to DIY stores to get a certain type of nail only to fine you have to buy a pack of 50! I do illustration work for a plant nursery in Kent  designing seed packets, logos and stuff for their website and they in return pay me in plants, this is win win for us both. Recently I have needed to get rid of a huge amount of soil left over from digging out a parking bay, a lady I work with is remodelling their garden and need top soil, in return knowing my love of 50s stuff gave me a beautiful bevel-edged mirror that had belonged to her mother but which they didn't have room for in their new house.
Sharing and trading with friends and family is  great way to get new stuff and help each other out, people are generally happy to see stuff go to someone who they know is going to love and appreciate it.

So thats it for now, I have just realised that I could go on and on with this post, I might do another one at some point about saving on house hold bills! The bottom line with all of the above is be friendly and nice (now sounding like an old hippy!)  if you are a nice approachable person people will remember you and maybe thing of you next time they throw something out you might have a use for and of course if you get something cool don't forget to pass it forward, its good for the soul!

While watching a film the other night with the log burning going I remembered that I hadn't mentioned one of the best Christmas pezzys we got given, our new cast iron kettle... 

This is an excellent bit of kit if you have a log burner with a flat top, Im mean you'll have the stove on anyway why not  fill this up and pop in on, wait 15 mins and than have a nice cup of tea what hasn't cost you  a penny in electricity!

We love it, it seems to make having a cuppa quite exciting (or possibly we are just short on entertainment around here!). I would highly recommend anyone who has a stove get one but make sure you get a proper kettle that is enamelled inside, there are cast iron defusers in kettle shape around but these rust meaning you cant drink the water. 

Another new addition to the household which we got just before Christmas off eBay is this cool little wood and brass 60s shelf...

It is quite delicate so we can only put treasure that don't weigh much on it! These inlcude this delicate new butterfly I picked up the other week at a car boot for £1 (because the lady selling it said it was creepy and she wanted it gone).

...and the cool little waving cat I got Rich for Christmas, he's excellent!

And the moral of this post ... get a kettle and a kitty to attain true happiness!

So on my list of jobs for 2014 was removing the last of our bloody huge Hawthrone Hedge, we took out the one bordering our lawn last year and it was a pretty backbreaking thankless task! As usual I didn't take a before pic as I had my hands on some big garden shears which usually makes me forget to pick the camera up, heres one from last summer when it was in leaf...

...this picture makes the hedge look quite nice and lush...well its not, its evil!! This stuff has inch long thorns that will easily go through the sole of your trainers making summer in flip flops very hazardous. It serves very little function, even the birds won't nest in it, so we decided to replace it.

Saturday morning was summer and clear so I made a start on cutting all the branches back to the main trunks.

This made a huge difference straight away, for one it let a lot more light into the garden and it also gained us 2 feet of garden we didn't realise we had! It also created the hugest pile of cuttings. We tried with some help to bag these for taking to the recycling centre but there was just too much, so saturday evening Rich started a bonfire thinking we might be able to get rid of some of it.

We spent 3 hours feeding it (inbetween beer and marshmallows!) and managed to get rid of all the cuttings...phew!

The next morning there was only a relatively small pile of ash, amazing when you consider how much foliage this was...

This of course was the easy bit, how we have the horrible job of removing the main trunks which are really deep rooted and of course covered in spikes!

I managed to take 3 out on Sunday before admitting defeat due to being knackered, guess what my plans for the coming weekend will include!

The ultimate plan is to replace with hedge with a living willow weave fence, something like this...

As ever I will be having my plants supplied by the brilliant guys at Victoriana Nurseries, so at least the quality of the plants will be great even if the weaving might be a little hit and miss.

So the garden now looks like a bomb site again but I got my first bit of sun in months, that at least was wonderful!