Some times I think the only places Rich and I shop these days are car boot sales, charity shops and junk stores...which is true. Most everything we own has been pre-owned, not that this particually bothers either of us, I quite like the idea that we live of what other people consider to be junk. And its better off with us then ending up in a hole in the ground rotting somewhere! 

Here are a few of our latest rescued items...

...another Ladybird book, which we collect as there is something rather wonderful about the 50's and 60's illustrations, I never get bored of looking at them and at a average price of 50p collecting them wont break the bank! More buttons to go in my button box (£1 for this jar), its got lost of the leather toggle button in which I love, always useful for adding to coats or jumpers.
I also finally mangaed to get a letter stamp, I have wanted one for ages but they are usually quite pricy but managed to get this one for £3. Lastly a vintage pencil case dating from 1917, brought from an antiques fair in Bradford on Avon yesterday by Mum for a bargain busting £2....

...isn't it wonderful! Thanks Mum!

Bath Racecourses have recently started having an flea market once a month, so Rich and I went along to the first one last sunday (although I think £6 for the 2 of us to get in is a little steep!) we did managed to spend the last of my birthday money on some bits and pieces for the house.

Rich spotted this amazing 50's coat rack, its just lovely and weights a ton! We reckon it will look great with the new kitchen and not to be outdone he then spotted this lush table cloth (its never been used, don't know if I will be able to live with the strain of not spilling anything on it!!).
And of course more Ladybird books, all brought for under £1 each, one in particular was worth buying for this hilarious picture...

...thats right, children in 1962 where obviously encouraged to not only strip the outer casing off batteries, but to then stick them in fruit and lick them! I can only assume that entertainment must have been pretty sparse on the ground, luckily kids these days have recreational drugs and asbo's to keep them happy... life is much safer.

Once we had finished picking up suicide tips from childrens books we managed to get a few new plants for the garden, buying a plant is like a drop in the ocean in our garden as theres just so much of it, still I like to have flowers up near the house.

Here are our second hand tomatoes, given to me by various generous people who grew to many and needs to re-home the others (fine with me, always happy to re-house fruit or veg!)

Our raised veg beds are going well helped by warm weather, I really need to weed it more but always run out of time!

We are currently eating croquettes with just about every meal but the point is they are free croquettes as these plants where given to me too! 

Not bad for a bunch of old stuff no one wants!

The on going slog of the fireplace continues and Richard is battling away at it, every time I come home from work (or just down from the studio) it looks a little better, slowly he is winning!

I am quite literally wetting myself with anticipation, I cant wait to see what the new stove will look like in there! Richards clever Mum has managed to find us a lovely little ex-disply stove at a bargain price up in Shropshire, fingers crossed we will go and collect it in august, heres a little pic of the one we went for...

OMG (as the kids say) its got a little squirrel on the side of it!! Not that this is the reason we decided on this particular model...no..not at all....squirrel!

We'll be using red reclaimed quarry tiles for the hearth base, they are left overs from doing the floor at the last house so lucky wont cost us anything (we have enough tiles to do about 20 fireplaces, really must sell some on eBay!) so far so good, just waiting on our plumber moving a pipe then we can get it finished off. I'm so proud of Rich, he's done a champion job as usual!!

We have in the mean time been busy scouting out other useful things for the house (I love the looking for stuff bit!!) our finds in the last week include a bathroom light...

From Cheddar car boot for the bargainious price of £14, the gentlemen who sold it to me assures me its off a WW2 submarine (take large pinch of salt here) it is defiantly off some sort of boat as its still got its rubber shock absorber on the base, very cool. Should look great in the new bathroom, once we have stripped the paint off and Rich has checked the electrics.

We also paid a little visit to Source, the place to go for English Rose Kitchens but what every you do don't go and tell the guys in there you brought yours of eBay instead of them! That aside they are terribly nice and helpful and sold us an old scrape sink and work top (that was going to be chucked) for £20. 

Why, might you ask have we bought this rather grotty looking sink and work top, well the work top on our current sink unit has rotted like hell from a leaking tap and this cool 50s melamine is very hard to get a match for as they no-long make this pattern. Don't worry it will all become clear when we get on to sorting the kitchen out (lucky Rich!)

And the last lucky find of the week...

...a rather shabby chic gold filigree picture frame that I found on the way to work on the side of the road waiting for the bin men, needless to say I rescued it and will give a new home framing one of my paintings! I love living in a city where people throw this sort of quality old tat away!!

More pics as soon as I've worked out how to get them off Richards phone!
x

So we stared the biggest of the renovation jobs that needs doing on the house last Monday, the replacement of our central heating boiler. Always a messy job, especially as we had decided we wanted it in the original airing cupboard in the front bedroom, it meant most of the floors coming up, furniture being moved and piled in corners, an unholy amount of dust and the company of our very nice neighbour/plumber who fitted the new system.

Above is the offending bit of plumbing, soon to be off to as scrap metal dealer somewhere, when we moved into the house nearly 9 months ago we knew the heating system was a bit old and knackered but we limped through the winter with it as we really couldn't have coped without hot water. When the summer finally arrived we discovered that the pump was shot, the major problem with that being that it wouldn't heat up any hot water without the central heating being on at the same time. Fine no problem just turn the radiators off...except that the sellers re-plastered most of the house before they sold it and some bright spark couldn't be arsed to take the radiators off the wall before doing so, thus plastering the radiator valves in one position! 
Much nashing of teeth and emptying of wallets later we are finally rid of the old system and have replaced with a 90% efficient combi boiler...mmm love that hot water!

Not the cheapest of jobs but well worth it, this should save us qhite a bit on our gas bill as its so energy efficient!

The up shot of finally losing the old style system meant that we could get rid of our crime agains interior decorating gas fire in the living room and that back boiler behind it meaning only one thing...fitting a log burner! but first things first, you need a hole for it to go in. Heres how our living room used to look...

Here it is as of last Monday, arrrr Rich is saying a fond farewell to the gas fire...with a hammer.

And heres the nice big hole once the fire had gone...

And heres an even bigger hole because once a man starts hitting things with a hammer it's very hard to stop...

Seriously, you wouldn't believe how much rubbish came out of this fireplace, old bricks, smashed up roofing tiles, tones of glass fibre insulation and just bags and bags of crap, neither of us could breath for about 3 days.

And finally here it is as of about 10 mins ago, Rich and his dad have poured a concrete base over the weekend which we will cover with red quarry tiles (left over from the last house!). Rich has build the lintel down a bit to make it level, we will then be putting a wooden mantelpiece in place over the fire and will hopefully find the pennies to get a log burner hooked up before winter.
Ok, right now it looks like a bomb site but I think its going to look wonderful when its done, it will give the living room a proper focal point and some much needed character back.
So onward and upward!!

Ok not a staggeringly interesting post coming up but still...shelves, you can never have enough of them, especially not if you own the number of books that we do! My on going mission to get as many shelves up around the house has finally reached our bedroom, which is a very small room but has oddly high ceilings...

Thanks to my very thrifty Father we have 2 wonderful length of wood that used to be a shop sign, rescued by him years ago from a skip and finally after residing for 5 years in 2 garages, pressed into service!

He even made the metal brackets! Am very happy to be finally using them, what an improvement to our cosy little nest...

Finally a home for my collection of vintage Ladybird books! 

Apologise in advance for the lack of posts, we are finally ripping the knackered central heating system out meaning its quite hard to get to my computer right now, so I have to bore you with lovely pics of boilers in a week or two...what fun!!!