I've managed to have a few weeks off work over the last month which has meant we've got quite a few jobs finished off before we lose the decent weather which seems to make everything harder.
Rich has been in full on DIY mode since summer but as is the case with most freelancers the minuet he starts a house job a paying job will come in meaning he has to drop what he's doing to earn the cash! Very frustrating for him but after 15 years of this we have become very used to living with half finished projects, one job I have been begging him to get finished was the bath panel. We replaced the bathroom 4 years ago and became so used to not having one we pretty much stopped seeing it, however after a little trip to my fav house clearance shop Rolfeys we picked up an old water works sign which we decided would be great as part of the bath panel. £30 worth of wood later Rich finally got round to building it!
Rich has been in full on DIY mode since summer but as is the case with most freelancers the minuet he starts a house job a paying job will come in meaning he has to drop what he's doing to earn the cash! Very frustrating for him but after 15 years of this we have become very used to living with half finished projects, one job I have been begging him to get finished was the bath panel. We replaced the bathroom 4 years ago and became so used to not having one we pretty much stopped seeing it, however after a little trip to my fav house clearance shop Rolfeys we picked up an old water works sign which we decided would be great as part of the bath panel. £30 worth of wood later Rich finally got round to building it!
Of course it being us we couldn't have something as simple as a plain panel, no no... as we have bugger all storage in our tiny bathroom Rich built in a cupboard as each end, one for storing all my hair products (of which there is a lot!) and one so he can access the stop valves incase of emergencies (we have made that mistake before!). Also the fact that panel then had to hold the weight of a cast sign all meant it is now build like a bomb shelter, in the event of the Russians deciding to nuke us I will be under the bathtub!
I cant believe how neat the bathroom now looks! We both love the sign so much! I am still on the look out for some nice vintage cupboard latches, finding nice old door furniture is always a sod especially as we are always on a budget, most of the stuff we get comes from junk shops and boot sales so we have to be a bit flexible about styles and also stuff very rarely matches. Luckily I don't really care about that!
Rich also managed to fit the door keep so we actually have a bathroom door you can latch and lock!! We've never been able to lock the bathroom door so its a bit of a novelty, although nice for any visitors who understandably don't want the cat knocking the door open and wandering in to see what your doing.
While we are hovering around the subject of bathrooms Id like to mention toothbrushes, fascinating right?! Ok so I learned a pretty horrifying things a few months ago, the plastic that tootbrushes are made from takes 1000 years to full break down...so in theory everything plastic toothbrush every made is still in existence!
This totally blew my mind, I mean I buy new toothbrushes roughly every 3 months, between us both thats an average of 8 brushed a year so over the course of both our lives so far thats 280 odd toothbrushes we've chucked! Given that we are trying really hard to reduce our waste I wasn't going to let that go on so we switched to bamboo brushes.
Rich also managed to fit the door keep so we actually have a bathroom door you can latch and lock!! We've never been able to lock the bathroom door so its a bit of a novelty, although nice for any visitors who understandably don't want the cat knocking the door open and wandering in to see what your doing.
While we are hovering around the subject of bathrooms Id like to mention toothbrushes, fascinating right?! Ok so I learned a pretty horrifying things a few months ago, the plastic that tootbrushes are made from takes 1000 years to full break down...so in theory everything plastic toothbrush every made is still in existence!
This totally blew my mind, I mean I buy new toothbrushes roughly every 3 months, between us both thats an average of 8 brushed a year so over the course of both our lives so far thats 280 odd toothbrushes we've chucked! Given that we are trying really hard to reduce our waste I wasn't going to let that go on so we switched to bamboo brushes.
You know they are good when theres a happy panda on the packaging right!
We've been using these for the last few months and I have to say they are great, no really notable difference to a regular toothbrush, they are pretty competitively priced at roughly £3 each which you can get cheaper if you buy more than one or two at a time, we got ours from this website but most eco food shops seem to stock some variety. I highly recommend you check them out, plus you get the satisfaction of chucking your used toothbrush in the compost bin when your done with it or like us you can ceremonially burn it on the fire in the knowledge that the chickens will be happily shitting on the ash by the next day! You can't put a price on that kind of happiness!!
We've been using these for the last few months and I have to say they are great, no really notable difference to a regular toothbrush, they are pretty competitively priced at roughly £3 each which you can get cheaper if you buy more than one or two at a time, we got ours from this website but most eco food shops seem to stock some variety. I highly recommend you check them out, plus you get the satisfaction of chucking your used toothbrush in the compost bin when your done with it or like us you can ceremonially burn it on the fire in the knowledge that the chickens will be happily shitting on the ash by the next day! You can't put a price on that kind of happiness!!
We also got round to fitting the wicked light Rich bought when we were last up in Shropshire 6 months ago from the town of Ludlow. It was in a very nice shop full of Victorian light fittings, so this one pretty much stood out, it was fitted with an American plug so we got it at a reduced price too.
We wanted it to go over our little kitchen table, I thing it goes really well with all our other retro crap! I love the bright orange flex, in fact Im thinking of spraying the metal legs of our 1960's kitchen table to match. The light from it is lovely, its a LED bulb but the light is really soft and make the kitchen feel warm in the evenings.
As you can see above Rich and I don't really do minimalism or indeed matching patterns on anything!
Weirdly after we fitted this I discovered that you can buy smaller version of this wire shade in various colours from Tescos Direct of all places! So I've order a smaller yellow one which Rich plans to hang in the opposite corner of the kitchen, just need to order some coloured flex, I'm thinking in baby blue?
So Im going to be pretty busy for the next 6 or 7 weeks with the run up to Christmas, I have some nice new designs this year if anyones looking for some unique or unusual christmas presents, take a look at my shop.
Hopefully back with more updates soon. xx
As you can see above Rich and I don't really do minimalism or indeed matching patterns on anything!
Weirdly after we fitted this I discovered that you can buy smaller version of this wire shade in various colours from Tescos Direct of all places! So I've order a smaller yellow one which Rich plans to hang in the opposite corner of the kitchen, just need to order some coloured flex, I'm thinking in baby blue?
So Im going to be pretty busy for the next 6 or 7 weeks with the run up to Christmas, I have some nice new designs this year if anyones looking for some unique or unusual christmas presents, take a look at my shop.
Hopefully back with more updates soon. xx
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