We are Kat and Rich, we are both in our mid 30s and live in the beautiful Georgian city of Bath in the south west of the UK. We have lived here for about 12 years, originally being from further North. We LOVE Bath, it is one of the mostly unbelievable amazing looking cities, seriously bits of it look like a film set, I keep expecting to see ladies in period costume wandering along the street (apart from when you do see ladies in period custom wandering along the street, that tends to happen when the place you live has a yearly Jane Austen festival!)
Rich and I are both professional Illustrators, we met at Uni where we both did degrees in Illustration and have been together for 17 years, we finally got married in 2009. We both enjoy making stuff, most of the time a mess! We spend the little time we have when we're not working hunting for vintage junk or furniture we can rescue. I have been bitten by the gardening bug, I love growing fruit and veg (not always that successfully but I am an enthusiastic amateur!), I also love sewing, kitting, baking, patchwork and giving a new lease of life to what would be thrown away.
Rich and I are both professional Illustrators, we met at Uni where we both did degrees in Illustration and have been together for 17 years, we finally got married in 2009. We both enjoy making stuff, most of the time a mess! We spend the little time we have when we're not working hunting for vintage junk or furniture we can rescue. I have been bitten by the gardening bug, I love growing fruit and veg (not always that successfully but I am an enthusiastic amateur!), I also love sewing, kitting, baking, patchwork and giving a new lease of life to what would be thrown away.
In short two penniless idiots buying a cottage and garden and trying to make it habitable on a shoestring (pretty simple really!). So we have left our cute, cosy little 1 bed cottage for a damp, dated and odd smelling 2 bed one….why was that again?….oh yes…2 bedrooms!
This tiny cottage on the south slopes of Bath is going to be home and work space, we just have the small matter of getting the mile long list of jobs done! Nip over to the mighty List-O-Doom for all the gory details!! As much as possible will be done by us and our friends and family (suckers!). We will be recycling, reclaiming, skip diving, trading, freecycling, ebaying, car booting, and scouring every second-hand, junk shop and flea market in the south west to do this, we don't do 'of the rail', we want character and personally, we like items that have lived and been loved.
This tiny cottage on the south slopes of Bath is going to be home and work space, we just have the small matter of getting the mile long list of jobs done! Nip over to the mighty List-O-Doom for all the gory details!! As much as possible will be done by us and our friends and family (suckers!). We will be recycling, reclaiming, skip diving, trading, freecycling, ebaying, car booting, and scouring every second-hand, junk shop and flea market in the south west to do this, we don't do 'of the rail', we want character and personally, we like items that have lived and been loved.
I suppose we have a few reasons for writing all this down, mostly I think it is for our family and friends who I'm sure will be neglected in the process, at least this will give them to opportunity to see why we couldn't come and stay! Also I have a feeling that on these long long cold evenings of paint stripping yet to come I may need to remind myself of how far we've come, the jobs we did manage to do (and the horrors of the jobs yet to come!)
Another reason is than when we brought our first house 10 years ago ( a small one bed mid terrace) and we first started tackling the up dating of the interior Rich and I really had no idea what we where doing, I think we pretty much made it up on the fly! I do remember at the time searching the web for other people taking on smiler projects and finding not much, well actually there was quite a bit on people doing up mansions, 3000 foot loft apartments, palatial 5 bed detached houses and a fair few people with 60 odd grand moaning that they had to replace their guttering! In short not many people like us, in their twenties living in a pretty standard semi with a tight budget.
I want a record of what its like for most of us, so will we manage it, will we loose out minds and control of our bank balance… who knows, why not stick around it might get interesting!
Another reason is than when we brought our first house 10 years ago ( a small one bed mid terrace) and we first started tackling the up dating of the interior Rich and I really had no idea what we where doing, I think we pretty much made it up on the fly! I do remember at the time searching the web for other people taking on smiler projects and finding not much, well actually there was quite a bit on people doing up mansions, 3000 foot loft apartments, palatial 5 bed detached houses and a fair few people with 60 odd grand moaning that they had to replace their guttering! In short not many people like us, in their twenties living in a pretty standard semi with a tight budget.
I want a record of what its like for most of us, so will we manage it, will we loose out minds and control of our bank balance… who knows, why not stick around it might get interesting!
