Bodge Cottage

We are in! Thank you for the wonderful comments, much needed crumbs of comfort as we get to grips with our new kingdom. Oh dear. It wasn't advertised as a renovation job, but that is essentially what it is. We knew that there would be a lot of stripping out and re-decorating. Certain things had to go immediately, such as the nylon curtains reeking of old menthol cigarettes.

Every corner of this poor little cottage was *improved* sometime in the 1980's by the looks of it, and not expertly either. Bodged.

Truly nasty plastic textured wallpaper, walls and ceilings. Everywhere. In various patterns. All to be stripped off and eventually lime plastered. Back to basics.

Worse was discovered in the main back wall - bad damp which our expensive survey had not revealed. Nor had the vendors, which is not illegal, but has chipped away at my already fragile faith in human nature.

Wall to wall fitted carpet in all rooms, fifty shades of beige (and brown). Smelling of dogs and dirt.

I had hoped that under the grimy carpet, there might have been tiles or boards, but all I found was ancient, chilly lino laid over a concrete floor. Cold, but still better than the carpet. The colour reminds me of raw liver...it was going to be my studio, but that's another story.

Out with the old and smelly!

Because we'd rather have honest floorboards, even if they are in need of some serious love.
 

Some areas are  just grim. We spent the first weekend knocking on walls and stripping off bits of paper to see what was underneath.  Velour curtains anyone?

 In the main bedroom, we had been given to understand that there were 'oak floorboards' - underneath the mucky green carpet and nailed down chipboard.

As with so many other things, this turned out to be a flight of fancy. Not only are they bog-standard pine, as would be expected in a worker's cottage...

 ...but they hid a rather large hole!

Despite all this, we are keeping our chins up. At first we were disheartened,  but we're adjusting our rose tinted spectacles. As we thought when we first viewed this place, there is a nice little Edwardian cottage waiting to be revealed. 

 Now she smells of beeswax, not grime and with the carpets up, she is breathing again. Admittedly, she needs a darned good cleaning and stripping, but she has a good heart. Bodge Cottage. Ours for better or worse, and I think we've seen the worst.

On the road again

By the time you read this, we will be packing up and moving for the second time in 6 months. At the start of this year, we planned to uproot ourselves from the Cotswolds, after 18 happy years. We would leave dear friends, familiar faces and everything we knew to move to a county we had been to twice. 

Andy would move his job to Shrewsbury.

We would rent somewhere for a few months.

We would buy our first (and last) house with a nice garden, character, peace and quiet.

All before Christmas.

We did it.

 It has been a long and stony road.  There have been times when we have literally clung to each other and wondered if we had made the biggest mistake of our lives. We have been stressed, depressed, isolated and torn. We somehow worked through it  - and two months ago we found our 'forever home'. At a price we could just afford and in the area we wanted. 

Today we  finally get the keys to our very own cottage; it's taken 21 years of our saving, hoping and dreaming. It's a small, plain cottage, but to us it is beyond beautiful. For the first time in my life,  I feel as if I can finally stop running. 

Gathering acorns

Is this not lovely? The Mollie Makes team have hand crafted a new weekly digital mini-mag for the iPad. I have to come clean and say that I don't have an iPad myself (nor any other kind of tablet or internet gadget, just my grinding old clockwork computer). I believe there are links and clickable things inside. I was delighted to be commissioned to create a simple acorn pattern, which can be made in 2-3 hours easily.

I was hugely tickled to see the promo video, which features a somewhat larger version of the acorns;

Although if you make the ones in 'Gathered', they should be this big;

There is a great offer of your first five issues for free when you subscribe, details of which are here. 

There have been mumblings and grumblings that it's not available across all tablet platforms; there are plans to expand availability next year, but there various technical issues to overcome. However, everything starts somewhere. From little acorns big oak trees grow.

Wheely geese!

I can't think why, but  I have never made geese on wheels before

 I might make one or two just for me, as these will be rolling off somewhere. Honk!

 

The winner is -

 The Wrekin seen beyond, from a Shropshire lane.

Thank you so much everyone for entering the give-away, what a lovely response. I wish there could be more than one winner, but after putting everyone's name in a hat - literally - the winner is 'Making Miggy' - and I was so pleased she had, as she'd made some lovely doglets from my previous Mollie Makes pattern.

 Another winner is Clover, who has finally settled into her winter routine.

Yes, 'she' is a rare female ginger.

I've just finished my sixth needle felt pattern of the year, and only two are public, so I'm looking forward to seeing the other four when they come out. Now it's back to customer orders - before another exciting event takes over...

Mollie Makes Giveaway!

It seems like a long time ago when I made these little chaps - in our old cottage, back in the Spring before we moved. Cottages and houses really are the dominant theme this year.

 

And now at last, they are in the gorgeous new 'Mollie Makes' project series, published by Anova Books. I opened my latest mag to see this - and a lovely in-house photo of my little cottages.

The nice people at Anova have offered a giveaway of a free copy to a lucky winner - just leave a comment on my blog here, and I'll draw all the names out of a hat on Wednesday morning October the 10th - so get your name down before then, and I'll send the winner's email address to the publishers. Open to the Whole World. 

I've already got my copies - so many lovely things in there, I feel happy just looking at it.

Oh, and if you'd like a bonus entry, subscribe to Lovecraft/Anova Twitterfeed

      GIVE-AWAY IS NOW CLOSED, THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR ENTERING!  

Salvage hunting

To take our minds off certain house buying things, we went salvage browsing.

The first place boasted the 'largest stock of furniture' in the Universe - or claims to that effect and yet oddly, we could not find anything we particularly liked (or could afford!) in the vast storerooms.

 

Apart from this lovely (new) four poster bed, which would swamp an average sized bedroom.

Our next stop, BEESTON RECLAMATION YARD  was more like it. Must have chimney pots in a garden one day.

 

 And maybe an Edwardian fireplace - for inside, of course.  but which one to choose?

 

 This one was sweet - 

 Under the cobwebs, poppies and swallows;

 

...and this one...

But I think we both liked this the best, with bucolic country views painted onto the tiles. It would go beautifully in a little Edwardian cottage bedroom...

 

 

We day-dreamed of re-tiling a kitchen wall with a glorious melange of antique panels.

 

These kinds of colours, we thought. 

Exploring  enticing storage crates rammed with furniture -

- if I could have had one thing and money to burn, it would have been this clock, though hard to tell if it just needs winding or simply won't go any more...

Finding exactly the right sized radiator I'd thought would be perfect for underneath a window. If one had a window of one's own , that is.

Then I spotted this giant old water trough and started wondering how it could be turned into an outdoor hot tub. At which point I realised it had all gone to my head and it was time to trundle home for a cup of tea. And to tackle the behemoth deadlines, two of 'em, that are still looming over my head.

 

Another squirrel

We are on the cliff edge of waiting for our mortgage application to be approved. If it is, then great joy and celebrations will ensue - limbo and uncertainty will be over.  If it isn't approved, we'll have uprooted ourselves for nothing and wasted a lot of money in the process. God knows what happens then.

At the moment there is nothing to do except wait and work. Thank goodness for the salvation of work.