No chairs but we have art!

Shhhh big secret here....Hull has the most amazing reclamation yards!! Total hidden gems across the city where you can still get a bargain! This is where I found this beauty! Its a 1950's science poster, possibly from a school lab or even a University. There was actually three other posters like this but     my sensible other half, my lack of spare change and the realist in me stopped me purchasing them all! So we have art but no seating in our front sitting room!!                                                                         

 

 

 

What do you think? Do nervous system cells look ok on the wall? I love it!

An old school table

So the new house has a HUGE kitchen which is great, we love entertaining and cooking for our guests and the house is perfect for this.

The kitchen is not exactly how we want it - I hope to modernise it in the long-term and spruce it up in the near future but in the mean time we wanted to make it useable.

The kitchen table form our previous house looked like it had been taken out of dolls house and made the room seem unbalanced. Looking at the table made me realise what a leap we have made house wise!

So the search for a kitchen table fit for such a large kitchen began. Not a fan of brand new furniture we started our search in local charity shops and second-hand furniture stores, but nothing was big or rustic enough.

We stepped up the search and started looking online and scoured eBay. After a week or so my wonderful other half came across an old school table and 6 chairs (Ercol no less) it looked perfect - but was the price? Well yes we paid £185 for the lot! A steal!

Vintage Chewing gum?!

I was very excited about the arrival of the table and chairs and when we unloaded it we were not disappointed - it was the perfect size.

Keep cleaning

The only thing that we hadn't bargained for was 20 year old chewing gum under the table! Operation clean table began and 3 hours later it looked fab!

Ercol Chair

The 6 Ercol chairs were an added bonus and were in great condition. All they needed was a polish.

The final picture below shows how well the table fits in the kitchen, all we need to do no is have a party!
Now where did I put those invites?

The final product

An evening upcycle

Those of you who have read my other blog posts may remember the chair that I had required for £0! A bargain or what?! I painted it with the wonderful Annie Sloan Aubusson Blue and since then its been patiently waiting for a seat.

 I have been keeping my eye out for a suitable fabric and on recent trip to London I headed to Brixton Market and in there is an excellent fabric shop.
I purchased two huge pieces of fabric in amazing patterns that I can use all over the house! They were an absolute bargain at £30 for 11m fabric!!

The chair had to be my first project... its been seat-less for months and calling out for some TLC. It was time this upcyling project was completed.

Finally a complete chair!

It seems like a match made in heaven. The bold African fabric looks stunning with the Aubusson Blue and I am utterly thrilled with the results! What do you think?

New house ...third time lucky!

After 8months of searching we are finally in a new house. The journey has been exhausting but now we are in it, totally worth the hassle!

It's a beautiful late Victorian property with so many original features and so much untapped potential. In fact it's all we ever wanted and much more.

Here are some pictures of what it looked like the day we picked the keys up,  hopefully the blog will now chronicle the journey of the house and the home that we create.


This is the day we picked the keys up.....

The landing

One of three original fire places upstairs

A stunning tiled floor and an unusual fire place

Stairway to heaven!

The kitchen....so much potential here!

 

Apologies for the quality of the photographs - in my excitement running around the house I think I wasn't checking the photo quality!! whoops

Vintage Fabric Find

Vintage fabric found today at a Dove House Hospice charity shop. They are curtains at the moment but I may make cushions or redo a chair with it. Finding little gems like these are keeping me going on our mammoth quest for a home!

Curtains now... What's next? 

Long way round

So I haven't been able to spend time on the blog as I have moved house into a temporary place as our second attempted house purchase has fallen through. On to buying our third!

Via a trip to New York we have been mad busy. But lots of exciting blogs to come and so many new ideas up my sleeve.

Watch this space!

Dream kitchen ...the research starts!

Okay, it's a bit premature but I am indulging myself by researching ideas for our kitchen.
As real foodies my other half and I get so much joy out of cooking and we would love a space that we could while away the hours in. The thought of having a space that would be exactly what we want is very exciting indeed.

Research time!

First port of call was Pinterest where there is an incredible amount of inspiration,  check out my Pinterest 'kitchen' page for idea of what I am thinking (hopefully you will find it inspiring too) in the meantime here's a screen shot of the page.

Inspiring or what?

Then I sat back and enjoyed an old fashioned method of research - magazines! I love, love, love Living Etc. Its a fabulous magazine packed full of wonderful houses and fab ideas. And ok I admit I am over organised and I used colour coded post-it notes for ideas!! My magazines are well thumbed with sticky notes all over!

After seeing an advert in a magazine I sent of for the Fired Earth Kitchen catalogue...yummy! Fired Earth was founded in 1983 in an Oxfordshire barn and began as a specialist Terracotta supplier. Over the last few years they have added a stunning collection of bathrooms, beautifully crafted kitchens and a carefully researched paint palette. Fab!  Click Here for their website. They also have some lovely paints .....hopefully something we will get to use in our new house!

Lovely kitchen catalogue!