Brand New Chickens!

Wow, the chicken auction was crazy! full of hundreds of people, some who knew exactly what they were after and who could assess the hen's for their health and fecundity in one glance, and others who pointed and said 'ooh that's a pretty one'.

Unsurprisingly, we fell into the latter category, and chose our hens mostly because they looked cute and colour coordinated with each other.

We chose a lovely Lavender Orpington (Mildred) who is a gorgeous lavender grey colour (very Farrow and Ball), and a Cream Legbar (Betsy) because they lay blue eggs (I know!) and a pair of Partridge Brahma's (Mr Cock and Audrey), because every man needs a massive cock (so the boy tells me!) and this one is particularly impressive!

Above: Mr Cock looking mighty fine in his new home!

Outside the chicken house I painted myself linky here!

Above: Mr Cock and his brood -Audrey, Betsy and Mildred (l to r)

Above: Betsy, Audrey and Mildred's backside!

Already we have had 4 eggs (although one was trodden on in the excitement), and although I knew I was going to enjoy having them, I never realised how quickly I would become attached to them!

Betsy is the youngest and smallest, and was at first a little hen pecked by Audrey, but Mildred won't let her be bullied and stands up to Audrey on Betsy's behalf (I love a chicken with good moral values), and now things seem much more harmonious.

Mildred makes a great commotion for about 30 minute before she lays an egg, whereas both Audrey and Mr Cock both go crazy after Audrey lays an egg.

I am now really concerned that some sly fox will come accross them and get through the chicken wire - I had no idea they could do that, and so my next task will be to buy some heavier gauge wire mesh and try to make it all more secure - any advice on how to do this will be greatly received.

I also picked up a gorgeous vintage wire egg basket at the auction, and will be sprucing it up very soon with pictures to follow.

Right off to make an omlette! ;)

Framing Vintage Wallpaper

Forget vintage, antique most probably....

So we are moving the fake beam covers from the real beams (crazy I know, but another quirk of the previous owners taste), and generally re-vamping the littlest bedroom, and suddenly, from some dark corner of the room, hidden behind a panel that had been in situ for perhaps one hundred years, we spy a little fragment of colour:

Above: The wallpaper in situ, as we found it behind an old panel.

The style, and the age of the wallpaper immediatey gets me in an excited tiz and so the boy carefully extracts the rest of the strip as carefully as possible.

With a hessian back I'm guessing this is pretty old, and I LOVE IT!

Funny how tastes turn full circle!

So I brought a large white frame to display the wallpaper, and it is currently the centre piece over the fireplace in the snug. 

Above: The wallpaper fragment has pride of place on the mantel in the snug.

I love the fact that it is from the house - it feels like a present, and we get to preserve a little moment of the property's history. :)

My little secrets:
Frame fragments of wallpaper from your house - the weirder the better! Create a collage and they will great, and represent your house's past style (no matter how unlikely you would be to choose them yourself!).
Frame: Approx £10 from The Range
Ickle Teddy bear - Steiff (a much treasured gift).

First Impressions Count - Revamping the front door!

So when we brought the small holding the front door was pretty minging - broken glass window filled in with bubble wrap, scuffs and marks, and all varnished an unlovely orangey brown - yuck.

Above: Before - yuck

We thought about replacing it, but then I realised I really wanted a painted front door anyhow, and the paint would hide the filler and joins if we were to repair, and so I designed the new look door which included a smaller diamond shape window to replace the large rectangle and here is the design I came up with:

Above: My completely not to scale design!

I brought a grill to fit around the window perfectly, and got my clever dad to rout out some matching lines in a piece of chipboard which fit in the top part of the door perfectly.  A new piece of glass and a paint job later and (drum roll please) we ended up with this:

Above: Our gorgeous 'new' front door!

Looks like a completely different door don't ya think?!  The paint is Farrow and Ball Lichen (exterior eggshell). Best thing of all (at least so the boy would say) is that this little revamp was a whole lot cheaper than a new front door - so everyone's happy! ;)

My little secrets:
Door paint: F&B Lichen, (lady in shop v helpful)

Door grille: ironmongery direct (fab next day service)

Door knocker: Rockett St George (luv it!)

Grape Hyacinths: Ikea 69p (I know!)

Door mat: Ikea (the coir keeps falling out tho which is a pain)

Wellingtons: Hunter (of course)

Horse shoes: From the paddock!

Bedroom Blitz - (before and during) tbc...

So the Easter holidays were a-maz-ing, because we spent all four days together, covered in dust and paint and more dust, and at the end of it we have a pretty gorgeous bedroom (if I do say so myself!).

Firstly you need to see the before shot, and remember that the floor was all scuffed up and stained, and the yucky wallpaper was a flowery beige crime, and the walls an icky magnolia with loads of pit holes. Other that that it was in pretty good nick, and definitely the best room in the house when we moved in.

Above: icky wallpaper and scuffed up floor :(

Day 1: Firstly, we filled, sanded and prepared the 3 painted walls (there were a lot of cracks to fill), and painted over the manky wallpaper with F&B Downpipe No 26, then we painted over the 3 remaining, tear inducing, magnolia walls with a crisp brilliant white - what a breath of fresh air!

Day 2: We sanded the oak floors - they only needed a fine 120 grade sanding (as they weren't that bad really), we coated them with Danish oil, and left them to dry.

Above: During - bedroom floor - part way through - sanded but not oiled but  already looking great!

Above: After - the lovely oak flooring oiled with natural Danish oil :)

(It is worth pointing out that at this stage, all our bedroom belongings were outside in the courtyard exposed to the elements - fine when the sun was shining, not so great when the heavens decided to open - cue me running around with plastic decorators sheeting and masking tape desperately trying to protect the sofa, bed and wardrobes from the worst of it - not hilarious)

Day 3: (Easter Sunday): Spend the day painting the window frames (F&B Lamp Room Grey), and then moved on to the wooden furniture - (see my updating pine furniture post here).

You need to know at this stage that the bedroom furniture was a mixmatch of all colours of pine, from the untreated bare kind to the orangey shiny kind - not a great look for a restful, coordinated and fabulous bedroom see below:

Above: Before -yucky shiny orangey pine drawers - blurgh.

Now I know you probably want to see the 'after', the 'before' and 'during' is a bit of an anti-climax, but I am not quite ready yet, just a few more finishing touches and then I'll post them - promise! :)