Lounge or Sitting Room? A Little Tour....

Which do you prefer? Lounge or sitting room? I'm afraid we say "lounge" even though its terribly common and only airports and hotels have them.

I haven't shared many pictures of ours as its only recently that I have been happy with it - Mr G was the most stubborn about the shabby-chicing of that room and so it was the last to get the treatment.

I got round it by being even stealthier than usual about the addition and transformation of things!! Slowly, slowly, catchy monkey and all that!!

Our house is open plan downstairs. We had a lounge/diner (now you wouldn't say sitting room/diner would you?) but then six years ago we had a conservatory all across the back of the house which kind of transformed the kitchen into a kitchen/diner/family room. In the picture below I am taking it from the front window, the room past the arch was the old dining room and you can see the conservatory beyond:

From the other end (since I took these pics we've added a lovely shaggy rug in the most beautiful shade of duck egg, so it looks cosier):

Virtually everything you see is secondhand. The porch/hall door was from the tip as was the Art Deco sideboard in bottom right. The other sideboard (which we call The Mouse Organ due to its resemblance to the one out of Bagpuss) was from eBay.

The leather sofas and footstool were my Mum's cast offs (she has a habit of changing her suite every five minutes) and the floral footstool I made from a coffee table (also from the tip) which I upholstered.

The former dining room was a bit of a non-room but since we got a nice sideboard (eBay), put shelves up and added a radiator cabinet it looks much better.

The large cupboard houses the computer which belongs to our eldest H, we insist it stays downstairs in the heart of the home as if it was in his room we'd never see him!!

Mr G made the shelves (I only had to wait 6 months for him to do them!!) and the radiator cover was from eBay. The chair (one of a pair) was from the tip.

The painting is of my first horse Merlin and I made the book wreath out of a copy of Gone With The Wind.

Just beyond the former dining room is the conservatory:

The sofa came all the way from America and is one of my sisters cast offs (we've now had three of her old suites over the years and so joke that we should go with them whenever they choose a new one to check we approve!!); the coffee table is from eBay as is the chair which I reupholstered in patchwork. The tea trolley is from Freecycle.

Daisy is sitting in one of my favourite spots in the house, known as "Mummy's Corner":

I haven't got a decent pic of the other side of the conservatory which has my dresser (Mum's cast off) and dining table (eBay).

I think I've said before, but the only new items of furniture we own are our bed and one wardrobe. I can honestly say that even if we had the money to flash on furniture we still wouldn't buy new. I really love my thrifted, upcycled and hand me down home....

Hugs,

S x

 

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Mothers Day & Other Ramblings....

Hello my lovelies!!

We got Mum home (again) in time for Mother's Day!!:

The week before Mother's Day my Mum was taken back into hospital - she was two weeks post her triple bypass surgery - and after they ummed and ahhed for two days (and I insisted on a scan) it was discovered that Mum had a pulmonary embolism (a clot on her lung).


It was first suggested she might be in hospital a while, but after they started her on anti-coagulants they said she could go home.

So on Mother's Day I awoke to a mini Thornton's chocolate selection, the Downton Abbey box set and two lovely cards from my boys:

Harry has added the "my" to the "mum" on his card as I refuse to answer to anything other than Mummy (unless they have friends round and then I'll answer to the shortened version!!)

We trooped down to Mum's to cook Sunday lunch. We bought two of the M&S dine in meals - in fact I had had a "moment" whilst in M&S surrounded by all the Mother's Day merchandise as we could so have lost Mum owing to recent events.

Mr G cooked (he makes a mean roast!!) assisted by my Sis (who is something of a control freak and cannot bear to not interfere if one is cooking in her presence!!)

The tablecloth is almost as old as me, I didn't know Mum still had it!!

On the way home I liberated some twigs from One of Mum's tree and over the next few days turned into an Easter tree:

Crochet bunting & eggs; pom poms and painted eggs....

I've been busy making a quilt for our bed, so had to cut out 300+ squares. In actual fact it was quite therapeutic sat in my newly re-arranged sewing room (must take some pics of the new layout to show) whilst watching Greys Anatomy:

Also for the bedroom we got a new shaggy rug, that Jasper seemed to approve of:

We liked the shaggy rug so much we got a bigger one for downstairs - will have to take a pic of that when its tidy!!

Hope you've all had a good weekend....

Hugs,
S x

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The Blonde Bodge Job....

One would like to think that when one reaches the age of 40 one would have learnt that dramatic changes of hair colour at home are Not A Good Idea.

But not me. Oh no, for this was the second bodge job I had inflicted on myself in the last five years.

Until five years ago I was blonde. Then after a set of extremely bad home highlights I had to go dark and I have been variations of that ever since.

I got used to being a brunette, adding a few blonde chunks here and there to hide my grey patch.

Then the grey started to appear elsewhere and not just in the patch and I ended up with an unattractive look indeed:

I decided perhaps it was time to go blonder and was emboldened by the blonde highlights I painted on myself a couple of months ago a dye was selected:

Now, I used to use blonde home dye kits and they never lifted to the colour they promised so I thought I would be ok with the above.

I was inspired by this:

You see, blonde on top with brown underneath? And so I sectioned off the bottom third of my hair (dark brown, no grey) and applied the blonde dye to the top two thirds.

It went yellow almost immediately. But I did not panic, oh no, for ones hair has to go through a myriad of colours before arriving at blonde.

However, despite getting lighter the yellow hue stuck and I ended up with a very brassy head of hair indeed.

Still I did not panic for I had a secret weapon. I had a bottle of purple shampoo for the very treatment of brassy tresses. After two applications of the aforementioned shampoo I was sporting a head of hair ranging in colour from baked bean through custard to pale lilac:

Look at the lilac fringe!!

Look at the sheer crispiness of it!!

I was sorely tempted to rush out and purchase a dark brown to cover it up, but instead after my hairdresser (and friend) declined to sort the mess out again (indeed it was she who had sorted out the previous bodge job) I decided to get it sorted in a salon.

Don't you just hate staring at yourself at the hairdressers?

It was a wee bit nerve wracking as the stylist dried my hair but I am now the shade I wanted:

And after an intensive treatment and cut its not even crispy!!

Fortunately the salon not only did exactly what I wanted it was also very reasonable indeed and I shall now become a regular customer - no more Russian roulette home dye jobs for me!!

Hugs,

S x

 

 

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Haven't Stood Still!!

Since the end of January life has been a bit of a whirl.

First I had my lovely week at Meadow Gate and then my dear Mummy was taken ill with a heart attack, she was found to have blocked arteries and so had to have triple bypass surgery.

This meant we have been back and forth to hospital to keep her company (and sane!!) - having spent a lot of time in hospital myself during my last pregnancy I know that visitors are one of the few things to look forward to when you are in for any length of time.

Mum came out of Southampton hospital just five days after her surgery (and just the day after leaving HDU) and spent a week at home, but has been very poorly and this Monday had to go back in :0(

After much umming and ahhing on the doctors part, treatment for pulmonary oedema and anaemia it transpires that she has a clot in her chest and has to stay in now until they have got rid of it.

Fortunately she is in the local hospital now, which is nearer (and much nicer!!) to us. We're hoping she will be out in time for Mother's Day on Sunday....

Despite all of this I have managed to squeeze in a bit of crafting!!

On my nieces request I made her an owl cushion:

Which she was very pleased with:

And I started the quilt I am making for our king size bed:

I am making it using the quilt-as-you-go method as I know I won't be able to manage quilting such a large quilt once its finished and full size.

Mr G put up my latest vintage mirror and has declared No More!!:

Personally, I think there is space for at least one or two more!!

I've been after a pressed glass dressing table set and found one in a charity shop for the bargain price of £3.75:

As well as all this I have managed to do a hideous blonde bodge job on my hair, but I think that is a tale for another time....

Hugs,

Sarah x

 

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Update On My Mum....

Firstly, may I thank you all for your kind words and prayers for my Mum.

She went down for her surgery at around 8.45am on Monday - they allowed us to see her right to the doors of the theatre and we had a very emotional and tearful goodbye.

Sis and I went off back to Sis's house (which is a lot closer than mine to the hospital) and had a bit of breakfast and then spent a tense morning until we could call at 12.000m. However, she still wasn't out of surgery so we called again at 1.30pm to be told she'd been out an hour and all had gone well.

I was so relieved I cried.

We were advised to go to hospital in the evening as they wouldn't be bringing her out of sedation until at least then.

So we popped to the shop, had a bit of lunch and I had a snooze in my nieces bed before we headed back to the hospital about 6.15pm.

When we arrived Mum was in the High Dependancy Unit (this is because as a "fast track" case she is a straightforward one so didn't need to be in Intensive Care) and she was still intubated and anaesthetised.

Not long after we arrived they began waking her up. She was very woozy but kept talking and knew we were there.

There has been some difficulty getting on top of her pain. When she awoke she kept saying "Hurting, hurting" and they gave her morphine into her central line which I thought would help but it didn't seem to be easing things for her.

If my Sis and I went quiet she would say "Gone?" and we'd tell her we were still there. When we whispered to each other she told us off - as children we were never allowed to whisper between ourselves in case we were up to no good!!

She'd also ask where one or the other of us was and she'd say "Sarah?" and I would tell her I was there and she'd go "Knitting?" which tickled us.

As she kept fearfully asking for us we settled in for the night. I didn't want to leave her, I couldn't bare the thought of her asking if we were still there and them saying we weren't.

But at midnight the Ward Sister came and persuaded us to leave. I was in floods of tears and my Ss virtually frog marched me out. The Ward Sister said Mum wouldn't remember any of the night and that we needed to get some sleep.

I got home about 1.30am and after 20 draining hours fell into bed.

Yesterday morning we returned to the hospital about 9.30am. Mum was still in agony but much more lucid and the first thing Mum said was "I asked "gone?" and you were" - OMG I was in floods. That is exactly why I hadn't wanted to leave :0(

We were quite shocked at how poorly Mum still was, I mean we expected her to be weak, tired and very sore but not to still be in agony. All day they tried to get on top of her pain, I spoke to two doctors and they kept her on Oramorph.

Her oxygen sats were low too so they had her on oxygen and in the afternoon the physio sat her in a chair which seemed barbaric but would help her sats.

Sis and I had to bully her a little to get her to eat as she was afraid of being sick as it would be so painful. She managed a little food.

We left her shortly after dinner as she was exhausted. Since returning home I have felt the worst since it all happened as she is still so poorly. I wasn't expecting it. Everyone else in HDU seems much, much more "normal".

Today my Sis is there and I am going a bit later. Her oxygen sats are still low so she has had to go onto CPAP. I'm going over shortly.

Sorry this post is so rambling and wordy, I needed to unload it all out of my head I guess.

The one thing I mustn't forget is to mention how wonderful the nurses are. The care and compassion with which they look after my Mum and other terribly poorly patients is amazing. They truly do a most fantastic job....

Hugs,

S x

 

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Shocking News....

My lovely Mum is in hospital following a heart attack.

She came to my house on Monday and said her chest hurt, in fact (as we both suffer from health anxiety and so are always worrying that something is wrong with us) what she actually said was "I'm having a heart attack today" and we both went "Yeah, yeah, what again, haha!!"

On Tuesday her chest was still hurting, but Mum being Mum she went to work (she is actually a retired florist but works 9 hours in a gift shop). She felt unwell and nearly came home but didn't want to trouble them (!!!!) so she completed her shift and then rang the surgery when she got home.

They advised her to call an ambulance!! And yet again she nearly didn't as she didn't want to trouble them.

Long story short is she is having triple bypass surgery in the morning.

We are in shock.

Even when it was concluded she had had a heart attack we didn't think for a minute it meant she would need open heart surgery.

I am terrified. I am not ready in any way to be an orphan!! I want her for many, many more years. I want to be laughing and arguing with her when *I* am an old woman....

So, if you could send good vibes and prayers from 8.00am I'd be truly grateful....

Hugs,

S x

 

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Meadow Gate....

You may or may not remember that the catalyst for my becoming crafty was watching the lovely Suzie Johnson from The Wool Sanctuary teach Kirstie Allsopp to knit in Kirstie's first crafting series "The Homemade Home".

This was the series in which Kirstie renovated the dilapidated cottage Meadow Gate in North Devon. I clearly remember Kirstie saying to Suzie "My Mum told me I'll never knit as I'm left handed".

I thought similar (though I am right handed) as despite having a Mum who excelled at them I had never mastered crochet, knitting or any other textile craft. After watching Kirstie learn to knit I was prompted to give crochet another try.

And then sewing; knitting; embroidery both by machine and hand. And the rest, as they say, is history.

So, imagine my delight when my dear friend Cuckoo invited me on Suzie Johnson's Knit Club holiday to Meadow Gate!!

I spent last Monday- Friday there and it was just bliss. There was lots of nattering, less knitting (I discovered I too much of a novice to knit and natter simultaneously!!) and cake was the main food group.

I have lots of photos for you!!

Meadow Gate

The view from the front of the house, just between the cliffs is the sea....

The back....

Looking out of back door there is a stream....

Lovely Aga, you can't see from the pic but even the oven nearest to us was part of it, it is mahoosive!!

The gorgeous Kerry posing next to the famous WOW in the kitchen!!

Suzie chatting to Cuckoo while Cuckoo makes a yummy stew....

View from my room....

Sitting room with the remains of our cake lunch....

About to take a dip in the lovely Art Deco bath, I remember Kirstie getting this from a salvage yard - it's very long!!

Shelves in the Art Deco bathroom....

Playroom....

With the log burner roaring....

Kirstie's notebook....

On the last night the twin room was free and so I jumped in as I loved this room from the show!!

Such a pretty, girly room....

There are three baths at Meadow Gate (I had a go in all 3!!) and this is my favourite in the master bedroom....

Due to my anxiety this trip was way out of my comfort zone, and I did have a wibble on the first night when I got to bed. But the next morning I felt much better and I so enjoyed getting to know the lovely ladies that were with me (there were 12 of us in all) - some of which I had met before and some of which were strangers.

I have come away with some true friends.

Really looking forward to the next one!!

Hugs,

S x

 

 

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