Wait, where did July go?!

Well, July came and went, didn't it? Since my previous post a lot of what I've done has been fairly domesticated, thanks to the combo of a shonky back plus working from home. But looking back, I have done a fair bit.

July started with a trip to the Holburne Museum in Bath as it had an exhibition of watercolours by Turner and his contemporaries. As always with the Holburne, it was a very small exhibition, but some of the paintings hadn't been publicly shown for a very long time, so it was well worth a visit. 

There was also Big Work to do on the house. We decided to finally get the carpet replaced in the hall and spare room/Pete's office. They're the only carpets in the house – the rest is floorboards – but they'd been in when we bought the house nearly 25 years ago, and were looking... well, possibly not so much tired as unconscious! We'd had the hall repainted a few years ago, so that was fine, but the spare room, again, hadn't been repainted in about 20 years and needed it. So we ripped out the old carpets and painted the spare room (pretty much the same colour; we wanted to refresh it rather than completely change it) before the new carpets went down. We also tidied the shelves up a bit; the photo at the top of the page is one I found while sorting through stuff. I think it dates from about 1996.

Our bedroom was also annoying me. When we moved in we'd had all sorts of ideas about how we wanted the house to look, but over time everything has evolved and, of course, we've been able to upgrade furniture and fittings over the years. The rest of the house has slowly taken on a feel somewhere between Victorian explorer and hobbit hole, all dark wood and souvenirs, a lot of cream wall and rich colours where there are colours. But we bought our wardrobes when we bought the house, and they're blue and silvery grey. The bed is grey, and quite utilitarian (we need the underbed storage!). Somehow the room has never quite acquired an 'identity', if that makes sense, and it wasn't really gelling with the rest of the house.

And then while checking prices for work (something I do on my homes magazines) I saw that a company called Melody Maison had art deco-style mirrors, not horribly expensive, and a fan-shaped one struck me as just the thing to bring some personality to the room while working with the existing wardrobes and bed. I bought it, and it really did make a difference. So Mr Robot bit the bullet and ordered two bookcases to replace the existing ones (one Argos' cheapie black ash from the 90s, the other a white and pine one that had been in my little brother's childhood bedroom in the 80s). To be honest, I don't like the current fad for grey, but that was the colour we could get and that worked with what was already in the room. The one that replaced the black ash fitted better between the wardrobes and increased the available shelf space, and the one that replaced the pine bookcase wasn't as deep, so freed up some floor space. Having the furniture matching better has given the room a more unified feel. 

We also did a little extra reshuffling and made room for a chest of drawers. Pete had seen one on Ebay; it had been badly upcycled with white paint and stencils of pink flowers and mint green bows, but was basically a nice vintage chest of drawers with a handy feature: the top lifts up, revealing a shallow storage area plus a mirror beneath the lid. We got it, repainted it a similar shade of blue to the bedroom (there were clearly damaged patches of veneer, so stripping the old paint wasn't an option), and replaced the wooden 'bun' handles with brass ones in the shape of ginkgo leaves. It works really well, and the top compartment now houses my chunky costume jewellery. We've got an art deco-style lightshade on order, and plan to replace the curtains, and then the bedroom will look much nicer.

Actually, that was quite a lot for one month, wasn't it? We also got a few new old plates off Ebay, and have been recipe testing for a friend. And, of course, doing our day jobs. 

I shall leave you with a photo of Ziggy's friend coming round to visit. We'd been wondering how he'd been getting into the house. Little scamp!