Gosh, that was a long time away from my little blog! My ancient laptop was behaving very oddly, and eventually just gave up altogether, and I've only just got round to replacing it (and figuring out the new photo software). Anyway, now we're here, let's go back in time to October, which feels like rather a long time ago now. A trip to the seaside October started with a much-needed trip to the seaside. We were there for less than 24 hours, but goodness me it was refreshing. The sun shone, we wandered a couple of miles along the beach from the hotel to the tower, munching chip butties and doughnuts. Then, once it went dark, a crowd of people formed - unknowingly we'd arrived during the World Fireworks Championship. Sadly this turned into a literal damp squib, as a downpour arrived not long after the start of the show, but we still had a marvellous time and returned home nicely reinvigorated. Exploring closer to home I met a friend for a walk, and we went somewhere close to home but new to me. It reminded me how I planned to do more exploring this year, and never really got round to it. Something else to add to the list for next year. Carpet fitting October's big project was fitting a carpet in my study. I spend a lot of time in this room, and it's one of the coldest in the house, partly because it barely gets any sun, but mostly because of the ceramic floor tiles. I did have a rug down, but it wasn't very warm, and there was still plenty of tile visible round the edges. We realised we had some spare rugs in the loft, and I thought I'd throw a few down to see if I could get the room a bit warmer. We retrieved some rugs from the loft, and at some point, Peter realised he'd got an entire carpet from Freegle a while back, and it was still sitting in an outbuilding. Would it fit the whole room?? Yes! Well, very nearly, and certainly more than the assortment of rugs would have done. But wait! If we're going to the trouble of putting down an entire carpet, we might as well put in some decent underlay and do it properly. Did you know underlay has a tog rating, like duvets? I didn't. This is 3.6 tog, 15mm thick, wool underlay, and it is SO warm. I've never laid underlay before, but how hard could it be? Obviously everything was a bit of a fiasco, as with all these jobs, especially when you don't really know what you're doing. The first thing was to lay carpet gripper rods, and because of the tiles, these couldn't be nailed to the floor, but had to be glued. We took all the furniture out of the room, and I was reminded yet again that life sometimes seems like one long game of House Tetris. After gluing the gripper rods, we decided to remove the giant bookcase from the room (I was originally going to go round it, to save the hassle of dismantling). Yet more faffing - especially when I realised I'd painted the room AFTER installing the bookcase... Gripper rods down, bookcase dismantled, gripper rods under the bookcase removed and re-glued, first coat of paint. The original cream paint was eggshell, and I was painting matt, so it was really patchy to start with, and I realised that even with two coats, it was going to be a slightly different colour than the rest of the room. I ended up doing one coat on the missed bits, and then another two coats round the whole room to even things up. Finally, it was time to fit the carpet! I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor like this, despairing. Why had we FOLDED it before putting it in the outbuilding? Who folds carpet?? Certainly not professional carpet fitters. Still, the aim of this project was warmth, not perfection, and a lumpy carpet is better than no carpet at all. Slowly, after some rather unconventional smoothing techniques, it was starting to take shape. Yes, that is indeed an upturned coffee table filled with heavy things, and if you imagine me lying face down and essentially using this as a giant iron, you won't be far off the truth. The carpet didn't quite fit into the final alcove, but I did a bit of patching with the chunk cut out for the fireplace, and it doesn't look too bad. I'm definitely considering this a triumph. I've put the original rug back over the top, and I've not had the electric heater on while I'm working since the carpet went down. I can't tell you how thrilling it is to be able to work at my laptop without fingerless gloves on. We decided not to put the bookcase back in. Instead, we moved the sofa bed, so it's now possible to have the bed folded out and still use the rest of the room, which is very handy. It does mean that all my books are temporarily in a different room (House Tetris again), and we now need to build some more bookshelves. Still, I have learned some new skills, and we now own a knee kicker for the next time we need to fit a carpet. Thermal blinds October was apparently the month I turned my attention to the impending winter, as the other project I started was also all about warmth. We don't have curtains in either new bedroom or the kitchen/dining room, and not only does that mean things get decidedly chilly at night, especially in the kitchen, but it doesn't feel cosy to sit there looking at giant black squares once it's gone dark outside. Curtains would have been the easiest option, but Peter's not a fan, and I don't like the way you end up tucking them behind radiators. Instead, we decided to go with simple blinds, and because we try to avoid paying for things we can do ourselves, I declared I'd make them. I measured all the windows, six in total (two upstairs, four downstairs), and ordered some thermal fabric. This isn't fleecy, it's just really tightly woven. I started with upstairs - that way they would be mostly out of public view if my experiments didn't quite work. We found some fabric we'd bought years ago in a charity shop, and some bits of wood for the top and bottom. Then I started scratching my head (and swearing) as I tried to figure out how on earth to put everything together. The fabric is beautiful, but shiny and ever so slightly stretchy. There was also only just enough, meaning no room for excess seams. I wanted the pattern to be straight, I didn't want it too bulky at the sides where it would be rolled, and also the three layers of fabric really needed to be attached together all the way across so it didn't go saggy. The first one was quite painful, but once I'd figured it out, things went a lot more smoothly. These are red and gold on the front, black and gold on the back, with a layer of thermal fabric in the middle. They look fantastic, and, as is the way of things, they are still not hung up at the windows (that's a job for this week...). They do go very nicely with the ridiculous gold and orange walls in the bedroom though. The ones for the kitchen use a different pair of fancy fabrics, but they didn't get started til November (and still aren't finished). Fungi So, back outside, and on a wander round our fields with a visitor, we discovered a wealth of fungi. I confess I don't have a clue what any of this is, and I never did get out the identification book to check. Maybe next year. So there we are - a potted run down of what was happening here in October. I didn't spend much time outside, and did nothing much in the garden. Still, a trip away, learning how to fit a carpet, and redecorating an entire room isn't a bad list of achievements for a single month.
November to follow soon...
1 Comment
TDQKAREN
12/12/2022 05:22:42 pm
Love those thermal blinds very jewel like and really practical. And I adore your framed sayings very you I think from the little I really know about you . Your home will be so much cosier this winter with all the steps that you have taken
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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