A Final Peek

 

As promised here it is, a final peek behind the doors of my new home.

The only room left to show you is the bedroom, measuring in at a smidge over 8ft wide by 12ft 7 inches long it is a good sized room with lots of light coming in from the floor to ceiling double doors and window and the same high ceiling as the living room.  I have the voiles at the doors puddled on the floor as I haven't been well enough to hem them, and if I'm honest I am kind of loving the effect now, they might just stay that way.  One job less to do and it's a nice casual look.

I'm still loving the accent wall with it's Laura Ashley wallpaper, I'm so pleased I chose this one and in this colour scheme it gives a calmness to the room.

The mis-matched bedside tables were both Vinterior finds, you saw the Ercol drawers on the right before I moved in on  THIS  post and the dark wood French cupboard was another find a couple of weeks ago ... gosh sometimes I am so easily tempted!  Although that really has to be my last furniture purchase as I have pretty much run out of space for any more.

I am hoping that one day when I am in a more brutal mood this bookcase and it's contents will go, but for now my papery overspill of friends live in here with me. 

A calmer side of the bed, just the basics and everything I need to hand.

And that it is, the final room of the home tour.  To give you an idea of the full space and the overall layout, here below is the floorplan.

It also shows you how the annexe is connected to the main house.  The connection in the top corner of Alan's kitchen is his tall broom cupboard which has the main soil pipe to his two bathrooms and mine  behind a false back.  The whole thing is very well done, and although our kitchen are back to back we really can't hear each other at all when we are in them.

So my 336 square foot of living space is working out very well and proving to be a better and more useable space than the caravan, which actually had a total of 432q ft but some of it just wasn't used at all, hence me being confident that this would work for me.

Now the tour is over it's time to get back to some more regular and more normal blogging, and it's time for me to simply chat and to show how life is being lived here at Lavender Lodge.

Sue xx

A Quick Living Room Tour

 

It's time for a quick living room tour I think. 

Sorry to have kept you waiting but this week has been all about appointments and such, the boring stuff that I really do not want to talk about.  So ... some housey housey photographs to take my mind off things.

Two small steps past the kitchen and there is the bathroom door on your left, and heading onwards just  two more steps bring you to the living room. 

The modified radiator cover gives me a welcome extra surface for display of much loved treasures and a handy surface for putting down keys etc  The painted picture sellotaped to the wall was done by my son as my 60th birthday present but due to Covid and his work patterns was only delivered in person by him a few weeks ago.  I wanted to have framed myself once I had decided what colour scheme to go with, so it's there while I make up my mind.

It is a representation of this.

Just a girl in the woods by a simple log cabin ... my idea of heaven ... that I wanted to bring the spirit of to Lavender Lodge.

Anyway to carry on ... turn yourself around watching you don't fall over the ever present Pug, sometimes I think there are three of her she is simply everywhere!!

My gloriously lavender coloured sofa and footstool dominate the small room with a very welcome splash of colour, with most other things having come with me either from the Van or from Wales.  The bedside lamp re-invented now as an evening reading light and my much loved and years old lavender cushion having at last found it's perfect home.

Opposite my sofa and from my viewing position you can see what I see when I sit down on the sofa to relax, and there's been a lot of that recently!!  Everything fitted in so neatly thank goodness, although I do feel slightly dominated by doggy beds.  One or the other was supposed to be the choice but both the dogs and Ginger the cat vary their choice of bed so often I can't bring myself to take one away and leave someone disappointed.

The light floods into this room so wonderfully through the almost floor to ceiling and wall to wall double doors and windows, and the vaulted ceiling takes the eye up so well that although this space is small ... just over 9ft by 12ft ... it feels quite spacious.

There's just one more room to go, so I'll see you next week.

Have a good weekend.

Sue xx

Behind Closed Doors

 

So many of you wanted a quick look behind the closed doors of the kitchen, that I guess I should show you a quick peek before we move on to the living room.

Here we go, I'll try and take you in the order that you can see them in this top photo.

The first cupboard is the boiler cupboard, and although you are not supposed to store things in a cupboard containing a combi-boiler I couldn't resist using a bit of the space for my 'tool box'.  Two baskets of sort of household-y tool bits ... hammers, nails, screwdrivers etc.  And a few hooks might have appeared on the side of the cupboard for bits, oh and a cork board on the door ... I blame the Aldi centre aisles for that one!!

The cupboard below holds the consumer unit ... the electric fuse box and cut-off point for the annexe, so the joiner cleverly made me a shelf that sits around it, giving me both shelf space and access in emergencies.  I found a bin that fitted neatly in here and the joiner then altered the shelf to sit behind it when the door is closed, making good use of every last inch of space.

The rest of this cupboard is a mix of cleaning supplies and dog food etc.

Gosh I've shown you the two prettiest interiors first haven't I. 😄

As we come along, here are the shelves and a bit of a close up for you on what is on them.

Below the shelves and the kitchen sink is this cupboard.  Once again the joiner managed to give me a shelf that he cut neatly around the pipes, making full use of all space.  My Remoska and Nutribullet, two of my most used items sit on the lower shelf ready for action.

A step to the left and we have the inside of the double wall cupboard, not really organised properly as such, but it holds the daily crockery and an over abundance of jugs!!

The baskets on the top shelf are all currently empty but I think they will be useful for helping me reach things off the top shelf once I've worked out what will live in them.

The top drawer holds cutlery and spices.

Middle drawer holds pans, measures and funnels.

And the bottom one has my bowls and baking trays.

The shallow drawer below the oven contains some baking sheets and my pizza sheet.

And the hob above the oven looks like this.

And finally one of my most requested peeks behind closed doors ...

The Larder.

Formerly known as the 'Jam Cupboard' this is officially a Welsh Bread and Cheese Cupboard and one of only two large pieces of furniture that came with me from Wales.  It is proving absolutely perfect for storing all my food.

The top half is mostly jars of dried goods, although for now there are lots of bits in baskets that will be used up and probably not replaced in there as well

And the bottom cupboard holds all the tins and a large basket of pasta and rice.

And there you have it, the kitchen is not the largest of spaces at approximately 6ft wide and 12ft long but I'm managing very nicely and most things are now unpacked and in approximately the right places.

Time to close all these doors and head up to the living room methinks.

Sue xx

Come On In ...

Well I enticed you in with pictures of The Shed at the end of last week, so now it really is only fair that I ask you to grab your coffee and step in for a quick visit to my new home instead of leaving you loitering in the back garden.  

Let's wander in together.  Today I will take you into the front garden, such as it is and then the hall ... which also just happens to be the kitchen.

This little space in the top photo ... as well as being the logical space for the three wheelie bins to live ... just screamed out to be my own little front garden.  So a couple of planters were purchased from the good old centre aisles at Aldi and planted up with Lavender ... well they had to be didn't they 😊

Directly outside the front door is my little tin bath planted up with Rosemary, Sage, Chives and Thyme, nice and handy for the kitchen, which is just through the front door.

As you step in, to the immediate right is a little welcoming tableau, and yet more lavender ... this time very fake ... alongside a very real Mother in Laws Tongue plant sat on my little car boot sale find table from last year.

To your left and behind the door is space to hang your coat, mind now don't spill your coffee!!

Oh look someone is here to welcome us 🐕

And here is my little office set up.  I'm using the worktop that the kitchen fitters set above the radiator cover as my desk, and on my new comfy breakfast bar stool from Dunelm I can just about manage to get a blog post done before my back starts screaming too loud and drowns out the words in my head.

My gorgeous Welsh Bread and Cheese cupboard is now known as the larder.  In Wales it was christened the Jam Cupboard as that was what it mostly held, but now it holds ALL my food and is doing a sterling job, as well as looking very pretty and bringing some rustic charm to my modern kitchen space.

To the righthand side of this six foot wide space is the main body of the kitchen.  It starts at the Smeg fridge freezer and ends at the clock on the wall.  I have somehow managed to fit in everything I need to be able to carry on enjoying cooking.  

Gosh you can tell I'm not an Instagrammer can't you ... I should no doubt have closed the washing machine door, moved the rubber gloves, emptied the drainer and artfully arranged a vase of flowers somewhere, but I'm me and you get me warts and all (I haven't really got warts!!).

I love the gentle green of the units, the spacious drawers and my little hob and I love once again having a selection of  cook books on shelves in my kitchen.  Inspiration for my cooking and a lovely colourful display to browse through while I wait for the kettle to boil.

What you've finished your coffee?  Come back another day, I'll make you a fresh one and we will venture further in.

If you have any questions on what you've seen up to now or would like to see more of the behind doors areas of this space before we move further in just let me know and I will see what I can do.

Sue xx

Hello ...

 

Hello remember me?

Haha, of course you do  😀

Firstly, I'd like to say sorry for being away for so long and I realise that I have lots to catch you all up on.  So over the next couple of weeks I'll try to get back into that blogging rhythm and bring you up to date on life as it is now ... now that I am here in my new home, Lavender Lodge.

The top photo is the little flower garden, well it was supposed to be the flower garden but the Courgette plants that needed somewhere to live have taken over completely.  Soon, as the colder nights really draw in, the plants will die back and we will claim back this part of the garden for the pretties and the wildlife.  Next year the Courgettes will be in a large planter to the side of the shed.

Talking of sheds ... we finished it last week, that is mostly the royal 'we' of course, although I partook of all the tittivating and prettying up.

Dave the Handyman set to on my shed as soon as all the work on the house was finished.

And over the course of two weeks, my shed slowly took shape.

With vinyl shingles on the roof and a little veranda area at the front it started to take on exactly the look I was after.

Do you remember the picture I found on the internet?  This is all Dave had to go on, and I think he copied it very well for the space I had.  I purposely asked him to leave out the front step as we didn't have the height available as the shed walls are made out of the old fence panels we took down which were six foot tall.  Re-cycle, re-use and re-purpose is always my motto.

The day the door catch went on was funny.  

Dave actually put the wrong sort of gate latch, I don't think we were on the same wavelength and the sort he used cannot be opened from the inside!!  He realised his mistake when the wind blew the door shut and he very sheepishly had to phone me from inside the shed to go and let him out.

We now have a large hook and eye system to hold the door open while I'm in the shed.

I'm really happy with the finished result.  

There are just some stones to add to the pots to hide the cement and it will be all done.

This is the inside.

I've wanted a wallpapered shed ever since we lived in Berkshire and I found some glorious 1930s wallpaper up on the walls in the little ramshackle shed that was there.  See Here.  Now I finally had the chance to use up two odd rolls of wallpaper that I had been storing for ages.

All my favourite little bits and pieces are ready for action for next years growing season.

And with the large window and insulated roof and sides I should be able to get some seedlings growing early next Spring.

So there you go, first snippets of home to whet your appetites and I promise I'll be back very soon this time.

Have a great weekend.

Sue xx

I'll Be Back Soon

Hi folks, sorry I've not posted for a while.

  Things haven't been the way I expected them to be after the move.  I'm not the sort to waffle on about health issues and sadly that's pretty much all my life seems to be at the moment.

I will be back as soon as feel able to write coherently 😃

Take care everyone.

Sue xx

 

Life at Lavender Lodge

 

Hello ... remember me 😃

Sorry I've been away sooooo long, it's been a tough couple of weeks.   We officially moved into our new homes on the 3rd July, which seems like a lifetime ago.  With my ongoing back pain and now blood pressure problems I have been doing everything   s o   s l o w l y   it's been unbearably hard for someone that is used to cracking on and just getting things done.

Hopefully I will be able to get back to regular blogging once we have gotten this weekend out of the way.  We are completely emptying the flat over the next few days, I say we but it's mostly Alan doing the lifting and shifting with me sat like pained-face royalty issuing instructions.  

There's only bits left but bits nevertheless and they do need bringing here ... especially my boxes of tinned and packeted foods.  All but the large bookshelves we have now sold on Facebook Marketplace, with the little sofa being picked up just last night.  We have a cleaning company coming in next week for an end-of-tenancy clean and then I will hand the keys over early and hopefully get my deposit back.  I have plans for the money 😉

My kitchen is almost complete, I am just awaiting delivery of an upright piece, a small section of worktop and my oven ... but excitingly with my new hob came a free gift, I say free in the loosest sense of the word as the little multi-functional hob cost an arm and a leg as far as I'm concerned.  But I'm getting used to it and it cooks food as it should, if I press all the right buttons in all the right order!!

And with it being an induction hob only certain pans will actually work on it.  I was thinking about streamlining my pan collection anyway ... now I have no choice  😄

I'm taking full advantage of any useful spaces that I have in this tiny annexe that I now call home, so the shelf under the combi-boiler has been requisitioned as my tool and bits and pieces cabinet.

And Ginger has claimed the off-cut of sleeper to have as his evening vantage point.  As you can see in the top photo all the animals have settled in extremely well, having their own outdoor space once again and the day-long access to both Mum and Dad's homes has made them very happy and relaxed indeed.  

Happy animals = happy us.

Oh, and as you will have noticed from the new header the name of my new abode is - Lavender Lodge.  Which ties me neatly back to my roots and my beloved little shop in Ulverston where I sold lavender plants and goodies of all descriptions.

Back soon.

Sue xx