A Peg Rail Shelf

Hello! Everyone ok? It's Friday and half term next week so I'm smiling. I'm also high on DIY because I'm so excited to share with you a little project we've had going on here over the last month of so: the creation of a peg rail and shelf in our porch. 

The porch (or you might call it a lobby or mudroom) is a small enclosed area between the front door and inner door into the our hall. It serves no purpose whatsoever other that it holds a shoe rack and some of our shoes, but the main bulk of shoes, boots, coats and scarves etc are stored in a big built in cupboard at the end of our hall, so you still have to walk through the porch to hang up your coat anyway. I would happily remove that glass wall and door tomorrow which would instantly make the whole hall bigger and brighter but that's an ongoing discussion for John and I to have.... ;-) 

But the porch is the first thing you see upon opening the front door so I like it to look nice. You can see more photos here.

Anyway, before I warm to my theme too much and get out a sledgehammer, it all started after the millionth wet dog walk we endured over the endlessly rainy Easter holidays back in early April. It must have rained every day over those two weeks and I got sick of trying to find somewhere to hang our dripping wet coats so that they could dry off. I couldn't put them in the hall cupboard, because they'd make everything else damp. I needed some hooks!

Opposite the shoe rack in the porch, we have a funny glass wall, a window that looks into the garage. The idea is that it lets borrowed light into the garage but it also provides a hideous view of, well, the garage, and no-one wants to see that so I covered it up with window film three years ago when we moved in. The window film was always peeling off and looked terrible so we decided to cover over this glass wall and create somewhere to hang wet coats.

My brilliant Dad took me to the local timer merchant - that was an education, you have to take your own saw! - and we bought some wooden tongue and groove panels and then he kindly spent one Saturday building a frame then fitting the panels on top to cover up the window.

I swear, I could hear angels singing when I saw that panelling. The difference! No more peeling window film looking onto cobwebs, just a smooth wall of beautiful wood. I set about filling in the nail holes and undercoating and painting the tongue and groove panels with water-based eggshell suitable for wood. 

Knowing we wanted to hang a shelf on this wall, my Dad positioned one of the horizontal batons behind the panelling at a pre-agreed height so that we could screw the shelf into that, to give it extra strength and security. (I told you he's brilliant, thanks Dad.)

Then I just needed my hooks. After hunting high and low for a simple and affordable set of peg hooks with a little shelf on top, I gave up and asked John to make me one. We bought wood and a circular baton, and a drill bit with the same diameter as the baton, and John made me a beautiful shelf. Ever the perfectionist, he is annoyed that the top of the shelf bows a little. (I didn't want brackets. Maybe I should have had brackets?) But I put a trailing plant on it and said I don't care, no-one will notice. I've deliberately left it unstained and unpainted for now, although I might change that later. 

But I could not be happier with our affordable homemade solution to the dripping coat problem and of course since we made the hooks the weather has been absolutely glorious, and I haven't needed a coat, never mind a rain coat. But don't worry because I've got a few, just one or two you understand, crochet bags to hang on those pretty peg hooks, what a relief....

Shall we look at a before and after? Oh go on then, if you insist.

I hope you like it. Of course, since we boarded up the window to the garage it's dark in there and you need to switch the light on when you go in, but that's really not remotely inconvenient and a small price to pay for a beautiful panelled wall. Discussions about how and when we will remove that internal door are ongoing. I will keep you posted. 

The Last Week of July

And the first week of the summer holidays almost over, just like that. August is just around the corner and I know that, when we return from our holiday in a few weeks, everything will be a shade less green and there will be blackberries in the hedgerows. It feels like we are racing through the seasons, racing through this year, and I would like to slow down a little please. I'm in summer mode, even if the weather isn't.

I had such a good day today though. From 9.30 am to 3.30 pm Bella and Angus attended a holiday club at a local school with all their cousins. I dropped them off with packed lunches and water bottles, handed over my money and drove home. It was like being a stay at home mum again! I made a coffee then went upstairs and finished some jobs in our bedroom. Then I came downstairs and cleaned up. I ate lunch, alone, with a magazine. Then I caught up on some admin while listening to episode after episode of The Archers (I am so behind). Mainly I just enjoyed solitude, something I cherish but rarely seem to find.

I really needed today because the last few days have been busy. We've been to IKEA, I have sanded my dressing table and painted it white, I've swapped around furniture and sorted through drawers, cleaned, ironed, written holiday lists. Our bedroom is almost finished, just a shelf to hang and we're there. 

But there are good things going on amongst the hubbub, like end of term gifts, both received....

and given. I'd been hanging on to those tins for a while, not really sure what to do with them, and had a last minute brain wave. I wanted to give the teachers plants, but a dripping plastic flower pot didn't look great, and these were perfect. 

Lemon drizzle cake on a wet Sunday afternoon. It is the best cake ever. Not a glamorous cake, or a fussy one, but quick to make, easy to bake and easy to eat too.

I finally finished Barney the Barn Owl, a birthday present for my owl-loving god-daughter. 

We'll overlook the fact that her birthday was in January and focus in his handsome good looks and oversized feet (which were an absolute bugger to crochet, although worth it.)

My dear friend Charlotte celebrated her birthday this week and so, with my sister watching my two, we went out for lunch to a country pub. It was such a mid-week treat. (Oh, I could so enjoy being a stay at home parent again...) I also made her this little wall hanging after she admired the one I made Angus for his room.

I must be feeling creative, because I also made a little hanging planter with the leftover black yarn from my espadrilles.

Oh, and I spray painted these wooden drawer knobs copper! Aren't they great? I'm really happy with them. I mean, I don't think for a second that anyone's going to mistake them for real copper but they cost me nothing and make me very happy.

I also sorted out my fabric stash, a job that forced itself to be done when I swapped over the chest of drawers that was in our living room to our bedroom. I was ruthless and anything I no longer liked I either threw out or gave to the charity shop, depending on condition and quantity. And now I have all these pieces and, as ever, plans for quilts but I can never seem to decide on a pattern or colour scheme. 

The garden is looking a little wild and untended lately and nearly all the plants in my tubs and pots have finished. I don't know if this means they've naturally come to the end of their life or they died because I forgot to dead-head them. The latter is the more likely outcome, if I'm honest. 

But the sweet peas are still growing.and I picked my first homegrown courgettes today. They're tiny, but I was worried if I left them any longer they would just rot on the plant. Enough for me to make a very little courgette fritter for lunch tomorrow, perhaps.

Oh, I bought a bikini! Remember my swimwear shopping traumas from a few weeks ago? Well I spent £60 in Bravissimo and now have a really nice, well fitting black bikini (this one) although sadly my figure isn't quite as trim as the model's, but in the interest of being a good role model for my daughter - and laziness on my part - I am embracing my curves and wobbly bits and am just going to wear it and have a good time on holiday. How vain am I to think that anyone cares what I look like anyway?

The next few days will be busy still, with shopping and packing and running around doing last minute errands. Then we sail to France and there will hopefully be sun (please let there be sun) and nice food and wine, and good company, but most importantly time; time to read, to sew, to talk, to crochet and lots of time to sleep. 

Food and Flowers

Lately, on the home front there have been....

:: Shepherd's Pies that were equally enjoyed by the children, John and I, and my eighty eight year old Granddad.

:: blackberry and apple pies with pastry that sunk and shrunk but still tasted so good.

:: overflowing jam tarts

:: fresh batches of homemade chocolate granola

:: organised Sunday cooking, in the form of bulgar wheat salad for my work lunches during the week

:: Blondies, made by Bella - soft and chewy and as tasty as you would expect something that contains a full pack of butter and 250g white chocolate to be. 

:: frustrating unravelling of rows of crochet due to missing one stitch (I blame my distracted, rushed crochet while the kids are at their swimming lessons....)

:: the antidote - pleasing, soothing crochet in the form of a border for this blanket

:: grape hyacinths which grow abundantly in the front garden, picked and placed in a vase on my bedside table

:: thoughts that maybe I've had enough of the green wall and perhaps it's time for a change

:: thoughts that really our porch/lobby is a waste of time since all we do is store shoes in there, and wouldn't it be better if we just removed the internal door and window to make the whole hallway so much brighter and bigger.... (Me - yes, John - no)

That's what is going on around here at the moment; a lot of cooking, some flowers, a little crochet and always, always, thoughts and conversations about the house, and the next decorating project, and what we could do improve the space we have and make it work better for us. When I say conversations, I mean I talk a lot and wave pictures from Pinterest on my phone under John's nose, and he says things like "We can't afford it", "Gill, I don't think you realise what a massive job that would be", and "If we do that we'll have to replace the floor..."  Undeterred, I persevere. Is it the same in your home?

Talk of knocking down walls aside, it's not really feeling very spring-like here at the moment. In fact, it's pretty cold. John had to scrape ice off the car this morning and I needed gloves on my morning dog walk. I desperately need to spend some time in our poor garden. I was going to tackle it last weekend, I was, but it was really windy so I sat inside with coffee and a magazine instead.

 Thank you all so, so much for your lovely comments on Angus's bedroom. I'm really glad you like it too. I hope spring arrives soon for everyone.

Little Rituals

The last week has been all about settling in again. Settling back into our new routines, our new life here in this house. It felt like my first real week of normality, now that we have finished unpacking and the children are back at school after the Easter holidays. Just me on my own, going about my day, as the house and I quietly get to know each other. Routines are being established and honed as we find slightly different ways of doing our usual things. The children's bedtime seems to have crept forward half an hour and yet they seem to be up earlier, but I think that's the lighter days. But it's all quite lovely and I'm very happy, if a little absent from this blog, something I fully intend to rectify as soon as I have a minute.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I do to make a house feel like a home, and why I do it. Which little habits or rituals I enact on a daily basis that I only do in my own home, rather than on holiday or when staying with family or friends.

:: My mid-morning coffee. This has to be the most important to me, my favourite and my best. A punctuation mark between chores and errands, a small pause.

I do this when I'm on my own in the house, and make a single stove top pot just for myself. I grind the beans in a grinder my good friend Kate gave me before she moved to Australia (and every time I use it I think of her and our many coffees together) then brew it in a little Bialetti pot I bought on holiday in Milan in 2005. 

There are lots of happy associations and memories in that one cup of coffee. I top up the espresso with just boiled water and a dash of cold milk, nice and simple. I'm not really a fan of frothy, milky coffees, give me a white Americano any day. Then I drink it in a nice cup, usually standing up in the kitchen leaning against the counter while reading stuff on my phone.

:: Watching where the light falls. This is how you really get to know a house. Here, the kitchen and dining room benefit from morning sun, while the living room faces west and is flooded with light in the afternoon.

:: Changing the sheets. 

This is a chore I don't mind, I even enjoy choosing the bedding and making the bed look nice...but that feeling of getting into a freshly made up bed at the end of the day, with the smooth, cool sheets and crisp, freshly ironed pillow case. Always a pleasure, always.

:: Flowers in the house. I'll happily buy them, but finding some growing in the garden or wild to bring into the house feels extra special somehow. 

On the sideboard this week, supermarket daffodils and some grape hyacinth picked from the garden.

:: Baking a cake. I remember reading Nigella say somewhere that she didn't consider a kitchen really her own until she'd roasted a chicken in the oven. That's how I felt about making this cake. This made me feel like the kitchen was really mine; making a mess, cleaning it up, the smell of baking. (And look, a utensil rail and shelf above the cooker! Storage!)

I made lemon syrup loaf cake, one of my favourite bakes. I probably make this about once a month and it is ludicrously easy, very tasty and keeps for ages so it's a popular one. 

:: Listening to the radio. I have the radio on all day long and used to listen to Radio 4 constantly but have lately switched (defected?) to Radio 2. Even if it's just background noise, and I'm not actually listening that closely, I like it. It makes me feel connected to the world beyond my four walls. (And spot the open kitchen door - I would have that door open all day long if the weather permitted.)

:: Selecting clean tea towels from the cupboard and hanging them on the oven door, ready for use.  These are Good tea towels and must not be used on things like roasting tins. I have old, faded ones for that job. 

:: Sleeping with the window open. The nighttime sounds here are different to the ones we heard in Leeds. No airplanes, but the distant hum of motorway traffic instead. No buses or trucks rattling along the bottom of our street, but instead car traffic. Lots of cars and not many buses - one of the downsides of moving from a city to the suburbs.

And in the morning, birdsong and the sound of seagulls. They go mad in the morning. Actually, that is something I like to do on holiday too - listen to those outdoor background noises and compare them to home.

:: Hanging the washing on the line. Never a chore, this task, especially when I can feel the warmth from the sun on my face while I peg things out. I don't like rotary lines, such a faff to put up and down, and instead have two long lines reaching right across the garden from the house to a tree in the corner. Items must be pegged from the bottom or else you get peg marks on the shoulders, and I have re-pegged things that were incorrectly hung.

What about you, what rituals do you have when pottering about the house? What makes your house feel like home?

And - I'd really, really love to know this - what can you hear outside your open bedroom window? I wonder what it says about where you live, how rural, coastal or built up it is, and if the sounds you hear differ wildly from what I hear on the south coast of England. 

*

I enjoyed reading your comments about Tunnocks Teacakes so much. They hold such a special place in our hearts, don't they? And not just in the UK, but also abroad, where it seems they are quite expensive but no less popular.