A tale of many beds

Two years ago this month we made an impulsive purchase. A bit of a gamble. We were offered the hospital beds from the ship RFA Sir Percivale. The pictures below were the ones I was emailed and show the beds in situ! The ship was in dry dock and being scrapped. A certain percentage of the material has to be recycled so we came about a van full of bunks and beds...

They travelled south from their Canada Dry Dock in Bootle all the way to our lock up in Dorset!

Malta not Bootle!

We needn't have worried over our gamble. Once they were shot blasted recoated and cooked they looked fantastic... 

 ...in our sitting room.

 Most were done in cream or white but as we had so many I tried one in red!

Well in six months they'd gone and we thought we'd never get any more. I kind of wished we'd kept a set of bunks but they were the first to go.

However last week a customer part exchanged her bed for a different one. She'd bought it in its original state but her daughter wasn't keen. So hurrah, one bed is back with a big Jammer sleeping comfortably in it...

...for now. My girls know their beds don't hang around long.

On the fridge this week I've got bargain blossom from the discount bucket in Waitrose and the teapots are breeding.

Bathroom ta dah!

One shower curtain has a lot to answer for...

Oh and a bath from Ebay.

This is our bathroom a year ago when we moved into our pebbly house.

We ummed and aahed about the layout but it is only small and has a big window so we were limited in what we could do. In the end the cheapest option was to leave the plumbing in position and just change the suite. So this is what we did to it... even trying to take the tiles off carefully removed half the plaster so back to the brick it went.

This is where, knowing our limits, we handed over to lovely Lloyd. Lloyd turned out not to be just an electrician but a fab tiler, plumber, floor layer.. We went away for a week in May leaving it as above and came back to most of this.

 Having bought my Amy Butler shower curtain before anything else we picked the metro tiles to match. I wanted a bit of a thirties thing to reflect the age of the house and other than the door the room was completely characterless.

 Do you like the lovely bath? I looked everywhere online for a roll top with a corner edge so shower water wouldn't escape but they cost a fortune, about £1400!! So imagine my delight when I found one on Ebay and won it for £100. Then imagine my dismay on the morning the courier was due to collect it. The seller rang to say she was terribly sorry but it had been sat outside for some time and the leaves in it had stained the bottom. What's more a foot had broken! So we agreed a refund for the bath and courier cost but the courier delivered it anyway. And there it sat lurking in the garage whilst I became an expert on stain removers and crawled on my hands and knees round bathroom showrooms to find bath feet that fitted! Success at The Bathstore so we celebrated with their 2 year interest free credit deal and ordered loo, basin and towel rail to match the bath. But oh what's that Mr Bathstore? We haven't spent enough to get the credit? Oh well we'll have a mirror, a posh cup on the wall and a loo roll holder then.

 

So with a couple of coats of Chappell Green eggshell the bath turned out to be an absolute bargain.

So what with the bathroom being done in May, why has it taken me so long to post? Um well that would be the small matter of painting the walls. Yes, I know there's not much wall to paint but choosing the colour takes time... and then you get it wrong and have to do it all over again! Finally we needed a cabinet to store the unsightly plastic bottles that are not allowed in my bathroom!

This was £5 at an auction and with a coat of Chappell Green and a new glass knob it was transformed last week!

Did you notice the horrid blind? That's just waiting for me to order some more delicious Amy fabric to cover it in. But that will take forever to get round to so I'm going to post this anyway!

Note: thanks for all the lovely comments. The tiles are not Fired Earth but Tons of Tiles Retro Metro crackle glaze in Lime House Green. Half price at the moment, as they were when I bought them in May!!

In a flash...

...half term was gone! where? Who knows.

Did we enjoy it? Yes we did. The little jammers and I kicking around here doing what we do best; pottering.

The odd party here and there. A bit of making. Catching up with friends. A day out. Cooking yummy stuff. Flying a kite. More catching up with more friends. Sweeping leaves.

 I made this cute bag for Little Jam to give as a birthday present to a friend. Now she wants one too.

The mid 20th century fabric cushions seem to be breeding on the sofa this week.

Wondering what's in here?

 The good bits of our day out to Seaton and Colyton.

 Lovely old signage in Colyton.

Hope you've all had a good week.
x

Lovely

Hmmm, this is my first venture into sharing music on here and I've no idea how it'll go down. So here is lovely Tim with a lovely song for all you lovely followers and your families!

x

PS Doesn't seem to want to go full screen so try here

Distracted by green stuff

Today I packed the jammers in Tintin and we headed 'up north'! Not that far mind you but far enough to glimpse some snow, much to their delight. There were shrieks to stop the car, go home and get the sledge but really there was very little left.

We were heading to this little place...

Gold Hill Organic Farm at Child Okeford

to take a peak inside this place...

The Art Stable 

As always I was cutting it fine. Yesterday my email told me today was the last day of their Homage to the Hambledon exhibition. For those of you who aren't local, The Hambledon Gallery is currently a rather delicious shop in Blandford selling clothes to covet and stylish home wares. This year is its 50th and the exhibition celebrates the artists who hung out there in the '60's when, as the name suggests, it was a gallery.

The colours in the Mary Fedden works reminded me of the mid 20th century fabrics I've been saving for my sitting room. Perhaps I should start saving.

 
 I'd love to say you must go and see and so I should but sadly it's too late. So, if you're in the area, what about this instead? Kelly's next exhibition starts after half term, lino cuts.

 
Thank you Kelly, if you're reading, for being so welcoming to my children!
They got distracted by this sweet calf...

and me by this lovely green 2CV!

I've got a bit of a thing about green.
Would love to see what's behind this green door.

Next stop the The Hambledon Gallery shop where I just about restrained myself.

Littlest jammer didn't show much restraint in the cafe though.

And neither did I in Papyrus when I saw a green dress/top/tunicky thing and it fitted - hurrah!

The fridge has changed this week.
Bye bye daffs, welcome tulips.
x

A cold one

I have loved looking, with just a hint of jealousy, at all the snowy photos on your blogs this weekend. Much to the jammers disappointment we've not had any of the white stuff down here, but it has been mighty cold. All of a sudden I am feeling the benefits of double glazing! We've never had it before and never wanted it, however there is something to be said for popping the heating on and the house warming up. Last winter we had ice on the inside of the windows! This year it's just the tap that's turned icy.

So we've warmed up with good old comfort food. Homemade curries and then pasties for lunch. I do love a good pasty and so do the little jammers. Cheese and mushroom for me and cheese and veg for them.

just in case that sounded a bit healthy there's been plenty of sugary comfort going on too...

 Waitrose do amazing vegetarian fruit jelly sweets.

And my corner shop sell trays of mis shapen tiffin. You have to get there when they arrive as it's gone in a flash. This weekend we were lucky, depending on how you look at it!

Even my shop is a bit warmer than usual. We had heating installed a couple of weeks ago and just in time too. I took a couple of refurbished cots in this weekend and had a furniture reshuffle.

 

 

 Both my little jammers slept in a cot similar to this French one when they were babies and toddlers. It's in the attic now as I couldn't bear to part with it!

For those of you that asked after my COD post I'm at The De Danann Antique and Vintage Centre, Dorchester, DT1 1NF
Do pop in if you're local.

Keep warm

x

February monthly make

A while back my friend Caroline asked me for some more memo boards for her lovely shop Ruby Rock Cake in Lyme Regis. Finally I've made a huge batch. These are the only six finished though! I'm awaiting red ribbon, narrower ribbon for mini boards, more wadding...

Why do I never have everything I need for a project?

So, an interim tah-dah.

Nice to get outside in the sun for some photos even though it was absolutely freezing.

Love this 'new' old duckling fabric I got recently. Now I've cut into it for a memo I'll have to make some cushions and other bits whilst I'm feeling springy.

My other project that's been looming for some time is this pile of chairs. They've lurked in the corner of the dining room since last summer with visitors raising their eyebrows and asking what I'm planning for them. But I could see them finished. I knew what barkcloth I wanted to use, I even had a roll of heavy duty canvas to go underneath so no supplies needed, but just couldn't bite the bullet and see how to do it.

However today I plucked up courage and took one apart. I cut new canvas and sewed the barkcloth to it before reassembling reasonably easily. I love these chairs in a basic scruffy kind of way. I'm dreaming of a green and pink kitchen and think they'll look great lined up along my long table. Think I'll use it as my February monthly make...

I'll leave you with my fridge a week on. You can spot the differences from here and here!

I think I need to go and think about food. I'm ashamed to say all I've eaten all day is a bag of giant chocolate buttons...

Have a lovely weekend.

x