A new sitting room addition...

Over the past few weeks, I've managed to pick up a couple of items of budget furniture. This chest is a new addition and is doing double duty as both tv stand, and additional storage (holding DVD's and CD's), with a basket holding my current sewing and knitting projects underneath.

I had been using this Ikea stand for the first year in the cottage, and it had also served me well for the previous 5 years in my flat. My longer term plan is to have built-in shelves and cupboards made for either side of the fireplace - however, that is likely a task for 2016-7. I came to the decision that I could probably find something that was a little more attractive to serve this purpose in the meantime.

I found this lovely small chest on eBay for £40. It fit the space perfectly, and I also liked the fact that it had slender legs, so it would not feel so visually bulky in the space. The eBay seller had already undertaken a makeover of the piece in ASCP in paris grey. I would've been very happy to keep the grey, but I am not fond of the highly distressed look. So I spent last weekend giving the piece a small revamp.

 To add a bit more interest to this room, I decided to strip the paint from the top of the chest. It received a coat of rosewood wood stain followed by several coats of Danish oil. The rest of the chest has been painted with ASCP pure (which is the whitest paint in the range - but typically does require an extra coat) - I used 3 coats for this. I also replaced the door pulls with small faceted glass knobs.

Although only a 'temporary' solution, I think it is nice to have a more unique and fitting option for this corner of the sitting room...

Life lately...

Well, I didn't intend to neglect this blog for a month - work has been continuing on small jobs around the cottage...it is just that many are still only partly complete.

I did spend a weekend in Dublin at the end of July to attend a friend's wedding. I lived in Dublin in 2002-3, and used to visit several times a year to catch up with friends. However, it has been quite a while since my last visit. The wedding was lovely (if somewhat of an endurance event!). The service started at 1pm, and I left the reception after 1am and it was still going strong! However, on Saturday morning I had a chance to walk through some of my favourite streets in Georgian Dublin and have my fill of beautiful doors, before venturing into a very sunny St Stephen's Green.

On the home front, I have recently purchased a couple of items of bargain furniture, so the last few weeks have been spent giving them each a makeover. Two are now complete and so I will show you the updates very soon, and one is almost complete.

I've also started the redecoration of the bathroom. Unlike other rooms wherever I've done all of the work in one go, I am spreading this one out a little (both from an energy/inclination and a financial perspective). I've been sharing some of these snippets on Instagram, but to date I have...

Started covering the dark blue wall paint with white primer. It has had one coat so far, but I think I will do another before the final wall colour.

This actually resulted in a bit of indecision regarding wall colour. While the walls had been dark blue, I was convinced that the wall tiles were white. It transpires that they are actually a beige colour (with a small hint of pink). So my extensive range of Little Greene colour pots came out, and I think I've decided on Wood Ash (top right swatch).

The plumber has been and replaced the modern towel warmer with a more traditional style radiator. 

And this weekend's task is to strip the paint from the cast iron fireplace. I think I will likely re-paint this, but it had so many layers of poorly applied paint, a lot of the detail was ill-defined. The test will be tomorrow when I try removing the peel-away paint stripper.

In other (negative) news I had to call out an emergency plumber this week as I arrived home on Tuesday to find that my water-tank in the loft was leaking, and dripping through to the upstairs landing. The plumber was able to come within a few hours but I have sustained some damage to the hall ceiling and the ceiling in the second bedroom. It also must have been more water than I thought as I discovered yesterday that the water had also made its way down to the bottom floor through the hall floor as I have damp stains on the dining room ceiling. So I'm giving it all a chance to fully dry out, and then some ceiling re-painting will be added to the 'to-do' list.

But in other (positive) news, the UK food network channel has started showing some HGTV programmes - you may recall I became a little addicted to HGTV when I spent a month in the US two years ago. So, I can now have a daily fix of Rehab Addict and Fixer Upper - which both certainly help to keep me focused on getting on with my own projects...