Here’s a nice, yet very effective idea for making simple notice boards – simply cover boring brown clipboards in attractive offcuts of wallpaper and hang.  Ideal for holding reminders, shopping lists, photographs and postcards. (Image from Ideal Home Magazine)

I missed the first couple of episodes of Kirstie’s Homemade Home on Channel 4 on Thursday evenings but have seen the last two episodes and apparently tomorrrow night is the grand finale – seems an incredibly short series.

I always liked Kirstie when I used to watch her on Location, Location, Location many moons ago when living in England, I particularly liked her eccentricity, eclectic taste and direct talking. While I’m enjoying the series, some aspects are annoying me. (by the way, I detest the basin in the bedroom above – think it makes it look like a bedsit or a B&B bedroom before all became ensuites – or am I being unfair?)

I think it is great the way the programme is showcasing local crafts and such talented craftspeople for example, but it is slightly annoying to see Kirstie become so excited at being able to knit 6 rows, yet poses with some very complicated knitted articles, likewise, last week, she laid out some patchwork squares, sewed four together and then left the quiltmaker to finish it and arrive with the finished article.  So, it is a handmade product (and gorgeous to boot) but not exactly homemade.  Having said that, it has inspired me to contemplate starting crocheting or patchwork come the winter months and I love checking out Made Marion’s blog for her latest creations.

I do like the colours in this Master bedroom and at the other end of the bedroom is a gorgeously decadent bathtub and Victorian sink.

I loved seeing Vanessa Arbuthnott’s home in the last episode, having received her new brochure the other day and I’ll be posting about her fab wallpaper some day soon.  Considering other craftspeople etc were interviewed, I thought it was a shame that Vanessa herself wasn’t featured.

Apparently, Meadow Gate is available to rent (I presume for holiday lets).  It is an absolutely beautiful house, pity the series isn’t longer.  I have to admit I have been green with envy to have the opportunity to renovate such a gorgeous house – maybe someday ….

Last episode tomorrow night at 8pm!

This is turning out to be quite a week. As far as Friday night goes, I have learned that there will be 3 challenges and a prize will be given to whoever does the most!  I’m a little nervous wondering what they are going to do just to get us spooked – I think I am more nervous of that than the actual ghosts! 

Do you believe in ghosts? Do let me know in the comment box – I’d love to hear some opinions on it.  I sort of do yet I don’t believe that they are necessarily malicious (at least I hope not).  I wouldn’t like to stay in a spooky house on my own but there’ll be loads of us there on Friday night.  I can’t abide horror movies. Psycho is about my limit and films that involve blood and gore are a definite no-no.  I think the last one I wastched was Silence of the Lambs probably about 15 or more years ago and I can remember spending most of the film behind the sofa.

The whole ‘Fright Night’ has been organised by KCLR 96 FM and they are interviewing me on Friday morning on the Sue Nunn show – about my business, the business club (although the chairman of the business club will also be there, I’m delighted to say, so it will be more of a relaxed chat hopefully) and why on earth I would want to go ghost hunting in a former gaol.

Apologies for the lack of interior design posts but it is turning out to be a very busy week. My kitchen is half-decorated and I am determined to finish the walls tonight (I have to sand some repair work first – which I detest).  The new worktop still has to go in, finish painting the cupboard doors, new handles, clean up etc and that will be it, oh, and put a fresh coat of sadolin on the windows and hang the blinds – piece of cake by tomorrow evening!  Then we start the living room – new fireplace, paint the freshly plastered ceiling and paint the walls. They will be wallpapered at a later date (when the new carpet goes in) but we have visitors coming next Tuesday so I’m just painting it for the time being.

Something is telling me we won’t have time for a romantic meal on Saturday night.  I hope all those who purchased my heart-shaped dish sets have a lovely evening and that the orders from England arrive on time!

When I was in Kilkenny this morning, I popped into Kilkenny Architectural Salvage on the search for kitchen worktop and a fireplace.  Although salvage yards are always freezing and always have a hurricane blowing around, I have to say this one is really worth a visit – good stock and always tidy.  I don’t have time to attend auctions any more so a root around a salvage yard is a great alternative and you don’t have to wait around to bid! A great place to find  items such as old cast iron radiators, fireplaces, flooring, railings. They even have a fabulous pitch pine really wide staircase but you’d probably have to design and build your hall and house around the staircase!

I found the perfect worktop but of course, found other things I liked as well – more on those when I work out if they will fit in through the door or not!  There won’t be too many posts next week as I’ll be hacking off tiles and removing cupboards and painting doors and ceilings …..  I actually started hacking off the tiles tonight but there is a limit to what I can do before the weekend as I can’t really leave the kitchen looking like a bomb has hit it when my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are here, helping Brian look after the kids while I’m gallivanting (ooops, I meant working) in Paris.  I was quite looking forward to a bit of demolition work but found the tiles quite hard to remove, very few came off whole with most of them just shattering under quite a bit of elbow grease!  I’ve done about a quarter of it and Brian has taken over now for a while.

Another busy week – 2 sick children (Brian and I are just waiting to get this dose now – just in time for Xmas as we have escaped so far).  Dance competitions, school plays etc.  Someone once said to me that parents get a lot busier when their kids start school and it really is true.  I did my ‘icebreaker’ talk at the Toastmasters meeting / xmas meal on Wed night and it went really well.  I had planned to have a relaxing day, bring Sam for a long walk in the morning and practice my talk on him (he’s a good listener!) but the children were sick and then a couple of people rang to come to the shop so it ended up being a busy day.

I really enjoyed doing the talk and received a really good evaluation – the constructive criticism was that I should slow down a little and pause between points but that kind of thing comes with confidence.  I was very happy as it was my first talk.  It was entitled ‘D.I.Y. S.O.S’ , I spoke about going to see our second house, how it was the worst house on one of the best streets of Salisbury, how it stank of cat litter etc and was crammed with rubbish when we viewed it – so bad that we viewed the entire house and the garden in less than ten minutes.  Getting ready for the talk brought back so many memories – how we virtually camped in it for four months having put most of our furniture into storage, how the owners had kindly left us their cooker and it was so full of grease (that was semi-solid as the weather was so warm) that Brian had to shovel the grease out of it before he could move it out to the car to the dump.  How we found an Edwardian doll face down blocked in under the stairs and my first thoughts were that it was a dead baby - such a shock for a split second!  When we moved in, we had to get it fumigated and plugged in loads of air fresheners. I put disinfectant in the water for wetting the wallpaper to remove it. We didn’t eat in the house for at least 5 or 6 days, we used to go to Tesco’s for a fry-up brunch, buy sandwiches and eat them later either in the car or the garden!

Mixing concrete in a cement mixer in the dining room late one night; holding a torch at 12.30 one freezing night as Brian was trying to fix the electrics; putting up new ceilings (plasterboard is v heavy!), stripping paint and sanding floors; putting down new floors; going out for a night and having to tiptoe across the joists in my high heels as Brian was in the middle of putting down new floorboards; getting part of the new kitchen in on Xmas eve (yes, I was so desperate I was happy to have a dishwasher for Xmas!).

Great memories include the lovely garden parties we had the following summer as the evening sun hit the deck and pergola at the back of the garden. We actually only spent 20 months in that house, the paint was barely dry when we saw another house on the market that we wanted to rescue – but rest assured, it wasn’t in as bad a state.

During the talk anyway, all the listeners laughed in the right places and loads of them told me to move on to my second talk soon!  I thoroughly enjoyed it although I was very nervous.  Aideen did her icebreaker before mine and hers was so good, I couldn’t stop shaking comparing mine to it.