Christmas in the Farmhouse

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

The fnished lounge

Well, it took a mammoth effort but this room is finally done!

 I never thought I'd get to the end of making that parquet floor...cutting one tiny piece of wood after another...can't say I'm in a hurry to do that again, especially in such a big room.

 I wanted tiles in the entrance hall.

But I was tired of making floors so I sat down and had a think about how I could make tiles with minimum effort.

 I remembered I had a very old piece of checked wrapping paper.

 

 Voilà! A quick and easy tiled floor!

 

 

The fireplace looked like this before.

(this isn't my fireplace because I forgot to take a before pic but it's similar)

 

 

 And now!

I bought some electric flaming logs when I was in America with Kim and built a register for the fireplace with bits and pieces I had lying around.

I created a cloudy vintage mirror to finish it off.

I'm loving the light up flaming logs!

 

 

This room has required a lot of labour and

I really had to push myself to finish it but I'm thrilled with the result!

 

Moving on to the next room...

Firstly I must say a huge thank you to all those who left such lovely comments on my last post, it really makes my day to read them!

 I've left the kitchen...I was very tempted to start filling it up but realised it would have to be emptied again to do the lighting.

So I'm moving on with the room next to the kitchen.

 This is a VERY big room! As you can see I've started wallpapering.

 There's the door through to the kitchen.

And the other gaping whole there is where the front door will eventually go.

 

The fireplace was originally red mahogany.

It took many, many coats of paint before the evil red stain stopped seeping through.

 I've made some wall panelling.

I can hear some of you thinking...'hang on, there's a hole there for stairs...where are the stairs?'

Well, I always thought the stairs took up too much space and it was hard to see anything underneath them.

And what's more if you were downstairs and needed to get to the bathroom you'd have to go through the bedroom - that really annoyed me!

So I've created an entrance hall.

There's a doorway there for the stairs which will go up to another hallway on the first floor.

 Best part of that is I don't really have to make the stairs because they won't be seen!

May just make a couple of steps at the start.

There are French doors from the entrance hall into the room.

 Now the room has a more interesting shape.

 

I haven't yet decided what this room will be.

There's still a lot more to do of course but I'm really happy with how the room is shaping up.

Next thing to tackle (apart from that wall that still needs papering!) is the parquet floor. I have to say it's a bit daunting at this stage as it's such a huge room.

 

However, I've learned from vast experience that nothing ever gets done by just staring at it!

Next week the holidays are over and the kids are back at school, so the floor will be started!

A little more of the kitchen renovation...

Things have been moving along with the little kitchen reno...

  That pantry still needs filling...but that's going to take some time and patience.

There's a new sink - made from a little china trinket box.

I'm going for the industrial concrete benchtop look. There will be a tap there soon!

The curtain under the sink was made from an old handkerchief with a pretty edging.

 

I re-used or 'upcycled' some of the old kitchen cupboards (which were one of the first things I ever built myself).  It would have probably been easier to make new cupboards altogether as the china box I used to make the sink from didn't quite fit so the cupboards required a total rebuild.

 

The fridge and oven are the ones I made for the old kitchen.

The fridge could do with a bit of a facelift.

 

There was originally a door where the window above the sink is. I boarded up the door a couple of renovations ago. This time I thought it would add a bit of interest to have an old window there...so I made an interesting old window!

I built the door from scratch - a laborious task...but cheaper than buying one!

I thought about putting cupboards and a bench beside the oven but this house is very deep and having cupboards there makes it hard to see things at the back of the room.

So instead I built an industrial style table - just another style I love!

 

Hope you like the direction the kitchen is taking...there's plenty more to be done!

Little Guests have arrived at the party!!

 Remember last time we visited the party room there was only the birthday girl there...

Well, Kim (who gave us the birthday girl) read all your comments saying she needed friends and she totally agreed with you!

Kim sent four fabulously gorgeous little friends to attend the party!

This one in the blue dress is my favourite.

All made by Bonnie Justice.

Kim has a fantastic collection of these sweet little dolls. I don't know how she could bear to part with them - it is incredibly kind and generous of her to share them with us.

But that's just Kim - she's wonderful!

This little gift giver is Liberty's favourite.

We have great fun rearranging them all the time!

 

There's one more essential party item this room needs - Kim's working on that!

 

Progress in the kitchen!

I thought you might like a peek at how the country house renovations are going.

I've built a pantry in the corner of the kitchen.

As you can see I'm taking the house in a whole new direction.

 The pantry has given the room a more interesting shape and created a nice little nook, perhaps for a dining table.

 Lots of shelves to fill in the pantry!

Nothing's fixed in place yet...my plans are prone to change.

And I made a new floor - it took time and patience (I don't have much patience)!

Getting the colour right was the hardest part.

They didn't have the colour stain I wanted at the hardware shop so I bought a different one...and the floor turned orange.

I had to sand it and re-stain it with the colour I originally wanted but those little floorboards didn't want to let go of the orange. Rather than buying another stain I just rubbed black paint over it...

by some miracle it turned out ok!

 I may not have patience but I don't give up easily!

 

Published in American Miniaturist!

I am thrilled to tell you that there is an article on my little Bed and Breakfast room in the September issue of American Miniaturist Magazine!

 

 It was a wonderful surprise to have this little magazine arrive on my doorstep on a bleak winters day!

Many thanks to Auralea for inviting me to be part of this lovely publication.