It's been a dusty weekend at Sprout's House - we decided to demolish the spare room!
We chose to tackle the spare room (the room at the front on the top right) first as in our minds this is the room that needs the least doing to it in terms of electrics and heating!! During this phase of improvement, we're going to add a couple of extra sockets and some spot lights, but we are not going to upgrade the radiator until we get around to overhauling the entire heating and plumbing system.
So here's how the room looked before.....
The best - it stored loads - but ugliest and most inconveniently placed cupboard ever. The contents of which is now strewn across the landing.
The reason we're knocking off all the plaster is that our house suffers from a lot of dampness mainly because it has been covered with modern materials. Modern day plaster on the inside and cement render on the outside mean that she literally can't breathe and so if there is a build up of moisture inside the house it can't escape hence our immense damp problems. We're going to use this room to test out some breathable products ~ lime plaster and wood fibre insulation. If successful, we'll then be able to use them throughout the rest of the house.
If anyone has any advice or tips leave a comment below!
I have finally started sanding Sprout's old fashioned desk. Hooray! Those of you who have been following our adventures for a while may remember that this was one of the presents we bought for her third birthday and I had grand plans to renovate it over the summer holidays - last year!
This was how the desk looked a couple of days ago....
and here she is now! Isn't she so much more beautiful now all that paint has been removed?
There is still a little bit more sanding to do, but hopefully I'll finish that over the weekend.
Now comes the difficult part - what to do with the desk next? I am quite keen to continue experimenting with Annie Sloan's chalk paints (I used them for the Memory Boxes) and of course Sprout is very keen on a pink theme. She has approved two colours so far which luckily tie in with the curtains she already has in her room.
However having seen how beautiful the desk is underneath all that hideous paint, I am wondering whether it would be a shame to cover up the wood again. Perhaps just a layer or two of wax would be enough?
Let me know your thoughts and have a great weekend.
Morning Everyone! As it's the beginning of the month, I thought I would spend a little time updating you on the progress we have made at Sprout's House. (If you're new reader, you can visit the Home Tour page to catch up on everything else we have done.)
Exterior
Most of our time over the last couple of months has been focused on the outside of the house. We have knocked down the porch at the front.
This was one of the easiest tasks that we tackled taking all of about 15 mins. So we have gone from this......
to this......
The front of the house looks a bit bare now, but we will put something else up instead at some point!
As you can see, we have also demolished the little stone wall that was at front of the house. The heavy snow in January 2013 meant that a lot of the concrete between the stones had blown so a few of the larger ones had started to work their way loose. Every so often we would come outside and find that one had fallen into the road so it had to go. There is still a little bit more to knock down on the right hand side, but we'll tackle that when we dig up the rest of the concrete.
Our biggest achievement so far has been excavating the driveway!
No mean feat I tell you! We anticipated that we would probably need a couple of skips to take away the concrete and soil, and that we would also fit the porch and front wall in those too.
In the end, it took 5 skips and three weekends of digger action to reduce the driveway to road level.
Once we had got rid of all the excess soil and concrete, we levelled the remaining earth and then used sleepers to create a wall on three sides. At the moment, the sleepers are performing two jobs - one hopefully it looks a bit nicer(!?) and two they are holding back the earth each side. The driveway is still quite narrow, but once we have got rid of the concrete path we'll be able to expand the driveway on the right side. We have also spread some Type One MOT (crushed stone) over the soil and whacker plated it down so it's nice and compact.
Eventually, we will cover the driveway with gravel, but for now we leaving it as it is as there are still many more skips full of concrete in our future!!
Oh.... and did I mention the asbestos? That was a joyous saga. Check out the outfit!!
There used to be a garage on the driveway many moons ago and we think that when it was taken down they buried the roof and poured a layer of concrete over it instead of disposing of it.
Did you know that as a householder you can take asbestos to your local tip? Check with your nearest one to find out how it needs to be bagged and tagged!
Interior
There's not a whole lot of action going on inside the house at the moment. Whilst we were away on holiday the mixture of hot weather and storms did not suit our little house and we are battling a lot of damp at the moment. I even found mould all over the front of my lovely dresser!! So Sprout's Daddy ordered a whole load of Kontrol Moisture Traps to place in all the downstairs rooms.
We have used one before just after we dug out the fireplace and found it really effective at absorbing excess moisture.
The damp has also played havoc with the food in our kitchen cupboards - soggy oat cakes anyone? I was a bit loath to put anything with chemicals near our food so I have resorted to placing small jars of salt (GU dessert containers are excellent for this!!) in all the kitchen cupboards to try and absorb some of the moisture in the air. I let you know how I get on with this method!!
There are also a couple of new holes in the house. One in the downstairs bathroom ceiling - we want to knock through from the sitting room into the bathroom and small lobby to create a bigger room.
Sprout's Daddy made a small hole to see which way the joists run and whether it is a load bearing wall. This will also help the structural engineer decide whether we need a 'steel'.
The second hole is in Sprout's playroom and was definitely unplanned!!
Once we uncovered the second fireplace, it allowed a lot of trapped moisture out. This appears to have travelled under the stairs and started to become trapped behind the plaster board on this wall. So we removed the plaster board and quite a lot of plaster came away too!! Ah well, this wall will eventually become a doorway anyway.
Apologies for the marathon post - I'll try to write updates more regularly! Anyone else tackling a DIY project or two?
Who's looking forward to going to the beach this summer? How about making a your own personalised beach bag?
Disclaimer: I received free products in return for this post! All opinions are my own.
Thanks so much to Fantastic Ribbons for supplying me with a gorgeous selection of buttons and a roll of grosgrain ribbon.
I don't know about you, but here at Sprout's House we are counting down the days until we can feel the sand between our toes, build some sandcastles and just generally catch some rays. So what better way to get in the mood than make a beach bag - perfect to carry all those beach essentials!
Equipment:
selection of buttons - my packet contained about 150 buttons in a range of sizes, patterns and colours.
3m of ribbon - I used a roll of Peacock Blue Side Stitched Grosgrain ribbon.
1 canvas tote bag
PVA glue and small brush
selection of thread to match your buttons
pins
needle
A4 paper
1. Open Word, type your chosen initial. Choose your font and enlarge the letter until it fills
the page. Print out.
(I narrowed it down to the three fonts above before choosing the middle one.
From left to right ~ Contribute - Free Version size 560 Bold; Harrington size 840 Bold; Lucida Calligraphy size 560 Bold)
2. Cut out the inside of the letter so that you're just left with an outline.
3. Place the
outline on your bag. Choose the buttons you're going to use and arrange them
inside the letter.
4. Carefully
lift away the outline. Adjust the buttons if you need to and then start gluing
on to the bag. (Don't worry too much about the buttons being completely secure
as this is just a temporary measure until they can be
sewn in place.)
5. Sew the
buttons on. I used coordinating thread, but do whatever you fancy.
6. The next
step is to pin the ribbon to the top and bottom of the bag. Decide where
you're going to place your ribbon - I left a centimetre gap between the
ribbon at the top of the bag, but just matched the ribbon up with
the seam at the bottom of the bag. The beauty of this side-stitched grosgrain ribbon is that you can use the side-stitching to help disguise where you have sewn it to the bag.
7. Thread
your needle with white thread and knot the end. In position A, push your needle
through the ribbon from back to front so that it comes out in position B at the
end of one of the side-stitches. Pull the thread through until the knot sits on
the back of the ribbon. Tuck any excess thread behind the ribbon so it is
hidden.
8. Push the
needle back through the ribbon at the other end of the side-stitch (position C)
and pick up a little bit of the canvas material before exiting at the beginning
of the next side-stitch (position D). Your stitches should be completely hidden by the white stitching on the ribbon. 9.Repeat until both edges of the ribbon are securely
attached to the bag. To ensure that the ribbon does not fray fold the end over before stitching into place. Repeat the process for the bottom section of ribbon.
10. Fill your bag and head to the beach!
How are you preparing for Summer? Why not pop over to Fantastic Ribbons for some more inspiration?
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