STAIRS UPDATE

 Well I promised to show you whats happening in the hallway with the stairs. So we'll start

These are how the stairs have been left for the last few years, you can see the marks where the wall once was.

 In this photo you can see where Paul's boarded in the side of the stairs and left an access to be fitted with a door.

You can also see orginial door to understairs ,which when we moved in was the only way to access the  part beheath this area.

This shows the centre newel post for the new hand rail.

This photo shows the half newel at the top against the wall, that the top handrail needs to be attached to.

 

 This Saturday , Paul fitted the bottom newel post and the lower handrail. Our stairs are very steep.

View from kitchen doorway , you can see the door to the understairs cupboard. We had some luck and found some wood just the right size for the bannisters, although we needed twelve and there were only nine, but we were intending to go back next week to see if more had been put out for sale, however with everything we do, I had an idea on how to overcome this.

The new bannister and handrail.

When we realised we'd need another three posts for this area but knew we'd bought all the ones they had available, in the size we needed. We were going to go back and check for more but then I had the idea to suggest to Paul that he make a bannister piece based on an arts and crafts staircase. I drew the design I wanted, he knew what I meant but still sent me to find a photo of one, which I did and above is the result.

 

It does came in useful having a husband who can put your idea's into reality.

So the door to the understair cupboard's been cut and is waiting to be fixed, the centre newel post has had a piece of wood added so it reaches the floor and the joints and screw holes have been filled.

The orginial bottom newel post had the top cut, so that it will match the new one the other side. So Paul still needs to make three tops for them.

View from living room doorway .

View as you come down the stairs of the new bannisters. So just a few little details to finish and then it can have a coat of primer and then be painted. The orginial side needs rubbing down and then the same.

I will share more of the hall and stairs being done, there is still quite a way to go before any wallpaper starts being hung, since that's the last thing on the decorating side that happens.

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THE LAST SUNDAY OF AUGUST

 

 It's been a quietish week, what with all the wind and rain but we have had a few bright spells along with the rest. Yesterday turned quite cold, we even put the heating on for a couple of hours to take the chill off.

I finally found the cord for the Ercol chair cushion , so no more slacking, I'll have to set to and get it made.

The house is slowly getting more organised, I found a sweet little arts and crafts hallway seat with an umbrella/cane stand, which the seller very kindly delivered it all the way from Bicester !

Luckily he had a couple of collections to make on his way back, so didn't charge me for the delivery.

 

Before we had a separate umbrella stand and a wooden stool, for using when changing into boots to walk the dogs etc. Now this little unit does the job of both. Finally when we walk in the door the place looks tidy!

I also received a parcel of some old china, that funnily enough I found because a charity shop was selling an NP Sasha ! When the Sasha was on ebay I went to check her out and decided to see what else they were selling, in case there were any other interesting dolls.

But what I found was some of the old chintz china I collect, so I decided to put a bid on and see what happened. I was surprised to win , I did not bid a lot and thought I'd get outbid. They arrived on Thursday and I am so happy with them.

 Not only did I get this set but also included in the sale was another chintz patterned dish.

 
 So a very good buy.

 We  have ordered the wallpaper for the hallway /stairs and also for the dinning room area. Luckily when the email came to say they only had two rolls, it was of the dinning room one and not the hallway, so the hallway WP is on it's way and we have to wait until end of September for other wallpaper.

Since we'll probably still be working on the hallway , it's not a problem, as after the hallway , we plan on decorating our bedroom before coming back down to finish kitchen/dinning room.

I have also been spending time deleteing my doll photos on the computer as it belongs to Paul's company and since we want the space it occupies back and will buy a laptop, I need to get rid of all those extra photos in all the files that I no longer need and have just been sitting there for years. It's surprising how long it takes and that memories of dolls long gone are revived.

 

I found this photo of David pretending to be a salesman for Tomorite ! But he decided against it when he found it was seasonal ;)

I was going to post about the stairs but have decided to put that post on tomorrow or Tuesday.

So have a great healthy week ahead

Dee

 

THE SAME BUT DIFFERENT

 I now have two brunette no navel's again. Evie my new full blue eyed girl and Wren my full brown eyed girl.

Wren on the left with the full brown eyes and beautiful brunette hair is now joined by Evie on the right with full blue eyes and beautiful brunette hair.

 You can see that even though Wren is not wearing shoes, she would still be slightly shorter than her sister Evie.

You can also see that Evie's hair is lighter in colour than Wren's.

 Being slightly different but the same just adds to the joy of these two no navel girls.

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INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE DOG

 

 Today is International Day of the Dog, so Lucas has spent the day with his best friend Socks.

They've chased each other round the garden, shared a meal while sitting together on the grass.

They've had a lovely day doing what they like best, spenting it together. When I told Lucas it was International dog day he said " Every day is dog day!" not at all impressed that others only celebrated their dogs one just one day each year. Then they were off indoors where Lucas planned to watch Lady and the Tramp with Socks as it's Sock's favourite film I'm told!

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NESTING? I THINK NOT !

 

 

Martha was the only Sasha to venture out into the very very windy garden this afternoon, She decided to check out the fancy birdbox.

She looked into both holes to see if any bird were nesting !

"No nothing in either places!" she sighed

 " Birds will have finished nesting by now " I tell her " and it's not a proper nesting box "

 

" They have? and it's not? " she questions.

 

"Yes they have and it's a bit too fancy for a nesting box really "

 

 

" I think it's very nice and I'm sure a bird would love to have such a stylish home " Martha says with confidence

"Well they do say it's for the garden " I reply " but I don't think it would last too long out in the cold and rain , maybe just a couple of years "

 " So what's it going to be used for? " 

"Well for now it's just going to look pretty under the gazebo but maybe sometime we'll find a place in the garden where it can be sheltered "

Martha thinks about this " Well maybe then a bird with who wants something special in a nest , will decide this is the nest for them! "

Smiling I agree " I'm sure stranger things have happened in the bird nesting world "

"Mum you have to think positive about these things " Martha informs me " Now I need to go inside and look up about birds and the places they have nested "

So with the wind picking up we go back in, I'll make a cup of tea and Martha will return after her research to tell me all the strange places that birds have nested.

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SUNDAY AGAIN...

     Well at present my thoughts are mainly on getting the house finally sorted so lots of discussions on walls , floor, paper, paint, carpet, tiles, it is endless but also so exciting!

I placed the brown wallpaper near this watercolour in the hall , that's by the understairs cupboard, which allows us to see it against wood, even if the wrong colour wood.

 

 

I think it will be the brown!! The hall floor will be oak wooden boards , maybe a creamy paint for the walls, crisp white woodwork for the places that's not staying wood.....or maybe cream woodword! 

We'd ordered some wood we need for the hallway, having finally decided that really we don't need new stairs! It's just that some of them do creak ( about three) but not that bad and if they were carpeted, Paul would probably barely notice the sound that at present annoys him. He has tried stopping the noise but without dismantling the middle of the stairs  , making it a nightmare job, he'll just have to settle for a small amount of creaking!

And although a lovely set of oak stairs sounds nice, saving the money for other things sounds much nicer and saving the time and energy of having to wait for that all to happen, before moving on sounds even better!

 

Plus because we are have decided not to get a whole new set of stairs, Paul's been working on them this weekend ! When we first moved in there was a wall on one side of the stairs and a bannister on the other side with the understairs cupboard, the door of which you can see in above photo.

 

Well we do like knocking down walls, so a good few years back we knocked down the wall beside the stairs to open up the wallway, it allowed much more light in. Since that happened we have just left the stairs open, undecided on what if anything we'd do. Now we've finally decided to refurbish them. The only access to understairs before wall came down, was the door above but since then we've had easier access from the other side mainly because it's been wide open!

So lots of dicussion on whether to close that side back up completely and go back to accessing from orginial doorway but since the house is a cottage size, so not a lot of extra space, we decided to keep just one access door from the 'wall' side,as this would save us having to almost empty the understairs cupboard shown , in order to access anything in that side of the under stairs.

I'm taking photo's as Paul works , so will share them next Sunday, when he's completed a little more and then you'll be able to understand what we're doing.

This week I also played musicial pictures! Moving the pictures already hanging in the hallway, and trying others around to get a feel of what could go where , once it's all decorated. Which is why this picture is now in the place of the watercolour in the first photo.

 

No doll play at all this week due to household things, very windy weather, plus I am feeling a bit under the weather as they say, hoping it will be gone soon ,as I really must get more things done ! 

 Hattie and Zak came outside with me to get some fresh air.

Then Hattie looked at Zak and said " Stop wobbling!"

 

"I'm not wobbling!" Zak replied 

"Oh ye........" and with that Hattie fainted! 

"HATTIE!" cried Zak , horrified to see his big strong sister fall to the ground.

So not only did I have to deal with an obviously unwell Hattie, I had to calm down a very upset Zak who was convinced Hattie was in need of an ambulance and full emergency A&E team !

 

I think Hattie may just have the bug that appears to be doing the rounds and so was put to bed to rest, with Zak insisting on watching over her in case she needed him to call for help.

I'm not sure how long Hattie will let him stay as when I left the room I heard Hattie tell him if he poked her one more time to check if she was concious, she'd call Robin to throw him out ! 

So on that note I'll wish you all a lovely healthy week ahead.

Dee

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY

 Well after last weeks extremely hot four days and everyone in the country wishing for some rain and a drop in temperature, we've all got maybe slightly more than we wished for !

Thunderstorms and heavy rain have been turning up daily since around Tuesday ?Wednesday, we have had a good couple of inches most days. The thunder is rumbling along with the odd flash of lightening as I'm typing this post and yes it's also raining, with that steady fall you get with summer rain.

It's also been affecting the internet making it lose signal now and then if only for a couple of minutes at a time.

So this week not much has happened on any front. I've had a pretty lazy week in truth, so I will definiately have to do better ! anyone would think I was retired.... ;)

We have been looking at what we want to do in the hallway re decoration and I did paint some yellow on the walls a while back, from two pots I'd bought for Granny Fortuna. So that's been on the wall for a while then this week a couple of wallpaper samples arrived which we are considering for the hallway.

There will not be a lot of walls with wallpaper on, a small wall to the side another couple of areas and one of the walls on the stairs but like everything, lots of discussion on which we like, will it look good or make the place too dark etc.

 

 William Morris of course ! The wallpaper won't actually be near the clock but its the wall we see directly on entering the house or coming down the stairs, so best place to see it.

On the right we have the green/ yellow colourway and on the left..

the brown/pink ! The yellow or to give it it's proper name Yellow Ground by Farrow and Ball was/is not a definiate but I wanted to see how a yellow would work in the hallway and this is a lovely creamy yellow. 

Paul loves this brown and pink wallpaper , I also love it , which is unusal as I'm not usually a lover of browns especially in on my walls. Then we have the green /yellow paper, which is crisp and fresh while the brown is warmer and more autumnal. The photo was taken today without a flash and you can see the time on the clock, so from a darkness point, I think there is not a lot of diffence between them.

Both are on the darker side but strangely the brown stands out more in the dark where as the green tends to disappear blend in ! So at present I'm drawn to the brown ( Paul's happy ) but then I see the green and think but that's nice too! It must be an age thing, years ago I'd have seen these papers decided which I wanted and that would be it! 

 

The tiles for the kitchen turned up on an enormus truck on Friday ! The man said he had to go and get the palette off! For a moment I wondered if I'd ordered the wrong amount! But then he appeared with two small boxes wrapped on a small wooden palette ! Which Paul then unwrapped and carried the boxes under the carport!

 

Not the WM we had first settled on, but these are a faction of the cost and go with both the blue of the cupboards and the grey of the floor tiles. They are traditional while being also modern, so hopefully won't date too quick! 

So not a lot happening on the doll side as first it was way too hot then it was way too wet! But hopefully this week ahead will be perfect doll weather !

And on that note I'll wish you all a lovely healthy nice warm dry weather week ahead.

Dee

HEAT WAVE ...MUTINY !

 Well it's too hot to do anything in the day and it's still too hot in the night! Not British weather at all!!

The dolls are threatening to move to Scotland if it doesn't cool down soon! Every single one as refused to have a photo taken , step outside or even change into something cooler.... they say it's too hot to move an inch never mind an arm! They are sat in front of the only fan in the house, eating crisps and watching dvd's!

So I will post a couple of old photos, just to prove we are still alive and kicking over here in the Sasha Village...

Ollie back in 2015

 

Red haired slate eyed from 2016

Liberty from back in 2017

Saffron and Joan from 2018

Coco arriving in some style back in 2019

and Margot from May this year.

Hopefully the mutiny will be over as soon as the weather breaks or they do.... I've hidden the rest of the crips and the biscuits and threatened to turn on the heating... 

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SUNDAY THE 9TH AUGUST 2020

Today is my 45th wedding anniversary ! Yes despite Paul and I barely being old enough to drive ! we have achieved this milestone. I am informed by my best friend Gill that's is the sapphire anniversary and I do like sapphires.... when I mentioned this fact to Paul , he's reply was .. " I have some blue glass down in the workshop " so maybe I'd best not hold my breath for any gems lol

I have to say that it was fate when we met all those years ago and obviously meant to be! It was under the clock on Waterloo Railway Station, a group of us from the youth club were going on a weekend away for the Duke of Edinburgh ward scheme and Paul had been invited along by one of the others to see if he wanted to join.

I have to say 45 years seems to have vanished in a flash, we still love being in each other's company and enjoy just sitting in the garden discussing our plans or just enjoying the quiet. In this day and age where people seem to spend more time apart than together and that's how they like it, being married this long could become a thing of the past! I do hope not , as I wish everyone could have the support and love I have found, as a constant in their lives too. 

So I will just wish everyone a lovely healthy love filled week ahead.

Dee

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BLUE EYES

 My baby's got blue eyes.... as Elton John sings....

Ashley, Evie and Martha my full blue eyed No Navel girls.

The girls got together outside before this hot weather arrived!

So happy to have these three full blue eyed lasses.

 x

So three lovely girls, I could not be happier ! I had terriable trouble trying to add words between each photo, so finally gave up ! No idea what was the matter went away twice , just came back seemed to work only to alter again under the next photo!

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