The sofa bed

The wee house is now ready for over night guests thanks to a naive eBay purchase. We've been looking at sofa beds for a good four months now in anticipation of finally having guests over to stay. We do feel a bit guilty about what past guests have been forced to sleep on (mostly sagging fold-out sofa beds and, on occasion, the floor), so we were determined to find something stable and comfortable.

A few weeks ago, right when we were about to shell out the money for a new sofa bed from Ikea, a mostly-identical one came on eBay, within a 25 mile radius of us. You can imagine our pleasure, then, when we won the auction at a fantastically low price, and the bed was ours to collect.

A 25 mile radius is, country lanes in England considered, a generous distance it turns out. The distance is even more generous when someone has left the sat nav at home and someone else is forced to navigate with an ill-proportioned map. Things can get all the hairier when exact direction to the location have been, er, misplaced. Nevertheless, we found the sofa's owners in their higgidly-piggildy cottage after only one wrong turn that turned out, in fact, to be the right turn.

Additional bits of fun that day: bringing the sofa down a very narrow, very twisty staircase (while, all the time, it did its best to turn into a bed) and pushing it into the unwilling car boot.....in the pouring rain.

Delivery from Ikea was looking pretty good by the time we got the thing home.

However, now that we have it, we could not be more pleased.

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(sitting in the lounge whilst we recovered from its collection)

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(now in its rightful place in the office, awaiting guests)
And future guests should be especially pleased that we have used the money that would have been spent on a new sofa bed to upgrade to a larger mattress for ourselves, meaning our old, still-very-nice-though-a-bit-small mattress will be able to add an additional layer of luxury onto the sofa bed.

The back garden

The back garden has been showing signs of life:

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As well as a serious case of over growth:

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As bushes, grass, and weeds are all starting to show a bit of green, it seemed like a good time to tend to our little fruit patch between the porch and the shed. We've tied the poor, sprawling apple into something that more closely resembles a tree:

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The pear tree has been freed from the grasping fingers of the fence's vine:

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The baby hedge now looks a bit more hedge-like:

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And the sprawling bleeding heart is slightly less sprawling now:

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Yes, I realise to the untrained eye, not much improvement seems to have been made. But, we now have a sizable mound of dead grass, vine, and branches to take to the recycling centre.

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And a bit of newly-unveiled greeness to enjoy.

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Finishing touches - well, sort of

We were sitting in the lounge on Monday, feeling happy and enjoying it....but something wasn't quite right. So, we trouped up to the bedroom and pulled all of the pictures we've been accumulating in anticipation for the time when we would have the time to consider where to hammer holes into the wall. The memory of patching and painting was still pretty fresh in my mind, so I let L. wield the hammer.

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(Now, if only we can figure out a good way to hide the speaker wires)

And my contribution, the jolly hanging of my beloved bookcover postcards

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And a bit in the kitchen:

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And today, it was time to refinish me. New glasses, complements of Mr. F, and a new haircut to boot.

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(Which has made me very Zen, you see)
And speaking of such things, the view from our window a few mornings ago:

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Springtime in the garden

The weather has warmed up and we've been watching the garden with considerable curiosity to see what we actually have out there.

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So far, we can confirm a sprinkling of crocuses and a mass of mini daffodils.

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We've had a promising selection of buds on the camellia since December, but still no proper flowers.

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The rose has a bit of growth.

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Other plants are showing signs of life.

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But, I'm seriously worried about the rhododendrons.

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Spring time industriousness

After a relaxing time in Poland (at least for me), we got back this weekend to the house with a renewed energy (helped by the fact that most of what's left is the fun stuff).

But, first, for some less fun news. The day after I discovered the frog eggs, the pond froze over:

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I am not optimistic enough to hope for little tadpoles this year. But, there's always next year (and hopefully the frog who laid these eggs has learned her lesson! The end of February is not a good time to lay eggs, my friend...)

Better news: L. has finished his plastering work in the hallway.

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It looks brilliant and is even more impressive considering he was working with a trowel with a broken handle (plastic handled trowel + hiding under dust sheet + clumsy foot = much sadness for all).

My big project for Saturday was to make - yes, make - a new clothing rail for the little bedroom. Our previous £8-at-Woolworth's rail had suffered much abuse and had a tendency to twist and collapse at the slightest provocation. We had to resort to propping it up using other bits of furniture, and I'd had enough with sorting out a tangled mess of clothing items, hangers, and rail. So, I came up with the brilliant plan to make one, using spare bits of board.
The materials:

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The labour:

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The finished product:

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It's not ideal and I'm a bit disappointed that it's not the marvel of stability and beauty I had pictured in my head, but it was practically free and it seems to be doing it's job without collapsing.

Today, I focused my energies on cleaning and organising - starting with the closet.

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It might not look too impressive, but I'll claim that's only because I was too ashamed to take a 'before' picture.
Also, the stairs are now [mostly] devoid of tools, paint, and junk mail, which should make nighttime visits to the bathroom less hazardous.

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And finally, the door! We have been struggling for a very long time with the door between the hallway and the lounge. I hated the varnish the previous owners had put on it, L. wasn't a fan of the colour I painted it when he was away. We tried sanding it, but it was a cruel and grueling job with our cheap B&Q hand sander. So, the door sat in the closet and we sat in a drafty lounge. Until last week. Finally, we settled on a colour and hung that beautiful door.

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(in place, half sanded)
Now, in all its glory:

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What is it? Part II

This autumn, to our knowledge, our pond hosted four fish (one orange, two white and the mysterious black fish that only L. saw) and a frog. Unfortunately, the only time I saw the frog was after the pond froze over completely and the poor chap was floating, outstretched, in a watery purgatory. It was a very sad day, and I felt our pond had lost some of its charm due to its froglessness.

However, it seems that was not indeed the case. This afternoon, I went out to feed the fish and this is what was floating on top:

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Preliminary research seems to suggest these are frog eggs. It would seem we have at least one more frog and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that a male frog has done his duty, and that we will soon have many little frogs....this is almost as good as a puppy.

Before, during and after: the lounge

Oh, sweet conclusions! The recommended drying time for the varnish ended yesterday, and we very quickly have been moving our things back to normality. There's still a little bit of picture-hanging and paint-touch-ups left, but we are extremely pleased with how it's turned out.
Before:

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During:

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And, now:

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