Front Garden in February

I've spent the last few weeks clearing up the front garden beds of dead leaves, raking the lawn and pruing back the hydrangea and budjlea ready for spring. I've weeded and planted some new plants - a Campanula, Cornus Alba, iris, ivy and sisyrinchium. Everything is starting to grow again and all the bulbs we planted last year are starting to show.

Fire!

We have had the chimney swept, found a grate and sourced a local coal merchants and woodsellers. Woo! And here is the final product after a good burn!

Grate!

Found this at the carboot near the airport. It only cost a tenner and despite being very awkward to get back to the car, a steal and a perfect fit in our front fireplace. Hooray!

Front Door Update

The front door's stained glass got broken the day we moved in. It's now been releaded and secured behind a sheet of safety glass. It's rock solid and draught free. With it we have replainted the woodwork white and green. I think it contrasts well will the glass and it matches many of the houses on the street. The door fixtures, of which there two more to attach, have been cleaned up and restored to their former glory. Keeping with the brass theme we have added a front letterbox (we have previously had everything delivered around the back, and soon to come, a shiny brass number 6.

Old door with broken glass




Broken glass




Gaffer, the best of all the tapes..
















We have painted the backdoor to macth :)





The old light above the back door

Back garden Update

We have almost finished planting the back beds now. The weather is still very mild up here in Yorkshire so i reckon everything will get plenty of time to settle in before the weather turns. The new plants are Prunus (Cherry tree), Heuchera, Thalictrum (Meadow Rue), Cotinus (Smokey Bush), Alpine Rose, Vinca and Cyclamen. The pink flower is Osteospermum.

Fortress!

The neighbour at the back has decided to build a fortress of a fence to keep everything out! She claims that children are vandalising her garden although i have never seen any doing so. She's been less than civil when i've suggested reconsidering the height of it. Good excuse to plant more climbers ;)

Clematis Armandii

Here she is now with one summer behind her. If she carries on like this she'll rival the swathes i've seen in Ladbroke Grove.

Backgarden Update

Lotsa stuff being happeing in the back garden. We have waited to plant some parts of it as we wanted to wait until some of the inherited plants had had a time there so we could see whether we wanted to keep them, such as the rhubarb. We've since dug over most of it and removed all of the weeds and planted quite a few more plants. The clematis Armandii has done incredibly well this summer and seems to love it's full sun position with cool roots. The hydrangea has proved a gorgeous contrast to our newly erected back fence which we decided to paint green to blend with the back and front doors. The lonicera looks like it will need another year to really show off but the caeoanthus and callicarpa both have grown enormously and i can't wait to see the latters berries this autumn. We have stripped the outside of the kitchen windows and have filled and painted them. We just need to finish filling around the windows and they will be finished bar the one pane we managed to crack in the process ;) Have to be careful with heat guns and glass.

The windows




The back fence




the new fence and flowering beds




Caeonathus, Callicarpa, Lonicera, Osteospermum, Rose, Myosotis, Alpine Rose

Kitchen Update

We have been living in a squat pretty much for a year now. A few weeks ago a couple of friends came up and helped us out with removing the lead piping from the kitchen and replacing the piping that ran upstairs to the bathroom. This has meant that we are now able to plasterboard the kitchen as there is nothing else to take out now. We have started with the ceiling this weekend with the intention of getting the walls done in the next couple of weeks.

This is the before pic




..and this is a current pic. As you can see it doesn't look much but we have had the boiler and heating put in, some floor joists replaced in the kitchen floor, lead piping removed from all plumbing fixtures in the house which all ran through to the kitchen, we've started stripping the windows, doors and woodwork of paint and begun to fill and repaint them white, had electrics put in including lighting, stripped the walls of the old woodchip and we have had to pull out the old shelves and cupboard to make way for the units and we have pulled out the old 50's fire and bricked up the fireplace ready for plastering and put in the plumbing for a washing machine. So although it comestically looks little different, it's a whole new room now!

Back Garden Update

We have started to put in a new back fence and have had to be a bit creative around the stone wall. I think it looks great. We still might stain it although are leaning towards a marine varnish to keep the natural colour of the wood.
We've also managed to build up the raised bed with the York stone that we had. When we moved in we found the stone in the garden, spread like a crude crazy paving beneath a carpet of weeds. It's well weathered and we are still finding more as we continue to dig! Great find as it's kept the costs right down.
Since building the beds we have put in a Ceoanthus and a Callicarpa. I am really excited about the latter as i have wanted one for ages. I saw one peeping over a fence one Christmas and it took ages to identify! It is deciduous but sports a profusion of tiny purple berries in the winter on long bare sticks. They look amazing!
The other two shrubs are inherited from the previous owners. There's a lovely purple Hydrangea and a large Rhubarb which we have been making crumbles from!

Back garden 1


Back garden 2


View from inside the house


Close up of the fence


Ceoanthus and Callicarpa in the new bed!

Back Garden

Here are some pics of the back garden. It's by no means finished, we have simply dug it over and pulled out most of the weeds. These were taken a few weeks ago so the stone that you can see in the rockery at the back is now the stone in the raised beds at the front. Boy were they heavy so i bought a Chillington wheelbarrow to help with the load :)We have started painting the exterior pipework and have started to strip the windows and replace the putty ready for painting them. It's been a hard job deciding what colour to paint the place but i think we have decided on black pipework, white window frames and a green front and back door. The next lot of pictures will show the new fence. We will be replacing the side fence and are planning on mounting a 2ft fence onto the back wall to make the space a bit more private. We also want to put some decking in around the back door and build a small cold frame.





My Clemitis Armandii.
I have always wanted to grow one of these.

Lounge

This is the front room. We haven't finished it yet but here it is floors sanded and with pale walls. We have almost finished stripping the slate fireplace of the drab caramel gloss that was spread throughout. It's much nicer black/grey.

Heres the before picture:



And here are the current ones:

We are stripping back the fireplace. It is slate underneath.


The newly sanded floorboards

New front garden!

This is our front garden after much hard work and cold spring weekends digging. It was full of weeds and rubble and we had to dig down deep to get out the dandelion roots. The road we live on is on a hill so the garden slopes. We decided to put in the raised beds out of reclaimed stone with a level lawn. We put in an old railway sleeper to raise the level of the soil by the path so it was easier to level it. The planting is sparse at the moment, we still need a few more shrubs but everything is coming back to life again now it's getting warmer.







And when we had finished..

Other house stuff - fun things

Some of the other things we have managed to do / get.

My sister plays piano. She has been looking for one for years. She was given this little beauty. How lucky is she!



I have been getting immense pleasure from starting to sort out our garden. We have managed to clear the front and started to plan the layout. We have a lot of Yorkshire stone in our back garden that we will want to move into the front to create some raised beds with, trouble is, it's heavy stuff so will take a little while to shift.
In the meantime we have picked up some plants and put them in to brighten the place up. We have Crocosmia, Lychnias (Campion), French Lavendar, A blue Veronica, Budljea 'Black Knight', Astilbe, Fern, some Euonymous and a lovely big Echinacea.

We have been working on the new house

Lots of stuff done now but nothing really cosmetic, so nothing nice to see. Hence the lack of blogging.
First job was getting in Brick Tie to do the preservation work, add a damp proof course and replace a couple of rotten joints, 2nd off was getting the roof sorted out. After that we got the electrician in to rewire the whole place and this week we got in the plumber to fit central heating and a new boiler. Still left to do is refit the kitchen and bathroom with power shower, but for now, as it is, it is livable.
Here are the more recent pictures of the place. You can see the rads are in but we will still need to tidy up some of some of the walls where the elecdtrics have been sunk in.
You may notice though that the walls and woodwork have been given a cover of white / barley white, just to freshen up the place.

Bathroom

Front Room

Hall

My Room

Boiler

Kitchen

Snug

Front bedroom

Spare bedroom