Favourite Corners Of My Home, again

I thought I'd occasionally do these posts as, by nature, I am a very nosy person and I'm thinking that maybe I'm not the only one - I'm not am I?

 

It also makes me look at my home in a slightly different light as usually I stare at all the unfinished bits and get a little down in the dumps. We started renovating and rebuilding our home in 1993 and if I'd have known it would take so long I probably wouldn't have done it. Don't get me wrong it's not been a constant 21 years, we have finished it a couple of times and then decided to extend a little more. I always think of it in terms of how much is left to do (before we decide to retire and downsize!) when I really should think more in terms of how far we've come and how much we've achieved. It has all been done with grit and determination, scrimping and saving and sheer hard work - we never had much money to throw at the house nor much help!

Anyway it started life like this....

A pair of thatched cottages built pre-1800, we have no other information about when they were built although we did inherit the ancient deeds which are fascinating.

At present it looks like this..
 

 

 

Unfortunately we couldn't keep the thatch or in fact any of the roof and it was far too expensive to re-thatch as the Builder couldn't do that himself. It was actually a pair of cottages downstairs but all one upstairs - quite bizarre!

 

Anyway this was about corners of my home, I'll leave the renovation story

for when I have a week to spare!
 

The extravagant curtain rope with huge "diamond" was an ebay purchase, originally from Laura Ashley if I remember correctly.

 

The seagull on the window sill was from a stallholder at a craft fair I organised some years ago, I've never been able to track her down since, she had such lovely stuff.

Two hatboxes, one containing all my wedding souvenirs and a Little Brown Bag, a gift from Number 1 son's trip to New York

My wardrobe door handle,
 on old reclaimed door given to us for free

A trio of my babies, they could pass for identical triplets!



. 

A picture we bought on our honeymoon in Sydney, the artist signed it and asked if we'd like a list of food to put out to attract these birds to our garden - we thought it would take a bit more than birdseed to get a wild parakeet in the garden at home!

 

One of the many cram-packed book shelves in our house, I find it hard to part with any!

 

A special photo which hangs above Number 1 son's bed, playing cricket against his Dad.

Dad wicket keeping to son batting, a moment which probably will never happen again. I believe Number 1 was about 13-14 years old at the time.

 

Not a very exciting spot and not exactly a corner but it sums us up quite well. Another bookcase, but also containing a display of miniature, signed cricket bats. And three little embroidered wild flower pictures done for my by my Grandma, they will always have pride of place in any house I'm in. Just out of shot is a framed, signed photo of Freddie Flintoff!

 

So that's a little bit of my home, I'll post photos of the unfinished corners and cracks another day!

 

Have a great week.