{My Happy Place}

My bed is one of the happiest places in my home - I love it.

But aside from my bed, another happy place is my desk. This is where I blog!

In my old house I had a home office. In my new place I don't have a spare room but luckily I do have a landing at the top of the stairs which is big enough for a set of shelving and a small desk (both Ikea).

A while back I posted some ideas for making my space a bit prettier, and this Bank Holiday Weekend I finally had the time to paint my hallway and it spurred me on to get my desk a bit more organised and tidy! Let's hope I can keep it this way!

If you're wondering, the paint is Valspar Rocky Shelter (my sister used this colour in her spare room and I loved it!).

Painting well underway!

Ta da! My new prettier desk space.

{More Home Improvements... The Driveway}

I've been having a number of problems house-wise since I moved into my new place at the end of last year... one of which was a delightful sewage issue in my driveway.

After a number of trips from Dyno-Rod it was discovered that the roots from my hedge had got into the pipework and was causing the problem. Thankfully I got that sorted, but it left my driveway in a bit of a mess. The driveway before had chuckies (is this an Aberdeen word?) but it looked like the previous owner had put these down quickly to make the driveway attractive for selling without properly prepping the ground and the drainage wasn't great as a result. Anyway, the gist is that the sewage issue has made me bring forward my plans for mono blocking the driveway (which I've had to put on my credit card...this is not helping with my plan to be debt free!!).

Delightful - this is how it was left by Dyno-Rod... the grey and cream splodges are concrete!

The driveway before

I had five companies out to quote for the job, and I ended up choosing S&D Projects who have an office in Clarkston. Of all the salesmen I chatted to, Derek was clearly the best. He spent time talking me through the process of building the new drive, showing me plenty photographs and examples of their work. I was impressed.

A few days later I signed the contract and my slot was booked, and the whole driveway took just three days!

I had left for work before the guys arrived on Day 1 of the job but on arrival home the digger was out on the street and the sub base of load bearing concrete (black layer in the photos below) had been created. The littlest was loving the sand (the bedding layer for the mono block)! I didn't see the actual dig out and the depth that was achieved, but my neighbours opposite did and they were impressed with it. The digger will have ripped out the roots from the hedge so I'm hoping that the same sewage issue doesn't reoccur in the future.  

On Day 2 of the job I met the boys when they arrived at 8am just before I rushed off for the nursery run! And when I got home that day the driveway was well underway.

Day 3 I was at home, so I was able to watch the goings on (the kids were keen to see the builders in action and we even had breakfast on the front step so we didn't miss anything!). I also met the Project Manager who had come out to oversee the work.  

All in all I've been really impressed with the service and the driveway is super! The kids love it and have spent much time already out on their bike/scooters. 

It rained & rained (& rained some more) a few days after the driveway was installed... and not a single puddle to be seen. My neighbours were impressed! :)

I seem to have have a problem with efflorescence, which I guess is to do with all the rain. This is a white powdery deposit of water-soluble salts on the surface of masonry as the water evaporates. This will fade though (and has already improved quite a bit since I took these pics), but you can see the white marks in the photos below...

What a difference compared to the old drain! Much neater :)

The driveway was extended and they've made a neat job of the edge. I just need to paint it now!

The finished driveway! Yay!!

I'm seriously super impressed. Every day when I'm out on the front of the house I think to myself 'I just love my drive'.

The littlest and I have been putting some bark down under the hedge to keep the weeds at bay. I've also got a few pots of plants that I'll dot about the place.

It's certainly been a brilliant investment, and I love it (I've said that already though, haven't I!!)

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{New House - The Kitchen}

I thought I'd share with you some of the work that's been going on in my bijou kitchen in my new house.

I've not done very much other than change the kitchen door knobs (from bronze star ones that weren't my taste to some smaller simpler silver ones that I found on eBay), change the linoleum, my dad fitted some shelves and a new induction hob and I painted the walls. Oh, and I had an electrician fit a new light into the alcove. I have some material to make a Roman blind but I've yet to get around to that.

Before

Changed the linoleum... making good progress!

Started painting! That's more like me now!!

Painting some more!

The shelves as they are today... the basket is full of crisps, Mini Cheddars, yoghurt raisins... the star tins are full of cookie cutters (and possibly the odd chocolate treat - I still have some chocolate coins from Christmas!)... then you can see an elephant tin of tea on the bottom shelf next to the kids marble reward jars... followed by an assortment of containers!

The kitchen is small, and as such all my plates and glasses are stored elsewhere in a display cabinet. Which isn't very handy, but I'm getting used to it.

1. Some kitchen equipment - Magimix accessories, barware etc

2. A broken extractor fan :-(

3. Tea, coffee, sugar plus mugs!

4. Tea towels

5. Some more kitchen equipment

6. A broken dishwasher :-(

7. Cleaning products and a leaking stop cock which is yet to be fully sorted :-(

8. Storecupboard essentials

9. Cutlery

10. Pots and pans

The cooker is also full of baking trays as I just have such limited space!!

There is a small alcove with my fridge/freezer and I think I could probably organise this better to make more use of the space available.

This cupboard (number 8 in the photo above) is a total disaster and I know that I need to organise this better. I think I could make much better use of the space if I had it planned right.

With a broken dishwasher, and limited counter space, I need to be careful because most days the kitchen worktop looks like this... a total bomb site!

Trying to resolve some storage issues! These little hanging pots can be detached from their hooks... so when the kids are setting the table for dinner, I just take their cutlery pot down for them. Likewise, if we're baking - the other pot comes down :-)

One of my other major issues is what to do with my recycling. It normally ends up all over the floor... more on this later as I'm on the hunt for the best solution!