Alas poor blog

I feel guilty every time I switch on the computer. My excuse is that this started as a house renovation blog and there isn't much renovating going on at the moment. I did manage to paint the sheds and garden gate the other day but as I did them in colourless wood preserver I haven't got much to show for it!

I did manage to spend the Habitat gift vouchers I won from Living Etc though. I bought a beautiful Palermo floor lamp and a ginormous tweedy shade. Ever credit-crunch conscious I got a 20% off voucher from Martin Lewis's money saving expert website, which is definitely worth a look at. I was having palpitations as I handed the voucher over in case they refused to honour it but the sales staff didn't bat an eyelid.

I also bought a new cushion in TK Max ( more credit-crunchery!) I am in love with spots at the moment but my dear husband says I can't have many more as I am 'filling the house' with them.

Our six month defect period is up soon, which means we will need to give the builder his £3k plus vat in retention. Touch wood, I haven't noticed any major defects, apart from the crack in the glass roof which has not yet been fixed. The situation is slightly complicated by the fact that he declared himself bankrupt over the summer, so we've been getting demand letters from the liquidators. I will have to get in touch with our architect soon to see how the thing can be managed, but I'm not exactly falling over myself to start the process!




My new spotty cushion, and the Penguin Donkey, which my husband loves only slightly less than his Isokon Loop coffee table. I think they're the only two pieces of 'real' furniture that we own.












You can see the big Lewisham mirror in this one. I'm wondering whether it's time to hang some curtains up now that the nights are drawing in. I'm not a big fan of curtains on the whole, and finding them long enough for the French window is a pain. The Chinese wall hanging was a gift from the father of one of my students when I taught English in China 15 years ago.













The new Habitat Palermo floor lamp. We're in discussion about whether to replace the tatty tweed sofa. It's incredibly old and not very trendy any more ( though my husband assures me it was quite the in-thing when he bought it!) I'm a bit fed up with it but have been persuaded that we should think about replacing it when the kids are slightly less prone to leaping on the furniture. Perhaps I should liven it up with some more spotty cushions and consign the Nepali ones ( gifts from a globe trotting friend) to the sofa upstairs for now!