Hooks with a difference

As I’ve said in previous posts, the obvious thing about moving into a new build is that you’re the first people to live there - and that means things like shelves and hooks just aren’t there. And you don’t realise just how much we take these kind of things for granted, until they’re not there.

I know that not having hooks isn’t the biggest issue in the world, but a hook-less cloakroom wasn’t going to be viable long-term so a solution - and hooks - needed to be found. It wasn’t right at the top of our list, especially as the cloakroom was initially a handy store for a few moving boxes that we hadn’t quite worked out where their contents should go just yet, but with friends and family visiting we wanted to be able to have somewhere to hang their coats, and also we wanted somewhere for ours too.

MOH was keen to just get something on the wall, but I know that game - once there’s something up that you may have compromised on, then it’s up and in use and it could be a while (if ever) before it’s addressed ‘properly’.

But I wasn’t keen on any of the hooks, or racks of hooks he kept showing me, and nor could I find the right hooks. So we remained hook-less for quite a while.

The issue for me was I’d seen some lovely hooks, that were quite distinct but couldn’t remember where I’d seen them, and so until I’d found them again I couldn’t move forward. Luckily my Google-search skills are quite advanced and I did find them again on the Nkuku site - along with many more decorative hooks (I’ve just looked again whilst writing this post and let’s just say it’s a dangerous place for my purse).

By this time of course MOH was ‘just buy the hooks’. So that’s exactly what I did, well after a bit of measuring, checking where pipes and cables might or might not be, and some soul searching on the price, but fortuitously all this meant I managed to time my order with their sale.

And the hooks arrived, three of them. Each with three moveable hooks, which required three screws for each wall mount. MOH regretted his stance when he realised that meant eighteen holes to make, but thankfully he agrees it was worth the while - and of course the first thing hung on the hooks was a cycling helmet!

And since then a lot more coats, fleeces hats and scarves. It’s quickly become a very usable storage space as we also store (amongst other things) our garden seat cushions, the internet router, umbrellas, our current go to everyday shoes - and our bottle bag for our empties ahead of recycling in here.

Though I’m hopeful that soon we’ll be able to put our winter coats away!

Creating a space to craft

As part of our move from London it was important for each of us to have a ‘day space’ and for me that was a space to craft. It didn’t matter what part of the house it was in, but I was keen for it to be in the house rather than say an outbuilding (purpose built or otherwise) in the garden. I know that on the colder days I’d be tempted not to venture out, and heading upstairs would always be preferable.

But the main thing for me about having a dedicated craft space was to have my craft supplies together and organised. As a spoiler to this post, my craft supplies are together but not yet completely organised, but I’m confident that will come!

Previously I’d stored my crafts between at least a couple of rooms, and having them together felt like the ultimate luxury. Before we moved I toyed with the idea of an adjustable standing desk, and at one point one of those clever storage cupboards where the doors fold outwards and a crafting heaven comes into sight.

In the end I opted for neither of these, but nabbed the fourth bedroom which I’d earmarked from the very first time we viewed our new house. It’s the same size as the third bedroom, but importantly the room I nabbed has a built in cupboard, and as any crafter knows, storage is king.

It’s taken me a few months to get my space to where it is now, and I’m sure it’ll take a few months more to fine tune it but I’m back crafting. And I’ve many projects that I can’t wait to get started on, and to share with you, but first let me share more about setting up my space.

Three weeks in…

With family visiting in the first few weeks our priorities were to get living - and sleeping - spaces functional, and as a consequence the craft room became a bit of a box store, but I was determined that it wouldn’t fall to the bottom of the list. I was determined to make my mark and get my desk set up, so that’s how I ended up with this bizarre setup.

It didn’t matter that most of the room was full of boxes, that I had no actual seat and that I mostly still didn’t know where anything was, or what I wanted to craft. I had a desk and space to craft if I wanted to, and of course, the perfect excuse to disappear and ‘just sort a few boxes out’ if I wanted to.

I knew I had a lot of craft supplies, and this was OK as I also knew that when I moved I should have more time to actually get on and craft. Before my Carpal Tunnel Op I’d bought ten medium sized boxes to pack while I had the use of two hands, reckoning that after my op I’d not have much call to craft immediately anyway. I filled those boxes so quickly though that even I was shocked, and there was still so much more to be packed - which also meant that unpacking would take some time.

We had two eight section Ikea Kallax units that were being repurposed as storage in this room, along with our old Ikea washing basket and the orange legged desk which MOH had used in his office while working from home, and which I’d long coveted!

I naively thought this, along with two slim Billy units in the built in cupboard, would provide all the storage I needed.

MOH looking at the storage space I’d used already and the amount of full boxes still to be unpacked managed to say with a straight face that he didn’t think I’d pull it off and perhaps I should get more storage. Realising he was probably right we soon headed off to Nottingham and Ikea for another eight section Kallax.

And it was absolutely the right thing to do, while they’re not empty there is space to flex and grow - and I’m hoping that I’ll be using supplies too, so there’ll be some natural turnover of stuff.

Starting to take shape

With the right amount of storage, by the middle of August the room was starting to take shape. I’d requisitioned the orange legged desk from its temporary place in the kitchen area as soon as the usefulness of having a desk for paperwork was proven, and quickly realised the advantage of having a double length desk space. Gone was the idea of the adjustable standing desk!

But just as quickly I discovered the shortcomings of my mismatched desks.

Yes, differences in sizes. The desks were about an inch different in height, and more like three inches different in depth. I could manage with the tops being different colours, but not the size differences, so I needed a plan B.

Plan B

I thought it would be simple to buy another desk from the same seller on Etsy to match the orange legged desk. Not so, the seller was no longer trading and try as I might I couldn’t find anything similar. A more imaginative response was needed.

I knew I could buy the hairpin legs as this was something we’d looked at before, but discarded for ease when we saw the desk. In the interim I’d also realised my desks would benefit from some drawer space. I had my heart set on some Bisley drawers, initially looking at second hand units on eBay, but without much joy.

Instead after some umming and ahhing these arrived, and I couldn’t be happier.

I had the legs, and now I had the drawers - all I needed now was the desk top. I struck lucky on the internet and ordered a piece of plywood the same thickness as the existing desk, I opted not to have it bevel cut as I didn’t think the cost of that was justified. I’m not sure I considered myself quite so lucky when it was delivered at seven o’clock one morning though!

All I needed now was MOH and tools. And I didn’t have long to wait.

It wasn’t long before the two hairpin legs were screwed in place and the plywood top was positioned on top of one set of Bisley drawers, themselves balancing on a plinth to get to the correct desk height.

Not only did they look good side by side, but the top down view also shows they’re the same height, as well as the same depth so now I have the continuous space I was after. It gives me space to have my sewing machine out, but also space to use the other desk in anyway I want - whether that’s for pressing seams, or papercraft, or anything else.

I have no excuses now for not being productive, and to be honest I can’t wait to get started in earnest. In September I had my first ‘sewing day’ - or an hour or so at least, and that felts such an accomplishment. I only made some scrap kitchen towels, but the sense of achievement, I can’t tell you.

A sense of order is coming, I’m sure of it!

The more I use my craft room, the more it becomes familiar and the more I remember where I put stuff. Whether I’m making cards, journalling, using my watercolours, sewing, knitting or crocheting - or even just pondering, it’s a space that makes me happy.

With my new friend Alexa alongside me (we’re converts - more in another post I’m sure) bringing all the information, tunes and podcasts I could want, the issue could now be to get me out of my craft room.

I’m looking forward to rediscovering many of the projects I’ve started - maybe even finishing some of them, and starting the new projects on my list and sharing them here in the months to come - look out for details of the Christmas cards I’ve made this year coming early next week.

Moving house, plus 4 months

We’ve been in our new house now a little over four months. It’s gone quickly, but at the same time feels like we’ve been here longer than that. I’ve said before that we both immediately felt at home here, and that’s not changed. Phew.

One thing I’m aware of is that I’ve not shared much about why we moved, the move or our new house here yet. On reflection I think that’s for a couple, or many reasons. Mostly perhaps because moving house is a lot. It’s a lot both emotionally, physically and often financially too, let alone the actual logistics of packing up one home and establishing a new one. And that’s without throwing in a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome operation less than a month before moving date, like me!

There’s also knowing where to start, and avoiding appearing in your own brag-fest.

So while I’ve already shared monthly updates from our new garden, including our rather lovely wall, there’s been little else. After four months here though, and a blog name change thrown into the mix, things are settling down and I’ve some more headspace so I’m hoping to share more. This post is hopefully where I discover where to start, and I hope it and those that follow don’t fall into the brag-fest category, that’s definitely not my intention.

We’ve mostly emptied all the boxes - though some remain in the house, and there’s still more than a few in the garage. We’ve got a date in the diary to meet up with friends in London to mark our escape to the country, as there just wasn’t time to arrange anything before we left as everything moved at about 110mph in the last month or so in our old home!

We still have plenty to do here. We don’t yet have a doorbell, my temporary house sign is still up albeit now complete with faded washi tape, we’re waiting for some furniture to arrive and waiting to order some more. MOH is beginning work on sorting out the garage, and although we’ve painted the trellis around the heat pump, we don’t have any further plans yet for the garden though I am sure these will follow.

From old…

We moved from a 150 year old three storey Victorian converted former coach house in South East London. Our house was on a fairly busy road, the A207 and close to the Sun in the Sands roundabout which many Londoners hear regularly on the morning traffic bulletins. For where we were we had a large, narrow and well established garden which we loved that was a place where you really couldn’t hear the traffic. Our house was well positioned for local transport with a bus stop almost outside the door, in between two train stations taking us quickly into Kings Cross, London Bridge or Cannon Street, plus it was easy to access the DLR at Lewisham and Greenwich, and the tube network at North Greenwich after a short bus ride.

Our house served us well, it was our first home together and we lived there for almost twenty one years, making many improvements and redecorating along the way - MOH vowed he would never again put a new kitchen in, and still stands by that today. We loved our house even holding our wedding reception in the garden, but with us both giving up work we knew we wanted to move somewhere out of London, to probably somewhere quieter.

That wasn’t an overnight decision, but one that brewed for a while; brewing more quickly and ferociously during lockdown, as many things did. It was then though that we started to think about where, make plans and to seriously think if giving up work and moving home was what we wanted or just a pie in the sky idea.

It wasn’t.

The more we looked into it and talked about it, along with the many ‘what-ifs’ we knew where we were heading, we were less sure about how to make it happen but we put a longer term plan together, using holidays to check out potential areas to live, without really letting on to anyone just yet. We started to implement our plan in earnest when I handed my notice in at work in January 2022, agreeing a leaving date in early May. Definitely an eek moment, as I’d not resigned from my role before.

It didn’t all go exactly to plan, but what does - there’s probably another post in here somewhere about selling our house and what we learnt - but the short version is MOH carried on contracting for almost another year which gave us the flexibility that was helpful.

…to new (literally)

We didn’t downsize when we moved and that was very much part of our plan, enabling both of us to have a ‘day space’ each. The last thing we wanted was to give up work, spend all of our time together and literally be living on top of each other too, so having space - for me that’s a craft room - was essential. We also wanted more space around us, giving easy access to the countryside but to keep journeys to family relatively straightforward. We also wanted to locate ourselves within easy reach of a larger town, so in the end our searches were based around Newark and Grantham, with Newark being our preference.

Our new house is a new build barn, which is quite a mind twister. It’s built on a small development of nine dwellings on a former farm in a small village about five miles south west of Newark-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, and so we are the ‘northest’ of our families! The development is a mix of new builds and renovations of existing barns on the farm, work on two is still taking place. The village is quiet, there’s no pub or shop (they are both in the next village), but we do have a post box, a church, plenty of history and a choice of three/four buses to Newark, Bingham and Nottingham.

We have four bedrooms, though one of those is my craft room, a double height kitchen diner, a utility room, downstairs loo (both of those are new things to us, as is our en-suite!), a plant room (of the gubbings sort, not the green variety), a pantry and two lounges, one of which is MOH’s domain, though in reality I use this room more than he’ll ever use my craft room.

The garden, as you’ve seen, is a good size and behind the house is grass right up to the Grade II former farm wall. Closer to the garage and bin area is our border, which was planted up as part of the build along with the turf, which I know not all new builds come with, and is where I currently get my gardening fix. We also have a border outside of our garden wall, so there’s plenty to keep us both busy.

That first night we sat in our new home surrounded by boxes after a long moving day - which involved us but not our movers, getting caught in stationary traffic on the A1 - it felt like home, and exactly the right thing to do. That day we also discovered we had good neighbours, as they took care of our movers providing them with a cup of tea and somewhere off the road to park, so our movers were happy too.

Getting settled

Even though we’d moved to a new build we knew there’d be things to do - some obvious, some not so.

The obvious included getting light fittings - bare bulbs aren’t my thing, and those paper shades are a big no for MOH - and window coverings to replace the temporary stick up Ikea blinds were high on our list, as was painting the trellis around the heat pump for me at least (we tackled that in the nice weather at the start of October in the end). Less obvious to start with but increasingly important was to kit out the bathrooms with loo roll holders, and changing the name of my blog!

We had family over the first two weekends we were here, and managed to have somewhere not too box heavy for them to sleep, so that was good. Since then we’ve emptied many more boxes, but a few ‘boxes of doom’ remain. These are the boxes of things you’re not quite sure you need, and if you do you’re not sure where they should go, and if you don’t need them then there’s the question of how to actually get rid of them! Some are now on our growing pile of things to eBay, along with things that we thought we’d need, or wanted to keep but are no longer important to us.

We’re waiting on shelving for the pantry and utility room, which in turn will free us of some more boxes and help get things straight(er) in the main downstairs area. I’m currently using the dresser, which we had in our conservatory in London, as a food cupboard so many of the things that usually live there are displaced. Thankfully it’s a large dresser though!

We’ve started to get the garage straight but before we can do too much the floor needs sealing and we want to paint the breeze block walls. I’ve further plans here but we need to get this done before we can sort out some shelving, which in turn will help empty those boxes.

Back indoors we have to sort through lots of pictures and bizarrely rugs. Only a few pictures from our old house have made it onto the walls here so far and I’m still not sure everything that once was on a wall will find a space in our new house. As for the rugs, we came from a house with wooden floors with only one room carpeted. Here only one room doesn’t have carpet, and rugs on carpet is definitely not going to happen.

I’ve got my eye on a console table or two, but after some not very successful online shopping for units for the dressing area, I’m being a little more cautious and want to see the quality for myself before I commit. We’ve a new TV unit on order which we’re hopeful will be here before Christmas, and if all goes well will house a new TV to replace our existing TV which didn’t enjoy the move as much as we have. It’s still watchable in the evenings, which luckily is when we mainly watch it, but sport and any daytime viewings are a hard watch on it, sadly.

So that’s where we’re at so far, and I think a good summary and introduction to our Bosworth Life. I plan to start to share more about our new house and how we’re making it our home, and maybe I’ll share more about what we learnt selling our last house, and maybe, just maybe at some point we’ll even get a door bell, or some pictures on the walls!