WOYWW 358–Misc Decorating

Still nothing on my desk I’m afraid, because we’ve been very busy with other things this week. Gary finished decorating our sitting room last week, and then did some odd jobs around the house that needed attention, including some priming of bits that had never got painted when we moved and the builders had finished – you know how it is, there are those pesky little bits that you never get round to doing, that you learn to live with until you cease to notice them, until the decorating bug bites again and suddenly you say “enough is enough!” I have been doing a bit of gloss and emulsion painting and then sleeping for 2 hours because I was so exhausted from the effort!

We also have some lamps that weren’t working and I’ve been attending to those. The black Ikea uplighter ceased working several months ago and my hubby said it was the dimmer switch. I’m not fussed about whether it dims or not, so yesterday I replaced the defunct switch with a normal one and lo and behold it works again! Nice. The fibre-optic lamp’s halogen bulb had gone and you have to take the lamp apart to replace the bulb, so it’s now in pieces awaiting the arrival of the replacement from Ebay, promised to arrive today. It didn’t. The cable for my work lamp (LED magnifier) has mysteriously vanished when we moved everything through to Mum’s flat in preparation for decorating. It has yet to turn up. We are still awaiting the arrival of the new chandelier which has been on order, due to arrive this week, we hope.

Once the decorative lamps are all working again and nicely arranged on the side table, and I’ve finished bringing stuff back into the room, I’ll upload the blog post I’m working on, charting the before, during and after of the redecorating of our sitting room. We are now using it again and it’s looking great – so bright and fresh, and the stencilling has worked a treat and looks really stylish. Watch this space.

So – miscellaneous decorating. First of all, the bi-fold doors to the airing cupboard.

These, and the rest of yesterday’s painting, all require a second coat. This gloss takes aaaages to dry and it’s still tacky! My cleaning lady is here today so I haven’t attempted a second coat, and will do it tomorrow, energy permitting. The rest of the utility room really needs decorating because only bits were done when the builders were altering it, and I’m going to use up the remaining green emulsion from the kitchen so it all matches – there are no doors in the doorways and you can see right through.

Up to the en-suite bathroom. The builders penetrated the wall into the old bathroom and created a doorway using the architrave from the utility room. When they removed it, it was quite damaged and I managed to patch it up and fill it as best as I could at the time. It remained patchy with the old cream paint and filler. It now has its first coat of new cream gloss.

Viewed from the other side you can see the door frame and new architrave created by the builders. This was just raw wood, with filler in the screw holes. Now also with its first coat of cream gloss after Gary primed it for me. (You can see the other side of it, and the arch into the loo, reflected in the mirror opposite!)

The threshold – likewise. Masking tape to remain until I’ve done the second coat.

Under the basin, the plasterboard at the back was a mess, with scorch marks from the blowtorch to melt the solder in the pipes, and it was discoloured and patchy. It now has its first coat of emulsion to match that on the arch visible in the first bathroom picture, and I’ve also painted the pipes. This space is where I keep my trolley that contains all my stoma supplies. You can see that in the first bathroom picture, too.

Finally, the water pipe from the high-level cistern in the loo, beyond the arch. There was still some green paint below the last remaining piece of dado, and a messy part where the old lead pipe was connected to the new plastic pipe. The first coat of cream gloss doesn’t fully cover the green, but I’m hoping another coat will do it.

It all looks so much better and more finished already! I am ashamed to say that these jobs have been waiting 2 1/2 years to be completed. I also had 2 boxes in the sitting room which had also been sitting around for 2 1/2 years waiting to be unpacked, containing ornaments and some other bits and pieces, and these are all unpacked now.

A few more finishing touches in the sitting room, and then we’ll have the Big Reveal!

Also last week, while the decorating was still going on, the windows man phoned to ask if he could come in about an hour’s time to replace our cloudy double-glazed units – he had a slot. We didn’t want to turn him down so we rushed around clearing the relevant rooms in front of the windows. They took down the grotty Venetian blind in the kitchen and I nearly killed myself cleaning it, rushing through the job to be finished in time for them to replace it before they left! It was still covered with builders’ dust etc. because the window is so large and high that I couldn’t reach it. Phew. What a job. Never again.

Phoebe, our younger cat, had another fit on Sunday evening, the second in a week. We phoned Auntie Megan, the vet, the next day and she said that it would be a few weeks till the increased dose of phenobarbital (started last week) takes effect. In a month’s time she wants to see her again and take more bloods and check her titre to make sure of the dose. This was the first time my hubby had seen her having a seizure – I’ve always had to deal with it on my own until now. She was very distressed and disoriented afterwards and needed lots of cuddles and reassurance.

In between all this, I have been trying to slot in at least 1/2 hour each day to practise my singing and guitar!

After all this work is finished, I’m really hoping to get back to my studio and do some ART!!

Happy WOYWW everybody, and a fruitful creative week ahead, in whatever direction that creativity takes you.

WOYWW 320

My desk today has on it the remains of the project I completed yesterday – a faux leather masterboard.

As usual, I haven’t put stuff away after I finished, but then, if I had, all you’d see would be a bare desk. I don’t know why, but I’ve often just finished something when it’s time for WOYWW!

You can see the masterboard on the craft mat. Here’s a better picture of it.

I’ve got a bit of a deadline on to make several projects, none of which I can show you until the recipients have received them, but the faux leather is definitely going to be used for one of them. At the end of last week, I did a mixed media project which I also can’t show you… I haven’t even got a sneak peak of that!

Resting on top of the masterboard on my desk is a plastic box with some acrylic paints in it. I mentioned to my hubby last night that I’d used up practically a whole tube of burnt umber, painting 2 A3 sheets for faux leather with 3 coats of paint, and I’d have to order some more, and he said he had some acrylics somewhere which he didn’t want. Someone gave them to him but he does watercolours. He dug them out and there’s a nice lot of burnt umber, as well as some other colours, but I still need to order some more paints.

You can also see the three tubes of acrylics on the left of the masterboard, that I used to paint it. Further to the left (mostly out of shot, you will be glad to hear) is the same untidy pile of stuff waiting to be put away! I hate putting things away. It’s a very boring task. Eventually I can’t stand the mess any more and then I get down to it.

Still not put away are the distress inks I used for my last project (which is still secret). Beside those are the gel medium and acrylic wax (also not yet put away!) used to finish my two faux leather masterboards. You can also see the piece of kitchen paper I used to clean up the brown acrylic paint I used. I keep these pieces of kitchen paper and use different ones for cleaning up different colours and eventually when they are nicely covered, they can be used for creating backgrounds, or reconstituted into “hand made paper.” Just as I hate putting things away, I also hate throwing things away!

That just about covers my desk for this week, I think.

I am determined to crack on with my projects and get as much done as possible before Friday when I have my fourth chemo treatment. I am not sure how I am going to feel afterwards, and with deadlines firmly in place, I am not at all sure I shall finish my projects! Hopefully the effects will last only for the first week, like last time – I can cope with that. After this treatment I will be half way through! What a great milestone that is – after that I shall be making rapid progress towards the end, which should take place in mid-October.

After showering, hair-washing, tidying my bathroom (I’ve finally put away all the bags of samples we picked up from the stoma open day back in June – I have now tried them all and done a review on my Gutless Bag Lady blog), making the bed with clean sheets, sorting the washing, taking my WOYWW photo and also dealing with a bag leak and a major stoma fountain in the bathroom first thing (sorry if that’s TMI but it was fairly dramatic!!! Kermit, my stoma, who is usually very well behaved, decided he was fed up with being a goodie 2-shoes and showed another side to his character!) – I am now exhausted and on the recliner. Hopefully I’ll feel a bit better later and will be able to crack on with my latest project.

Have a great WOYWW everybody with lots of creative juices flowing, and I look forward to seeing what you are all up to.

Decorations for Half-Tester, New RUBs and a Health Update

I haven’t been blogging much lately because we’ve had major problems at home with Mum and I’ve had a bit of a reaction and felt very poorly, and the stress has made my creative mojo take a walk! However, I’m feeling a bit better now, and now I’ve started the embroidery on my bed decoration pieces, this is something I can do while in the sitting room, and I am making slow but steady progress, and really enjoying it.

Embroidery

I have completed the embroidery on a few more pieces – one or two I had worked on before, but felt they needed a bit more, and some starting from scratch on the machine applique. Here are the four latest pieces:

and here are the detail shots of each one.

I added a lot of French knots on this one! Love the bobbly texture.

It’s very disappointing how photos never show up sparkly stuff – the metallic threads look quite lost in these photos, looking more like raffia! The top one has red and gold lurex thread, the second two gold, and the bottom one has copper. The little shi-sha mirrors don’t show up that well, either, but they really twinkle in the light.

If you look closely at them, you can see that the shi-sha stitch encases the edge of the little mirror, like the setting of a cabachon jewel. The stitch is a variation of chain stitch with two parts to it – you stitch alternately around the four-sided scaffold you work initially to hold the mirror in place, and into the background fabric. I love doing this stitch. You can use it to attach other things too, and I’ve done experimental pieces in the past, attaching shells and flat pebbles. I’ll have to dig out the piece sometime and photograph it, because I don’t seem to have any photos. I did a talk on shi-sha at the embroidery group I used to belong to in Plymouth and this was one of my demo pieces. I also made this purple bodice with a mount-board frame as an example:

Here is a little box I made, using the technique. To open the box, you squeeze the ends together. There is a shi-sha mirror on each of the three sides.

Looking back at this work, it makes me think I really should be getting back into embroidery again – I love it!!

Hopefully I’ll have some more photos of the bed decorations to show you soon. I’ve got a lot of work to do before I can start making them up, and then I shall make tassels to go on the end of each one – something I am really looking forward to doing, and I am already collecting images on Pinterest for my inspiration.

ARTHaven Organisation – RUBs

I have started adding to my existing collection of Really Useful Boxes (RUBs) again. Eventually nearly everything in my ARTHaven will be stored in these, and I am also collecting them for the shelves under the counter in my en-suite bathroom. I am delighted that after doing a lot of research and endless measuring and comparing, I have discovered that there are boxes that fit exactly in the various spaces I have! The effect is so much tidier than my endless scruffy cardboard boxes; they also keep the stuff better, and you can see through the box to see what’s in it. They have a nice uniformity of appearance whatever their size, and are starting to make my ARTHaven look really good! As the pennies allow, I shall add more in time.

On the RUB website, the prices are quite reasonable, but you have to pay postage if your order is less than £500 (and I certainly can’t afford to pay £500 all at once for boxes!). I have discovered a lot on Ebay, and you can sometimes buy multiple packs (2, 3, 5, 10 etc.) of a particular size, and many of them have free postage. Even when the price per individual box is a bit more than on the RUB website, in the long run it saves money because the postage on the RUB website bumps the price of each box up quite a lot, and also, you don’t have to buy a whole lot at once, and there are some good deals to be found.

In this photo of the floor units under the window, you can see I’ve supplemented my 9-litre collection, and also got some of the 9-litre XL boxes, which have tall lids. These are very good for storing bottles and jars, and anything that sticks up above the top edge of the box. The capacity of the box itself is the same as the regular box. The shelves in the floor units are just right for both these sizes. On the left, this large pull-out unit on casters had been a complete mess since we moved, full of a mixture of Dad’s old workshop tools, some of my tools, brackets and fixings, and my decorating stuff. This has now gone into the RUBs and once I manage to spend some time organising the contents properly, I should be able to lay my hands on what I want with ease.

I love how the blue handles clip in place, locking the lids.

Moving over to the storage area on the other side of the room, I have the free-standing cabinet that the previous owner of the house left in my bathroom. I am delighted that each of the open shelves in the centre exactly accommodates one 19-litre RUB. I had a couple of these, and have now completed the set.

Unfortunately, because the doors occupy some space, I cannot get them in the cupboards, but that doesn’t matter because when closed, the contents don’t show anyway. The cupboards are full of fabrics, picture frames and Ikea mirrors for altering, amongst other things.

On the wall opposite the window is the large wall unit, and in this picture you can see the progress I am making. On the left, the shelves are filled with plastic containers that I got years ago from our local supermarket – they had contained things like coleslaw for the deli counter, and I asked them to save them for me, and some of them had margarine in them – I used to buy large quantities for baking, and saved all the boxes which have been incredibly useful over the years – in their first incarnation they were kitchen storage boxes, and like many of my kitchen things, eventually found their home in my ARTHaven! These containers will remain, and not be replaced by RUBs. They contain haberdashery. The centre shelves now house two 9-litre RUBs end-to-end, and one of several of the long 22-litre boxes I have, which are useful for storing rolls of paper. Not all the RUBs stack with each other, but I have found that I can stack two 9-litre boxes end to end on top of a 22-litre box. The contents won’t necessarily stay as they are – the whole thing is still in a state of flux.

I am so looking forward to replacing the untidy cardboard boxes! I shall be getting some 25-litre boxes to go on top of this wall unit, and on top of my mixed media wall unit over the other side of the room as well. The shelves on the right of the large wall unit will continue to be used for drawing stuff (my Zentangle stuff is there) and I shall keep the pretty box on the top shelf, which houses my metallic embroidery threads and embroidery sequins and beads. It all just needs tidying up and organising a bit better.

The bottom shelf in the middle at the moment holds all my soap making stuff. The brown plastic box on the left has essential oils and other liquids for soap, beauty and cleaning products I am going to make. The rest of the soap stuff will go in RUBs once I get them.

Once I get the large black shelf unit in the storage area better organised, I will show you photos of that. I am very thrilled that this unit, which is all that remains of a much larger unit which came out of a shop that was closing down, is exactly the right size for some under-bed storage boxes I had (not RUBs), and also accommodate the 22-litre RUBs end-wise, and the 9-litre and 19-litre boxes.

Health Update (Not TMI, I hope!! No need for the more squeamish among you to read on…)

I am now in the throes of preparation for my regular two-yearly colonoscopy which is taking place on Monday morning. On Wednesday I stopped taking my colitis medication and also my iron, and yesterday was the first day of the special low-fibre diet you have to go on. Today is the second day. During these two days I am not allowed any fruit or vegetables, and can’t have my lovely breakfast porridge (oatmeal) and have to have cornflakes instead – I always say there’s more nourishment in the packet than in the actual cornflakes! They are soooo boring… I can have white bread (I am eating French bread which I love) and butter and other dairy stuff (milk, yoghurt, rice pudding etc.). I can have potatoes with no skins, and white rice but no whole grains or nuts. I can have protein such as chicken and fish, and I can drink apple juice, tea, coffee and plenty of water.

On the final day (tomorrow) I cannot eat any solid food except jelly, for 24 hours before the procedure, but if I have my breakfast at a reasonable time that will be OK. For the rest of the day it will just be clear soup, apple juice, water, tea or coffee without milk (which I don’t like so will avoid, apart from green tea with honey). I am allowed jelly, and jelly babies for energy! I am encouraged to drink plenty of fluids right up to the time of the examination.

Tomorrow the worst part will be taking the powerful laxatives to purge my system. I have to take a bottle of senna, and then twice during the day, a sachet of Picolax dissolved in water. The effect of this is severe and acute diarrhoea, so I intend camping out in the bedroom so I can make frequent quick dashes into my en-suite bathroom! Previous experience has shown that my rear end gets very sore, and they recommend the application of Vaseline (petroleum jelly) to soothe the skin, and I am also prepared with two packs of unperfumed moist toilet tissue. The whole business is most unpleasant, and to make it easier, I am planning on surrounding myself with my laptop, a collection of DVDs that I’ve been saving for the purpose, my embroidery, books and my iPod!! Also containers of jelly, jelly babies, a Thermos of my best Jewish chicken soup (of which I could drink gallons, no problem!) made in advance, and jugs of water and apple juice!! With the kitties for warmth and company, I should be fine.

On Monday morning my hubby will drop me off at the hospital, and they will give me a sedative before inserting the camera into my bowel. They usually need to pump you up with CO2 (they used to use air, but with the muscle relaxant drug they give you, this caused an unacceptable amount or discomfort from wind retention afterwards – the CO2 is absorbed painlessly into the body). Because people who suffer from ulcerative colitis are at higher risk than the normal population of developing bowel cancer, they will look for pre-cancerous polyps and remove any they find, and will probably take a biopsy as well. The procedure really isn’t too bad, and afterwards, because of the sedative, one remembers very little about it. There is a recovery period, and then they will give me some food. Last time I asked for brown bread egg sandwiches and a cup of tea (I had two large cups) and it tasted like a king’s banquet – even the disgusting hospital tea!! Once I am home, I can start eating normally again, and go back on my medication.

I’ll let you know how I get on…

Third, Fourth and Fifth Soap Making Classes

I’ve got really behind with posting about the soap making classes, because I was going all out to finish the recycled mini-album and have been very busy with other things.

In the third class we did layering and embedding with the soaps. The first one we did was supposed to be like a snow globe, but unless you use crystal clear soap base (which is not SLS free and may not be hypoallergenic) it is rather translucent and spoils the effect a bit. We were provided with little plastic gingerbread men to embed in the soap, suspended on wires while the soap hardened. We were supposed to put glitter in the clear soap, but of course Shoshi forgot, so hers is a snow globe with no snow lol! (Global warming, perhaps?!!) Anyway, most of our results fell short of satisfactory, with most people’s gingerbread men coming out at a jaunty angle and looking drunk, and mine certainly fitted that description, made worse by the fact that his feet were sticking out through the base!

I was very unhappy with this. This style of soap isn’t what I’m interested in making anyway, because as you know, cutesy isn’t my style… However, my lovely cleaning lady loved it, so I am giving it to her! At least someone is happy…

The other two soaps we made were much more satisfactory.

First of all, we made tiny red hearts from white soap base, in small moulds. We then put some white soap base (coloured if we wanted, and with fragrance added) into the base of a full-sized heart-shaped mould, and the teacher took these away to pop in the freezer to speed up the setting process. When they came out, we scored the surface to roughen it, and sprayed it with a little rubbing alcohol, both of which helped the next layer to adhere properly. We then poured in some clear soap (also coloured and fragranced as desired) and while it was still liquid, we added the little red hearts we’d made earlier. These came out very much better.

In the fourth class, we made bath bombs. This didn’t grab me at all… You mix bicarbonate of soda with citric acid (both white powders) and then spritz with water, taking great care not to make it too wet or it just fizzes away. For colour, we used powdered colour rather than liquid, and added a few drops of essential oil or fragrance oil for scent. We mixed it up well and kept spritzing until it had the consistency of wet sand, and then squashed it into a mould and turned it out onto the table and left it to dry.

I hated doing this; the powder got into my mouth, nose and eyes, which was most unpleasant, and I had a job getting the consistency just right. I managed to make quite a good selection, though, and once wrapped, they looked pretty good.

I tried one in the bath, and after an initial fizz, that was it! I much prefer a good soak in bubble bath, so shan’t be making these again. The ones I’ve made will be nice for presents because I know a lot of people do enjoy bath bombs.

In the fifth and final class, we made bath melts. This was a lot more satisfactory than the previous week’s efforts. We mixed shea butter and coconut oil with some almond oil, in some empty tin cans the teacher provided – she had made wire handles for these. They were lowered into a pan of boiling water on the hob, and melted gently. Once melted, we could add fragrance and/or colour, and then pour the liquid into moulds to set. Again, the teacher put them in the freezer to speed things up, because these take quite a long time to set, preferably being left overnight, and we had to have them hard enough to carry home.

Again, I don’t think I shall bother to make these again. Really they are just a base for introducing fragrance into the bath, adding a bit of moisturising along the way. Not bubbly enough for me!

The other night I had my first aromatherapy bath. I’d read online that you should not put neat essential oil into the bath because it tends to clump together and can come into contact with your skin, which can cause irritation because it is incredibly strong. There are very few essential oils which are safe to apply direct to the skin; normally they are diluted in a carrier oil. One website said that you should mix it with a tablespoonful of carrier oil (I used olive oil) and pour that into the bath. I used lavender oil, and also put some in the top of my little oil burner that has a tea light underneath, and leaving the bedroom lamp on and turning off the other lights, I lit several candles and had a wonderful soak – I’d also added some fragrance-free bubbles – it was the most fantastic experience, really relaxing and lovely, but oh boy, the state of the bath afterwards… I use an inflatable bath lift (known as Boris!) and also a non-slip rubber mat, and everything, including the bath, was extremely greasy. After feeling so relaxed after the bath, all I wanted to do was fall into bed and enjoy the benefits, and not waste the whole effect by spending half an hour cleaning up the mess, so I left it till the next day. It took me ages to get it clean, and I had to use some multi-surface cleaner to disperse the oil (Ecover, made of natural stuff, but even so, that stuff gets in my throat and makes me cough!) – I was NOT a happy bunny.

I went on the soap making forum I have joined – they have an essential oils section – and asked for advice on a painless way to clean up, and several people said that they never used the carrier oil as the clean-up was such a bore, and I now have some instructions for home-made bath salts, using Epsom salts, into which you sprinkle some essential oil and keep it in a jar. You can colour it, too. It looks gorgeous! I now have some Epsom salts on order and am keen to try.

This is all a huge learning curve, and it is great fun learning how to make my own beauty products, and I know exactly what’s gone into them, and can colour and fragrance them as I like. They also make gorgeous presents. I am also learning about making my own cleaning products which will be natural, and also very cheap to make, and not full of harsh, strong-smelling chemicals, which I have come to dislike intensely since I developed M.E. – many people develop chemical sensitivity, and it’s nice to be able to avoid these things.

I’ll keep you up to date with the things I make. I’ve gradually been collecting bits and pieces online, mostly from Ebay – moulds, essential oils, soap bases, etc. I shall also be using my other skills to create pretty labels and packaging for them, and I am saving suitable empty bottles and containers.

WOYWW 273

For details of how to join in the world’s most famous nosey fest, please click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s site, where all will be revealed.

Are you ready for this?

My poor ARTHaven… I can’t actually get near enough the actual “desk” (main work area) because most of my office stuff has been dumped in my ARTHaven! Yesterday Andy and Paul (the builders who worked on our new house last year) came to finish off a few jobs that required attention, such as fixing my bath properly, to stop it moving. It is a free-standing one and came with no instructions for fitting, and I soon discovered that it wasn’t stable, so I haven’t really been able to use it, but have had to use the shower all the time. They also mended my ARTHaven sink tap which was broken, and put some silicone caulk around the sink, and around my bathroom counter, as there had been some settling over the months and the grout had cracked away. They also replaced the electric shower with a mixer tap shower in my hubby’s bathroom and fitted a grab rail for him (the poor chap is feeling his age since his retirement lol!). Finally, they added some more shelf supports for the long shelves in my office (small section off my main ARTHaven) as they were proving not man enough for all the stuff I need to store on them. Because of this, I had to move everything through into my ARTHaven, hence the chaos you see above!

We are going out all day today so I won’t be able to start visiting desks until later, or tomorrow. I cannot sort my ARTHaven till all that is over, and I’ve recovered after the day out, and also there is a spare rug in the loft which my hubby is going to measure, and if it’s suitable, I shall empty the bookcases in my office so that I can move them and get it laid down – might as well do this when half the stuff is out anyway! It will also give me the opportunity to clean the room, which is very dusty. Autumn cleaning? Why not!

You might just be able to glimpse over the chaos onto my desk, and see the bereavement card – I have made good progress on it and it is more or less complete now. I’ve finished the two-layered front section and have been working on the inside. The blog post about it shouldn’t be too long coming now!

Finally today, I’m taking a leaf out of Bridget’s book and posting a couple of foody photos – last night I made a rhubarb lasagne. Here it is ready for the oven:

and just out of the oven, being served:

The colour in the second photo isn’t that good because it’s in artificial light and even with some manipulation I can’t get it right! Anyway, you can see the layers in the lasagne in the dish. If you think fruit lasagne is weird, I can assure you it’s quite delicious! The middle layer consists of cream cheese and some cheddar, with egg and sugar. The other layers are the rhubarb, spiced with ginger, and on top is a sort of crumble, and I have added some flaked almonds. I have the equivalent recipe for apple lasagne, and that one is spiced with cinnamon. They are both absolutely delicious puddings and I served last night’s rhubarb one with Greek yoghurt. Yum yum.

Happy WOYWW everybody.

Our New House–Final Jobs

After the builders left last year, there were a few problems that developed in the ensuing months, and yesterday Andy phoned to say that at last they had a day between jobs, when they could come and tie up these odds and ends. He and Paul arrived early this morning, and it was quite like old times having them around again!

The main job that needed attention was my bath in the en-suite bathroom. This free-standing bath came with no fitting instructions, and Paul did his best at the time, but I found that the bath was moving if I leant on one side, and then a few months ago I was showing some people around the new house and one of them sat on the end of the bath and it all started to tip up! As a result of this I was very loath to use it in case the movement had caused any breach in the waste, which would cause a flood. Paul did come back and try another tactic to fix it but it didn’t work, and today he finally fixed it for good, by attaching two L-brackets to the side of the bath and onto the floor – very difficult to get at behind the bath! Unless you look behind the bath, you really can’t see them, and it now feels rock solid. Very pleasing! I did warn Paul not to drill right through the second skin of the bath and make a hole right through, because I didn’t fancy pretending to be a little Dutch boy every time I had a bath, plugging the hole with my finger!!

The grab rails in my bathroom that came from Amazon look brilliant, but the design was awful – they were a real pain to fit, and the covers kept popping off. Paul did glue most of them down but he said that a couple of them seemed to be OK so he didn’t bother. In the meantime they have both popped off, so he has now glued them like the others, so they won’t shift.

Finally in the en-suite bathroom, the counter Paul had built for me had settled very slightly, pulling the grout away, so he has now gone right around with silicone caulking and it all looks very neat. It won’t be fully cured till tomorrow morning so meantime a lot of my bathroom stuff is back in the bedroom!

My hubby has been complaining recently about the electric shower in his bathroom being far too weedy to be any good. It is obviously pretty old, and rather than trying to repair it, he decided he’d like a mixer shower tap fitted to the bath, so Andy turned up today with a second-hand one from his store, for which he charged us a very reasonable sum. It looks great on the bath! The hose from the electric shower is visible on this photo, but my hubby has since unscrewed and removed it. We are leaving the actual shower in place, because to remove it would involve making a mess of the wall. They also fitted the poor old chap a grab rail – he’s feeling his age since his retirement!!

In my ARTHaven, the grout had also cracked away around the sink, so that is now beautifully finished with silicone caulking. Also, a few months ago, the head of the tap fell off! It is an extending tap with a hose, and I was able to manage jut using the hose, but Paul has now re-attached the tap with his special super glue. I had pointed out to him a little lug on the underside which fits into a corresponding groove in the main body of the tap, but he forgot about it, and glued the tap on so that if you engaged the lug in the groove, the tap was pointing at the ceiling! He said that as soon as he’d done it, he remembered, but by then it was to late, as the glue had set. While I did agree that an indoor fountain may be attractive, it wasn’t really what was required! In the end Paul cut the lug off altogether, and the result is better than before – the tap can now be located in any position without the inner pipe showing, and it’s now working absolutely fine again.

In the office section, the two long shelves they had fitted were certainly showing their inability to cope with the heavy loads I imposed on them, so they are now strengthened with a wooden batten, and additional supports have been fitted.

In order for this work to be done, I obviously had to take everything off the shelves, and clear space for them to work. All this stuff was dumped in my ARTHaven:

Lovely mess, isn’t it. I am not intending to put it back until my hubby has had a chance to measure a rug we’ve got in the loft. If it is suitable, I shall move the bookcases in the office so that I can lay it down, and it seems sensible to do all this while a lot of the stuff is out of the office anyway. The reason I want a rug is that the laminate floor is rather slippery and offers no resistance to the castors on my office chair, which tends to scoot around all over the place when I want it to remain stationary! This has also proved to be a major problem in the ARTHaven proper, so I am unable to use my lovely comfy revolving chair, which is now just taking up space. Instead, I am using my old wheelchair (with the foot rest removed) – I can lock the wheels and it stays put. It is also very comfortable!

Moving everything out of my office has made me realise how dusty everything was, so I’m also taking advantage of this situation in order to clean up a bit in there. We are out tomorrow so I won’t be able even to think about it till Thursday and probably not then, because I will probably be too tired after our outing.

The final job was to fix Mum’s new door. They had fitted this when they replaced the window with a smaller one, so that she would have independent access into her little patio and wouldn’t have to come through our part of the house to get out. The trouble is, she simply can’t get to grips with anything mechanical, and these modern doors are more complicated to work than old-fashioned ones – she found lifting the handle in order to lock it quite incomprehensible, and somehow kept managing to lock the door when it was open, so that the lock projected and prevented the door from closing at all. She then kept banging the door incessantly, trying to make it close, and making the whole house shake in consequence, and the result was that the door wouldn’t close at all without an effort – she had obviously forced something and it was out of alignment. Paul whipped the hinge covers off and adjusted the hinges, and it now works like a dream! The trouble was, Mum then said she’d be able to lock it again herself, and I had a terrible time persuading her NOT to do this, but to continue to rely on my hubby and me to do it for her each evening. We don’t want a recurrence of the problem!

So all in all, a good day, with lots achieved. All those little niggles are now sorted!

A Roller-Coaster of a Year

Here is my usual end-of-year roundup post. What a roller-coaster of a year it has been, to be sure! So much has happened that I scarcely know where to begin.Last December, I could never have imagined that our circumstances would change so much in a single year.

The most important event of the year was the death of my dear father on 6th December. I am so full of good and happy memories of this exceptional and wonderful person – a true Renaissance man with all his skills, interests and accomplishments – and I feel extraordinarily blessed to have had him as my father. His influence on my life has been profound, and as well as being a wonderful father, he was also my mentor and friend.

Eighteen months ago he first went into residential care with dementia, which had been slowly increasing over the past couple of years with his short-term memory beginning to fail, but with the onset of a severe UTI, its progress was exacerbated, and with each further infection which he suffered, he recovered less well, and his decline was steady up until the time he died. When he first went into the residential home, my mum was on her own in their cottage which was not ideally placed for an elderly person living alone with no access to transport – there were absolutely no amenities nearby, and with her increasing needs, my dear hubby was having to do a great deal of running around on her behalf, and for Dad, too, and we needed to centralise things.

Our original plan was to get both of them moved into more suitable accommodation, and then in 2014 when my hubby retires, we would move in with them, possibly converting the upstairs into a flat for ourselves, and we would continue to live there after they had both passed on, and for the past two or three years, we were house hunting with this scenario in mind. We looked at several houses that would have been absolutely ideal, but because we could not sell my parents’ house for some considerable time, we were not in a position to buy, and we lost them all. It was very disappointing at the time, but God knows best, and if we had managed to get one of them, and then the situation changed with Dad having to go into residential care, it would have been a total disaster! As it was, we then had to search for somewhere for us to move in straight away, and my hubby would have to commute to work rather than living more or less over the shop (which is not convenient, but workable, and it’s only for about 6 months anyway). It had to be organised so that my hubby and I would have the larger portion of the house, and Mum would have an annexe or single-bedroomed flat.

We were able to find the perfect place eventually, and things fell rapidly into place with an offer being made and accepted on my parents’ house, putting us in a position to buy. However, considerable work needed doing on the property, including the complete replacement of the roof, and so began the great adventure with Andy and the other builders – I was popping over two or three times a week and got really involved with everything that was going on, and had such fun! You can read the whole account with lots of photos if you look for posts entitled “Our New House” or “My New ARTHaven” in my blog archive. I had a major input into the design of the various alterations and renovations, and this has improved my own quality of life no end, with adaptations (including a stairlift) that mean that my hubby has to do far less for me these days – good for both of us as I enjoy more independence, and he is free of the burdens that took up so much of his time, especially as now he is having to spend more time driving, and of course there are always things that Mum needs doing.

The major renovations indoors are my new kitchen:

with its reduced-height work surface that I can sit at, to prepare food, wash up and cook. The other side has full-height units with cupboards underneath, and a new peninsula unit which makes the whole working area a lot more compact and manageable.

I have a new utility room which also includes part of the back passage, with access through a lovely new arch.

I also have a newly formed airing cupboard (made to my own specifications) with new bi-fold doors, and we have a new glass panel in the back door which gives a nice view into the garden, and lets in loads more light.

The new boiler replaces this one and its huge tank, which took up so much space in the old annexe kitchen:

The door from the annexe kitchen has been blocked off, and the annexe kitchen has been completely redone, using units from the original main kitchen but with much nicer worktops.

Before the door from the annexe kitchen was blocked off, there was access from the annexe to our back passage and out through the back door. With this exit being blocked, there was only one entrance into the annexe, from the hall in the main house, and for safety, and also to maintain our privacy, we had a new door opened up from the annexe sitting room into the garden.

Outside, we had a ramp built up from the back door to the garden steps, and sloping down each side, for easy access with the wheelchair.

At the top of the garden, the other main alteration was the building of my hubby’s magnificent new Man Cave, which he now has so well equipped that he could actually move in there – microwave, kettle, TV and radio!

He has graciously allowed me one corner to store my new buggy. This is something else new this year. Two years ago, almost to the day of Dad’s death, my uncle died, and since then, his mobility scooter had been sitting in their garage, and my aunt said I could have it, so a little while after we moved (mid Sept.) my hubby drove up to Staffordshire to collect it. My new-found independence! I can get to the shops on my own, and go visiting!

Upstairs, more magic! My beautiful new en-suite bathroom (which my hubby calls my “girlie bathroom”) was created from the original separate bathroom and loo. It is the last word in modernity and glamour, and with the addition of some very stylish grab rails and walk-in shower, it is well suited to my needs.

This bathroom, my beautiful new kitchen and utility room and airing cupboard, and all the other renovations, work so well for me! We both so enjoy living in this house now that it has been upgraded to our own specifications.

Last, but not least, is my fabulous new purpose-built ARTHaven. Ever since I semi-converted my office in the old house to double as a studio, neither use worked properly, and I hankered after a space built for my requirements. One of the features that attracted me about the upstairs of the new house was one of the bedrooms which had a partitioned off space with a washbasin (called a “dressing room” on the agents’ particulars) and I realised that this space could become my office, with the ARTHaven beyond. (By the way, the awful floral wallpaper in the hall and landing has now been replaced with cream emulsion, which shows off our pictures much better, and is far more restful on the eye!)

It was made to measure! My big desk fits across the end of the office with 6 inches to spare!

(The office is a bit tidier than this now. Not a lot, but a bit!!) The washbasin at the other end of the room has been replaced by a sink, which will be wonderful for my art work.

It has been left open at the front deliberately, for easy access for storage. There is now a small microwave on a corner shelf above, for dyeing and other procedures.

Into the ARTHaven proper, I designed the layout myself, and Andy the Magician brought it to life for me! The continuous curving MDF work surface is supported on el-cheapo open-fronted kitchen base units, and is divided into different work zones. I had a brainwave that since I could only sit at one work zone at a time, why waste precious storage space by having several empty spaces under the work surface? Andy put base units on castors, so that they can be pulled out when I want to sit there, and these units also provide another surface to put things on while I work.

There are wall units above the work surface, with extra shelves, and over the blocked-off fireplace is my display area, for showing off small artworks, both my own, and gifts from fellow artists.

On the final wall, backing onto the office, is an area of free-standing storage with a large, deep MDF shelf above for storing all those large flat items that we find so difficult to find homes for.

There is still a lot of sorting to do in there before I get it how I want it, but I have started working in there and it is an absolute dream… the window faces more or less due north, so I have none of the problems I had before, with dazzling afternoon sun. I have ample power points around the room, and excellent LED lighting over each work zone, and have I have also set up a rig for my new video camera. The original carpeted floorboards have been covered with a beautiful light wood laminate flooring which makes cleaning up easy. It is an absolute dream of a room and I keep pinching myself, wondering when I’m going to wake up!

The trouble is, with all the activity of the past year, and the tremendous amount of work involved in sorting my parents’ house and getting Mum moved up to my sister’s till the new house was ready, sorting and packing all of our own stuff, moving in while the builders were still here, and then all the unpacking, and then the emotional upheaval of my dear dad’s passing, and the work involved in planning and taking part in his funeral, have left me feeling exhausted, and not able to spend as much time in there as I had hoped, but in the New Year I am sure that things will settle down and I will get into a better routine at last.

We had a lot of stress getting Mum moved in and settled. She is better now, but we have had a rocky start and at one time I did wonder whether this arrangement was going to work at all. Things are better now, and she does realise that even if it’s not what she really wants, which is to be back in her old house, living the independent life she once enjoyed, it is the only possibility apart from a residential home which she won’t consider, and as her friends keep reminding her, that she is very fortunate to have us under the same roof. So many of her widowed friends live alone, and far from their children. We see Mum every day and help her with things, and take her out, and generally keep an eye on her and make sure she’s OK. She’s had several episodes of bashing her legs (twice on Christmas day!!) necessitating visits to casualty to have them dressed, but apart from that and her severe deafness, she is remarkably fit for 92, and is still cooking for herself. We share a delightful young lady who cleans for us, and my hubby has a much smaller and more manageable garden to deal with – it is so lovely, and when he retires next year, he will have more time to enjoy it.

On the health front, my M.E. has remained remarkably stable despite the stresses and the huge amount of physical work I have been involved with. I had a fairly big dip shortly after we moved, with extreme exhaustion and badly swollen legs, and a recent severe cold which has left me coughing still, but apart from that I am now quite a bit better. Back in the summer I had a positive result on my first bowel cancer screening test, necessitating a colonoscopy which revealed not cancer (thank goodness!) but ulcerative colitis, for which I am now taking medication which has reduced my bowel symptoms by about half.

We have moved from an area where “broadband” was a complete joke, to the outskirts of a town that rejoices in fibre-optic broadband, which is so fast that it leaves us breathless! For the first time we can now access catch-up TV, and recently got a wireless box for our Sky satellite TV setup, enabling us to watch this on our smart TV.

Because of everything that has gone on this year, I have been much less productive on the art front than in previous years, but I did manage to make myself a smart pair of mixed-media spoke guards for my wheelchair before I started packing up well in advance of the move:

These incorporated some of the fabric flowers I received from Judy in Australia, in a swap.

I also started work on an album all about Dad’s life. If things had been different, I would like to have had it completed in time for his funeral so that everyone could have looked at it and seen all his amazing accomplishments, but that was not to be, and it remained packed in a box for months. I have now got it all out again, and am beginning to scan material for use on subsequent pages to the only page I have yet been able to create, on his ancestry.

Since the move, I have made a mixed-media card for a friend, using one of Ryn’s moth stamps and angelina fibre, against an inked and embossed background:

I have also started making some door plates for the downstairs of our house, where the beautiful art deco originals have been removed. I took a mould from one from upstairs and have been experimenting with different materials to make them from.

When trimmed up and painted with a faux vintage metal effect, I am hoping they will be indistinguishable from the originals.

With everything that has been going on over the past two or three years, with my parents gradually becoming less able to cope, and culminating with the events of this year, my hubby and I have not had a holiday for three years. I am hoping very much that we will be able to get away for a fortnight together after he retires next summer. We could both do with it!

Plans for the coming year also include finishing unpacking the remaining boxes, and getting my big spice rack and various other things fixed up, utility room cupboards to be organised, and touching up bits of painting around the house. I am planning to continue organising my new ARTHaven, and as time goes on, incorporate my art into its beautification – I have lots of storage boxes which I would like to decorate, and I’d like to make some wall art, bunting and other decorative features. I also want to return to my Zentangle art which has been seriously neglected of late – this, along with my knitting and other sedentary activities could well have been done from the comfort of the recliner, but I have simply not felt inclined, with everything else that had to be done.

My most imminent, and very exciting activity for the New Year will be the arrival of my new iMac computer, and learning how to use it. I currently have two laptop PCs which are now about seven years old and starting to show their age with the huge demands I put on them with the video work I am now doing, and when I considered updating them, was put off by Windoze 8 which doesn’t appeal to me at all, as I believe Microsoft have lost the plot somewhat. I have been fed up with Windoze for years, with its constant security problems and the workflow being incessantly interrupted by upgrades of this and that, and the general lack of integration of the system. I have often wished I’d started off with Mac in the first place, but once I’d got caught up in Windoze I had so much invested in it that I thought it would be impossible to change at this late stage. However, I have now discovered that there are ways of running Windoze software on the Mac, and ways of integrating my data with the new operating system, and after a discussion on Boxing Day with our nephew, who has used Mac for years, and playing with his Mac Book, I have finally decided to take the plunge. It is due for delivery in the first or second week of January. I am super-excited. Watch out for progress reports!

Further plans include developing my mixed-media art skills and experimenting further with different materials. I want to pursue my interest in working with reflective surfaces, and I am really keen to get started with Gelli printing. Now that I have work zones set up, and my sewing machine can be permanently out, I want to expand the parameters of my mixed-media work and incorporate textile, fibre and stitch into my work, and begin experimenting with dyeing and fabric printing again – something I used to do many years ago. The boundaries between all these disciplines are increasingly becoming broken down, and it is a very exciting time to be exploring new techniques, with all the wonderful materials and equipment at our disposal these days. I just hope and pray for enough energy to be able to get really stuck in in my wonderful new ARTHaven during the coming year!

To close, I want to pay tribute to my wonderful hubby. Over this past year, he has worked tirelessly for our family – dealing with all the arrangements for Dad, having power of attorney, and organising everything surrounding his care and eventual death, sorting out endless problems with Mum, arranging removals, storage and clearance, ferrying me and loads of stuff here and there – the list goes on and on, and all the while, he has been working full-time in a demanding job, and sacrificing so many of his days off for the needs of the family. He deserves a medal, and so much more besides – not to mention a good long rest! People like my hubby are the unsung heroes of our society, who do not receive recognition in the New Year’s Honours List, but without whom our nation would be the poorer. I simply cannot imagine what we would have done without him. Thank you, my darling boy. You are a rock.

May I wish all my faithful followers, visitors and friends a very happy and prosperous New Year, full of stimulation and creativity, and happy relationships with friends and family alike. May God bless you all.