Moregeous Monday Moments (Hello 2017, a little late)

There’s nothing like an easy start to the year and by heavens, this has been nothing like an easy start to the year. I keep thinking about all those people tweeting about how 2016 was so tough and 2017 would be way easier. Hmmmmmm. On site here we’ve been battling through as the weather fights against us, determined to finish the bays, get the scaffolding down and get back working inside asap. I shouldn’t really moan as at least we’re talking drizzle and not torrential downpours, but drizzle doesn’t make for pleasant roofing whilst the last of the box gutters are being repaired, resealed and re-slated.In the evenings, Builder Cat & I got a shimmy on painting the new hard wood timber cornice which arrived early in January. Only one of the old now-removed bays still had its original cornice fitted, though it was damaged and partly rotten. We made the decision to have moulds made (by Dresser Mouldings) and new decorative timbers crafted. All needed priming, undercoating and top coating before being taken outside and yep, me and my poor back got the job!I’m not even kidding when I say that three lots of joiners refused to slice and fit those lengthy pieces of cornice, can you believe it? I’ll show you the process properly in a full blog post, partly in case any of you decide to be crazy enough to do the same and partly because now they’re fitted, after all the angle cutting traumas and tears, they look so damned gorgeous. We’re both rightly proud, both to have restored such splendour and to have done them ourselves 🙂Meanwhile indoors, my design ideas for the different rooms are starting to take shape. The green ceiling is looking rather splendid now the brass drop pendants are glowing, low wattage LED bulbs to both save on energy whilst giving a lovely ambient light at different heights around the edge of the living room. The brass lamp holders look fab at the end of the pea-green cables, both of which I found and bought from Industville.Up in the Daddy Dormer, we’ve mixed up old and new by polishing and waxing some of the original floorboards to be used as steps. I adore the natural wood against the deep navy blue cladding and feel it demarcates the different levels of the LVT flooring fabulously.I laid the new Amtico white washed wood tiles out on each level of the mezzanine dormer to help decide which way I wanted the Pleat pattern to run. I’d love to know which one would you have opted for? For me, once they were down, the one on the right was infinitely preferable.

It’s a very good idea to always lay out tiles in situ if you can, to get a sense of which pattern and direction they should be laid as this can be very hard to imagine. I’d actually always imagined I’d lay them the way they’re laid out on the left, and I have great vision when it comes to pattern, so it just goes to show that laying tiles out can be very helpful.

I’ll show you the floor properly when it’s all finished, I promise, but it’s still pretty chaotic up there and there’s enough chaos on this blog, methinks.

Down in the dining room, I’ve been looking for tiles for one of the walls for ages and have just stumbled across the perfect ones in Casa Ceramica, a new retailer in Manchester. I’ve been chatting with owner Duncan for ages on Twitter and kept meaning to call in. Finally Mr M and I finally got a chance to call in last weekend and I could have kicked myself. Hard. It’s a spectacular showroom, well worth a visit.

Now I just need to decide on lighting and layout for the dining room and we can crack on with these Diesel beauties. The slight rusting effect to the tile edges pick up the golden glow of the new floor wonderfully and nail the soft industrial yet heritage vibe I’m aiming for. They can’t be fitted fast enough for me!

Life is a little complicated at the moment so I’ll be trying my best to post regularly, but there may be some blogging gappage. Bear with me, and see you soon x