It’s a good job we’re super human here because I’m not even kidding, there’s so much I can’t share. We’ve been busy filming on a new telly box show, designin’, creatin’ & beaverin’ away to our hearts content but it’s all top secret and I can’t show you, so it’s pretty lucky we’ve been shoehorning in some reno work here at home and some mini-trips out and about.
I was under the cosh last week to get the newly restored Bathhouse Studio 2 at Withington Baths ship shape and ready for her grand & official launch. Mr M and I got skirtings on & beads painted, stripped some of the stone frames to look finished, buffed up the amazing Amtico floor and polished the windows (or are they…..?). There’s still a bit to do and I’ve seen an amazing reclaimed pine cabinet to replace some temporary mdf, but the room looked pretty good for her VIP crowd and prosecco cocktails. I’ll do a separate post on the different details and it’s been a real design challenge to add beauty on an extremely limited budget… only massive help from staff & certain fabulous companies made it possible. Here’s photographer Andy Marshall capturing the room in all her Edwardian glory.
Yes, I do need to finish that plywood viewing box down to the original terrazzo!
Sticking with green, it is 2017 after all which is quite literally turning into a year with no other colour even remotely focused on by anyone at all, I give you a rather stunning hallway image from the pages of design blogger extraordinaire Kate Watson-Smyth. I’m super chuffed to be contributing to the Mad House by being part of Kate’s “Crack Team of Experts”. Some of her readers – and there are like zillions of ’em, if you haven’t read it yet, what on earth have you bee reading?! – have been asking questions all about hallways and my pearls of wisdom on the subject are included here. And of course, now I want a green carpet.
I also sneaked away from Moregeous Mansions and the Top Secret Telly Mission with my InstaGoddess friend Alice to go check out some new season products at Mandarin Stone and talk tiles to Norcross Adhesives, Lithofin and Fila. You know me, product geek, I love all the practical messy stuff and like all good home renovators realise that great images are made possible not just by the tiles, but also by the adhesives, sealant and protectors. Again, I’ll whizz a post on later this week to give you the heads up on some stuff I saw, but for now…. these new MS tiles though. Get ready for a geometric tiling takeover kids, it’s coming your way.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, we rallied on. Huge changes in that we’ve finally taken the temporary – 2 yrs and counting – kitchen out of the upstairs bedroom at the far end of the extension and moved it downstairs into what’s slowly emerging as my new utility room. This was a tad overfacing as:
- The utility is only part done and has no sink because I can’t decide on whether I want a bronze tap but the Ikea Domsjo basin has a chrome waste which thus either needs to come out or I go for a black tap and try and ignore the chrome waste. Or I just move to America where all the lovely non-chrome plumbing items are available off the shelf without taking out a second mortgage.
- Everything was absolutely filthy with dust and had to be cleaned before being moved.
- I was literally still cooking as he dismantled the electrics around me.
- The utility is way smaller than the bedroom so most of the very limited stuff I have not in a storage unit three miles away is back in boxes. Again.
But I’m happy to say it’s done!! The plasterers have now boarded and skimmed the first of the West Wing bedrooms and I’m cooking (of a fashion) in the part finished utility. I love my grey cabinets and my spilling hexagon floor, even though we already broke one. Seriously, the fitters dropped the ceramic sink. It first bounced into the unit smashing the base, then off the wall smashing the sharp angle bead, then onto the floor, smashing through a tile. I didn’t weep. I was too tired from moving the fricking kitchen. So I started off happy, then that dwindled, then I found a spare tile, so all is well. Apart from the fitters. They’re not well. They’re dead.
And there’s more…. we even got cracking on the Pyscho room, a moniker I’ll need to slowly eliminate (kill off?!) as it turns from a scruffy dumping ground into an elegant guest bedroom. The ensuite shower room was finished by the plasterers and I’ve picked a gorgeous grey for the ceiling and ensuite walls, a sumptuous Designers Guild wallpaper and my Kartel Bloom light is finally out of dusty storage. Up until the end of January when the windows were finally completed, we hadn’t been able to do anything in this room and it feels completely ace to be able to crack on, albeit in between our ‘proper’ job.
It feels completely ace until you’re covered in coving dust, that is, and resemble a zombie.
I know I said it’d be six images every Monday but hey, we’ve done a lot and I missed a week. I hereby decree that a Blogstomp collage counts as one image 😉 x
Quick holiday to the US with an empty suitcase maybe?!
Glad to hear your temporary kitchen is at least now on the correct floor of your house! 🙂 x