After the disappointment of last week, finding out that we have to put much of our refurbishment plans on hold we have decided to make our house lovely, little bit by little bit.

The lounge is coming on a pace with three quarters of the walls now painted in their undercoat of matt white. Tonight we should be able to put the furniture back in and just have the area around the fireplace to do. We can’t really tackle any of the woodwork in any of the rooms yet until we get the very badly put in central heating system removed. We have pipes upon pipes! Most of them blocking access to all the skirting boards and just looking a godamn mess…

I’ll take some after pictures when the lounge is painted… hopefully we’ll see a difference from green woodchip wallpaper!

Last night our latest eBay acquisition came - a narrow 1960s Danish midcentury modern chest of drawers for the hall. It’s lovely, and again has turned legs that match the dining table and the sideboard. I still can’t get over how much of a resource eBay is. It wasn’t the cheapest chest ever but it is exactly what we wanted… I could of searched a hundred car boot sales before finding something as lovely.

My plan for the hall is to have the chest sit below a large G-Plan-esque wood framed mirror (round, irregular, rectangular shaped - who knows!) and have my handturned walnut bowl I bought from Venice on top. The bowl will serve as a repository for M’s pockets when he gets home from work and wants to put his keys, mobile and wallet somewhere. The top will also hold a small cheery vase and a place for post. The mirror will serve two functions: to open up our dark hall and aid last minute hair checking before venturing out. See, I got it all planned. The chest itself will soon be filled with accessories like gloves, scarves, small umbrellas, hats, ballet pumps shoes and all those little outer wear items that never seem to have a home.

We also framed two recent art purchases. One is a poster that everyone and his dog seems to have but I just adore, in fact the text is fast becoming our motto when we get stressed about the house: “Keep Calm and Carry On”. This is going in the hall in it’s trim white IKEA ribba frame. That way we can see it when we walk though the door and remind ourselves that it could be worse