You can never have too much Green...can you?

Hi Vintage Lovers,

 

We are deciding on colours for the kitchen this week at The Old Croft and of course the colour choices are all green.

Surprise! Surprise!!!!!

I am a creature of habit, ask anyone who knows me!
We all have our little habits and one of mine happens to be the colour green, with a bit of cream and burgundy thrown in for fun.
 I have considered other colours, well for a few brief few seconds anyway, but I always seem to return to my old favourite.
I have loved the colour green since I was a child and I have no intentions of changing now! 

So the green colour choices have been narrowed to a few and we have painted samples of these in a few spots in the kitchen. Maybe a few is a slight under exaggeration! A bit more than a few, but you do have to be sure, don't you? You need to see it in all areas and how the light plays on all the angles.

We are leaning towards the darker green colour at the moment. It seems to suit the room better and works with the other fittings that we already have. We still have a week or two to decide though.
 

  

 We have had a bit of luck come our way this week also -

we were able to get the green glass lamp shades we were after.

 

I am soooooooo happy.

 

 

 The staff at Old Adelaide Restoration have been brilliant and went out of their way to find us these shades. They are made by an old glass factory in Vianne, a small town in the south of France.
 

 

The Vianne Glass Factory was in operation from the 1920's to 2005. They specialized in ornate and etched glass for all types of lamps and shades. The glass was all hand blown, which is just fantastic to have shades that are so unique and individual.

 

 

The three lights look fantastic and really set off the kitchen beautifully.

 

Just what the kitchen needed.

 

 I am certainly looking forward to painting.

You can never have too much green, can you?

 

Hope you are having fabulous week.

Mel xx

The First week of Spring……

Hi Vintage Lovers,

We have had the most gorgeous start to spring. The weather has been fantastic and I have spent most of the last two weeks out in the garden, which I have loved after months inside over the winter period. The spring warmth just makes you feel so much more energised and ready to enthusiastically take on any challenge in the garden.

I have started planning out new garden beds in the front garden as well and doing lots of weeding and pruning. I have decided to completely re-design the two garden beds at the front of the house. There wasn't much in the two garden beds and what was there is so over-grown that I decided to just start again.

We have an existing path that leads from the front gate to the front of the house. We have decided to keep the path but pop in a weeping birch half way along and create a paved walk way going around the tree. Then the garden beds on either side of the path I will plant out with a symmetrical pattern, with hedges, roses and bearded irises in between.

I have always loved my roses. They are such an age old plant that really speaks of tradition and I never get tired of them, even though they do take some work during pruning season.

But first I have been busy weeding, pruning and removing unwanted plants and lawn. I have also uncovered quite a few little gems along the way, like bulbs and bearded irises which is fantastic. I feel like I am on a treasure hunt!

My plan is to get the area prepared and ready for planting next year. Although I do need to plant all my bearded Irises in the next few weeks, that I kept from our old house, that have multiplied beautifully. I have decided to dig out the gravel from in front of the store house and pop them all in there for now until I am ready to plant them in the front garden.

I am sure I will have more than enough to fill the two areas either side of the little path in front of the store house, plus the irises in the front yard (that I have discovered) and I still have a large container of irises down at Mum and Dad's, whom have been kindly looking after them for me. 

Hope you are having this gorgeous spring weather also and you have time to get outside and enjoy it over the weekend.

That's my plan for the weekend. J

Mel xx

 
 

A Day in the Garden……
 
Hi Vintage Lovers,

We have had the most beautiful day here and I spent it out in the garden. I have been wanting to get out there for weeks but the bitterly cold weather has kept me inside next to the roaring fire.

I have so many plans for the garden. The last owners of our old lady didn't spend much time looking after her, so her garden needs a lot of TLC now. The bones of the garden are good, but I have decided to clear a lot of the other areas that have become too over grown and untidy. I would like to snap my fingers and have the whole job finished but I am afraid that it will be over a long period of time.

To start with I need to get my clivias planted that I dug up and saved from our last house. That was today's job.

 

The spot I choose for my orange clivias is under this beautiful old tree (if you look close enough you can see the spring blossoms on the tree in the photo) in our front garden.

 

My orange clivias hold a special place in my heart, they were my grandma's, Lala as we used call her. If you have been reading my blog for a while now you may remember that I have blogged about Lala before in one of my previous posts about our 1939 club lounge.

Lala, in her hay day.

Here is the link to the post if you would like to read it again -

 Ella, Gorgeous Ella. J

My yellow clivias will be planted underneath the fantastic old tree that stands behind the kids basketball hoop.

 

 

 But first I need to clear the garden beds from weeds and other plants.

 A Big Big job that took most of the day.........

 

for Sally and I.

Then planted the clivias around the base of the tree. Clivias love shade and grow in mass clumping which will be perfect beneath this tree.

 

I have left the other plants (on the left in the photo) in the garden bed for now. I will move them down the track when I decide what is happening in the other garden areas.

The yellow clivias made their way under this  fantastic old tree.

We are going to be having the most fantastic weather this week and I am planning to make the most of it and be out in the garden for most of the week.

 

Hope you had a great weekend also.

 

Mel xx

 

 

 

Let there be Light......

Hi Vintage Lovers,

Yay !!!! We now have lights! 

 

The electrician was here yesterday to put in the rest of the plugs and also the light fittings in the kitchen.

 

It certainly is good to have power and lights back.

 

 

We are really thrilled with all the light fittings.

 

We have chosen two hanging lights over the stove and sink area and then the centre light has an adjustable height pulley system. All three lights are antique bronze with timber bases.

 

There has been only one hiccup, we haven't been able to find the light shades we are after yet. We are really keen to have heritage green glass shades (my favourite colour). The staff at Old Adelaide Restoration have been fantastic and have been going out of their way to find us these shades. They have exhausted all leads in Adelaide and are now trying suppliers in Melbourne. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

 

 

They will look brilliant once the glass light shades go on and also balance the light fitting (it looks a little odd right now).

Our kitchen window is looking fantastic and is starting to take shape. Although we do have a few more hours to do on it yet. Stripping old windows with layers upon layers of paint is not a quick exercise. But well worth the effort in the long run.

 

 Our old Kraft Cheese box looks fabulous on the window sill already.



 

 

Hope you are having a great week.

Mel xx

 

 

 

 

Battening down the Hatches

Hi Vintages Lovers,

We are having the strangest weather here at the moment. Beautiful sunshine one minute and then rain and gale force winds the next. I don't think the garden knows what it's doing.......

 

 

Some of the trees think it's still winter.............

 

and others are thinking it is spring already.

 

 Some of the roses are in full spring bloom, which I love. So I am not complaining.

 

 

It's so wonderful to see colour in the garden over winter.

 

 

Over last weekend we had the most perfect weather. We spent most the weekend outside and were able to get some garden maintenance done. After being away on holidays we haven't had a chance to get out there and the garden was overgrown with weeds and it has been bugging me. I have had my blinkers on and trying to ignore them!!!!!

 

Over night we had gale force winds. It woke the whole house and this morning as I was getting the kids ready and taking them to school we had torrential rain with gutters overflowing and flooding on our back patio. It has calmed down now but is still bitterly cold and I am thinking of lighting the fires early this afternoon..........

 

 and doing some baking.

 

Nothing better on a bitterly cold winters day.

 

 

Keep warm

Mel xx

 

 

 

 

 

Plaster, Plugs and Timber
Hi Vintage Lovers,

Our kitchen is progressing well. The plasterer has now finished the major works that were needed and it looks fantastic. We need to complete the fine detail work as there are still some areas that need attention where previous jobs haven't been finished off as well as they might have been.

 

I couldn't resist trying some of my enamel collection on the bench, even though we are far from finished.

 

The sparky has begun fitting some of the power points above the kitchen bench so we are able to use some electrical items now - it is great be able to boil the kettle again inside!!! We are really happy with how it is all coming together.

There has been a bit of a delay with the light fittings but we should have them in the next week or two. It has not really been that much of a hassle as there is so much to go on with anyway.

There are quite a number of different size and style of skirting boards in our old lady that we found and it has been quite interesting to work out which ones we feel are the original ones.

After some research we decided on this skirting as we are thinking this one would have been part of the original skirting boards with the sizing and mouldings.

Yesterday, Dad and I went to Bone Timber to have a look at timber skirting and architrave mouldings. They have a huge range of timber mouldings. They have a skirting almost identically the same as the one we are after.

Bones also has a wide range of door architrave mouldings. They had exactly what I was looking for. I need to match up some door mouldings for the kitchen cupboards.

The cupboard that has been fitted into the space where the original outside window was before the extension was done. I am wanting to put wooden doors on with the same architrave moulding as the main kitchen doors.

 We have also been paint stripping the kitchen window.

Paint stripping is a horrible job but it must be done if we are to restore the window frame to its original splendour.

 

 

 

 

 

We are half way though this job and will be continuing to work on it over this weekend. 

 

Have a fantastic weekend.

Mel xx

 

 

 

The Fires are Roaring…..

Hi Vintage Lovers,



 

 

It has been so cold here........Brrrrrrrr.....I have spent the week rugged up.

 

We have the fires roaring since we have been home from our holiday. The fires have been fantastic, especially the oven in the kitchen. It is my favourite in our old lady.

 

 

 We have also been cooking on her every night. You can't beat wood oven cooked food. We even baked muffins last night in the wood oven.

 

 

They baked perfectly but we did leave them in a little too long.  It will take time to perfect the art but not bad for a first attempt. They tasted delicious. I have missed my baking and can't wait to try another batch of muffins or bickies in the next week or so.

 

 

We have cooked plenty of soup also over these cold nights, I wonder if  we need Agatha! I still can't wait for her to come though!

 

The plastering in the kitchen went well and looks fantastic. I will blog about that soon.

 

Hope you are having a fantastic week and keeping warm in this chilly weather.

 

Mel xx