Blanket Tah Dah and Frugal Furniture

I’ve long been a fan of the super talented Lucy at Attic 24, in fact it was Lucy’s blog that inspired me a couple of years ago to teach myself to crochet. I loved her gorgeous blankets and wanted some of my own so set about learning how to crochet granny squares with the help of her blog and the wonderful YouTube.

My latest blanket, which I mentioned in my last post is now complete – it is more of a lap-blanket size, easy to fold up on the back of the sofa, and handy to snuggle under on damp dark days like today has been.

So, here it is…my latest creation…

Can you see one of my little dogs just peeking out from underneath…who just wouldn’t budge for me to take the photo? 🙂

I’m going to start on another blanket of the same size for my other sofa, but although I will be using the same colour way it will really be more for my lovely other half to use so am thinking it might need to be a little more masculine….perhaps with solid squares? I’ll see…maybe I will experiment and post a photo and see what you think?

On to our other recent project. I had a lovely oak dining room table and chairs, but the chairs were too modern for my liking (the dining set was bought several years before I moved to my little Victorian cottage) and really didn’t fit in with my current furniture.

(sorry not the best photo!)

We heard about a local household and furniture auction being held at the Ardingly Showground in Sussex not far from where we live and decided to go and have a look to see if we could find some suitable replacements. We were lucky and found 6 mahogany chairs with some rather ugly brown seats…we bid on them and managed to win all six for just £60!

Here is one of the seats before we started our makeover…

We used a Laura Ashley eggshell on the chairs after much sugar-soaping and cleaning and a light sanding. Next I needed to find some fabric and decided that it would be nice to use the same Laura Ashley fabric that I have on the scatter cushions on my sofa (all EBay finds). As luck would have it this was around Christmas time and Laura Ashely had an online sale on some of their fabrics so I was able to bag a metre for just £15 instead of £30! By careful placement and cutting I was able to cover all 6 from the metre of fabric…

Next we painted the legs and underside of the table, just leaving the top unpainted…

And voila!….our new table and chairs for just £90!….except it wasn’t….a friend’s daughter heard I was looking to get rid of my old dining chairs and gave me £60 for them, so in fact my six new chairs cost me just £15 (and some time!)

I’ve got a couple more frugal furniture projects to show you next time, would love to hear about anything similar you might have done..

Nikki

Rainy Weekend = Hooky Heaven!

A rainy weekend is the perfect excuse to snuggle on the sofa and raid your yarn stash!

I recently bought Nicki Trench’s fabulous book “Cute and Easy Crochet” – if you are a fan of Nicki’s then this book is a must! I decided yesterday that I had been drooling over her gorgeous projects for long enough and it was high time I used some of my stash to begin a new project.

But….what to make?……Did I want this gorgeous bag?

Or with Easter looming maybe I could gift all of my friends with a half dozen eggs from our chickens complete with their own little cosies?

aren’t they gorgeous!?

I couldn’t decide but in the end chose her Camellia Blanket. BUT …having costed this out using the wool she recommended it was WAY beyond my budget and I figured that as I already had some Amy Butler Belle Organic (which I had got at less than half price!) I would use this as a base and then all I had to do was buy a couple of new balls to complete some of the flowers. So I ended up with mainly Rowan Amy Butler Belle Organic Aran in Zinc (which is a little darker than the silvery grey that the blanket in the book is made with and the flower squares would be made with a mix of Amy Butler and Debbie Bliss.

It wasn’t till I was tipping the required yarn into my WIP bag that I realised that the colours were a beautiful match for it!

I’ve only completed a few of the squares so far, but I think they will be ok – I’ve never tried a “flower” square before but it’s not so hard once you get the hang of it.

This is Nicki’s book if you are tempted to treat yourself!

Hope you are all managing to get some hooky time this Sunday!

Nikki x

Wardrobe Makeover

When I moved to Holly Cottage I inherited two large pine wardrobes from the previous owners and they have served me perfectly well in the intervening years. This year however, we have been experimenting with remodelling some of our current pine furniture (and we had a LOT!).

Just painting the legs and underside of two of our coffee tables made a huge difference to their appearance and following a sanding and waxing of the tops, they looked as good as new and if felt like we had totally new furniture, and a new look for our lounge.

We also recently painted those inherited wardrobes, and whilst they looked much better I was hankering over making them more vintage or “shabby chic” looking. So off we set to see if we could find some wallpaper to experiment with a makeover….not an easy task…all the wallpapers in the local DIY stores are very modern and this just wouldn’t have achieved the look I had in my head! (it didn’t help that I was unable to describe the “look” that was in my head either!)

I had almost given up when I suddenly spied a roll of paper that I thought might do the job..it wasn’t exactly what I had had in mind (which was more cabbage roses, or Cath Kidston inspired) but decided to take a chance.

My lovely other half was then set to work on the makeover….

(i forgot to take a “before” photo so this is a “just started” photo!)

We’re pretty pleased with them, especially with how the background of the paper matches the colour of the wardrobes!

What do you think?

Nikki x

To blog or not to blog?

A question I have been asking myself as I have drooled over, delighted in and devoured the many amazing blogs I have followed, dipped into and stumbled upon over the last year or so.

I hesitated, I decided for and then against..always concerned that I would never be able to create something as interesting or in fact that anyone would be interested in….but finally here it is…my very first blog post!

I hope to use this blog as a record of the happenings, highs (and hopefully not too many lows) of life here at Holly Cottage, a home I share with my lovely partner, our two dogs, and six chickens.

I love thrifting, crochet, baking, reading and lately my iPad (on which I am writing this blog) – something that apparently isn’t recommended..but then I never have been a fan of doing things the easy way!

I do hope you will stop by from time to time and say hello,

Nikki