Starting on the Kitchen.

We have started on the kitchen which is both exciting and scary. Its the largest room in our house and its right in the middle.

Here is the kitchen before.....on the day we moved in. Its wasnt awful or anything.....we loved the flagstones, that there were patio doors (which are just out of the photo beside the fridge there) and how big it was but not much else.Just not our taste and it was, and looked very cold.
The scary RED hallway was also hastily covered in 4 coats of magnolia, a quick fix to calm it down. I love red but not that RED- it gave me a headache.

 

The kitchen also had the staircase in it- a strange metal spiral staircase, more suited to a maritime museum I think! It felt weird having the stairs in the kitchen, they also felt very unsafe and made a horrible clanging sound as you climbed them. Euan took his grinder to it....that was a fun day!! Literally sparks flying everywhere!

We have since put in a stud wall and created a small hallway for some new boring straight stairs.

There is just a ladder for the time being until we can afford a new staircase.Climbing a ladder at 5am to get a shower in your slippers is not that much fun I have to be honest. And quite sore on your feet! 

The original flagstone floor created a real dilema. It was lovely and would be extremely expensive to put in nowadays but the reality of having a floor like that in Aberdeenshire is basically living with a block of ice right in the middle of your house for 6 months of the year. After the first freezing cold winter and the 3rd Emma Bridgewater mug got smashed to a thousand pieces on it.....we decided that it had to go.We first laid down a very thick wool carpet underlay which acts as an fantastic insulator and helped to even out any slight unevenness in the level of the flagstones. We then laid a new chipboard floor on top which worked really well. The kitchen is nowhere near as cold, the difference is really incredible.

So here it is just now from the same angle as the above photo....Its rough obviously, thats the new stud wall and doorway.....and the new chipboard floor laid but its more of a blank canvas now.
We are going to lay the new oak flooring this weekend. As usual there are pets photobombing every photo!

We brought our Redfyre with us from the last house and sold the range cooker the previous owners left.

This is the reverse of the new wall. To the left is the entrance porch and to the right is where the new stairs will go. Behind me is the door through to the living room.

I am going to paint this huge 19 drawer unit, change the knobs and Euan will build a dresser top for it. 

It was the first thing we bought for this house actually - a gumtree bargain at £100.We couldnt actually fit it in our old house or our car! So we had to borrow a car to collect it and ask the previous owners if we could store it here until our exchange date.

So, its moving forward. No hope of being finished by Christmas but never mind- We will be washing up from Christmas dinner in the Utility room for sure!

Hope you are all enjoying the festivities and the run up to Christmas .........making time for Mulled Wine.......thats one of the best things about Christmas xxxx