For Maggie......

We had to say goodbye to our little cat Maggie on friday morning so in the tradition I have seen many times amongst my blogging friends, I am going to post a tribute to our very special little cat who will be dearly missed.

We adopted Maggie just 3 years ago from the SSPCA after seeing her scraggy little face on their website. She was old and had been waiting for a home for a long time. I couldn’t stop thinking about her so like idiots we drove over 100 miles to Inverness to get her. She hissed when we went into her compartment but we later realised that we had startled her because she couldn’t really see.

She was tiny, literally half the size of our cat Buzz but really overweight. I used to joke that she looked like she had been riding a really fat pony- she had real barrel legs. But a diet and the chance to get outside soon fixed that.

She quickly because best friends with our two dogs and was sleeping in their beds with them or on top of them within a few weeks. Molly and Isla have always looked out for her and been unwaveringly tolerant ….she was always clambering right over their heads as they lay asleep in the floor.

 They have been very quiet, especially Isla, over the past few days and this morning both kept going

over and sniffing her empty basket and looking at me.

Maggie loved to snuggle and was very affectionate- you couldn’t sit down in the living room without her climbing up your leg to get to your lap.

Being blind, we have had so many comedy moments from her ….. the time she tried to jump onto our bed and jumped up about two feet away from where the bed actually was………….  and she ran daily into doors, furniture and the dogs, darting around fearlessly!! There are still cushions on the floor all over the house in front of things she was always running into.

But she was very happy, never happier than when there was a fire lit and she was snuggled with her friends.

I found Maggie just as I was leaving for work, in her spot by the fire but clearly having suffered a stroke during the night. She purred when I went over to her but she couldn’t move at all. I carried her through to the bedroom with me to wake up Euan and we both agreed that Maggies time had come. 

The vet wasn’t able to come to the house until lunchtime and that gave us a  few hours to spend time with her and say goodbye. I am so thankful for that time.

We have buried her in the garden and I have planted some snowdrops over the spot. They are out in our garden just now so we will remember her when they come up each year at this time.

                              

We will miss you wee one xx

We have a kitchen in our kitchen.......

After complaints from my family (who all live a long way away) and who check in with my blog to see photos of our renovations progress .....I thought I had better put up some more pictures of the kitchen.
I was avoiding posting about it again until we were all finished but that is still a few weeks away.........its taking a bit longer than we hoped.
As you can see, its very much still a work in progress.......Euan is building the kitchen units from scratch again and he still has to finish and hang the doors and make the drawers.

The oak arched beam I bought from a reclamation yard about a week after we moved in in 2012.....I bought it knowing it was destined to go over the Redfyre one day so its been under the bed since then waiting for us to get round to the kitchen! The design is very like the kitchen we built in our last house....handmade painted wooden units with oak worktops....its just a lot bigger!

Buzz sunning himself in the window behind the new sink!

Remember the drawer unit from my last post?
Half the drawers are untidily open in this picture but its been painted to match the new kitchen, new handles added and a top built. Again, thats not finished yet- its needs a top cornice and glazed doors!

We are going to build a big central island thsi time instead of a table, hence the wires sticking out of the floor under the table.

But we do have a working sink and a dishwasher so we are feeling a bit spoilt after going all winter washing up in the disgusting utility room as it has a sink but it has no proper internal walls or flooring!!

Its going to be lovely......just a few more weeks/months but we have come along way since...

 Its feeling very spring-like, even this far north.......Cant wait to get stuck into the garden again- I have so many ideas!!! xxx

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