The Next Chapter

 

 

Welcome back! You may have been trying to access this blog for the last few months only to find that it was marked ‘Protected’. That’s because we have big news – we have sold the Edwardian House! Mark and I have spent more time living in this house than any other (almost five years) and the time has come for us to move on. These are the professional photographs that were used for the sale. While it was on the market I wanted the house to speak for itself, without prospective buyers seeing it in its unrenovated state in this blog. Even before then I must admit that my blog posting had pretty much ground to a halt – what is there to add to a renovation blog when the renovation is complete?

External shots.

 

Entrance hall.Lounge room.

Entrance hall from another angle!

Dining room. I failed to blog a year or so ago about the fireplace you can see here. Our neighbours were renovating and decided to replace their fireplace so I bought it from them. It matches the one in our lounge and means that the house now has all original fireplaces!

OK, maybe going overboard on the entrance hall.

Kitchen.Breakfast room.Utility room.Downstairs toilet.Master bedroom.En suite shower room.Bedroom two, my study.Toilet.Bathroom.Bedroom three/guest room.Stairs.Bedroom four.

Bedroom five, Mark’s study.Top floor shower room.Back garden.

We are not moving until late June, but this will probably be the last post.

So, goodbye! Thanks for following Edwardian House Renovation – your comments and support meant a lot during all the ups and downs.

Oliver sends his love.

As does Ruby.

Rose is waiting for you to send her your love before she reciprocates.

And the ashes of Orlando and Doris will remain in the fern garden, so part of us remains too – not to mention the time capsule we left in that wall cavity underneath the stained glass window!

Thanks for reading! x

Spring in the Edwardian House

Here we are in early April and Spring is definitely upon us. The first of the daffodils.

I have managed to do a little gardening – I mowed the lawn for the first time this year two weekends ago. There is a lot of weeding to be done as you can see in this pic. To the left of the photo you will see a gap in the fence under the brush screening I put up last year. This is because the neighbours behind us have demolished their shed and will be repairing the fence and re-landscaping their garden, as well as extending their house. It is a welcome change as the shed was rather dilapidated and sat right up on the boundary line.

I have also been doing some planting. Here are some ferns that have just gone in recently. I also planted some azaleas and ground cover in another garden bed but as yet do not have any photos.

While I was digging in the garden beds, I discovered two more medicine bottles buried in the back garden. You may remember the mystery of the hidden tranquilisers from several years ago.

In other news, a lovely family has bought the house next door, our matching Edwardian “twin” house which has been empty for some time. When I first met K she described how, when she was thinking of buying and renovating the house, she discovered my blog. Not only was it a blog about renovating an Edwardian house but it was a blog about the identical house next door! How about that? No sooner had they got their keys than they got to work. There are painters and builders and architects coming and going – it brought back memories! They also turned their attention to the garden. Above you can see the massive conifer that sat on their property between the back sections of our adjoining houses.

It is so big that I couldn’t get it all in one shot!

On Thursday morning the tree surgeons got to work.

Of course, Ruby was the first to realise that something interesting was going on. It may have reminded her of the tree that we had cut down as soon as we moved in.

The commotion  began to attract quite a feline crowd.

The men made short work of the tree.

It wasn’t long before it was down.

It’s incredible what a difference it has made to the light levels in the rooms at the back of the house, such as the dining room and my study. I will have to clean the windows more regularly now that the sun can come streaming through!

Oliver and Ruby were jealous that only Rose featured in the last post. To make up for it, here is Oliver on the stairs.

Ruby with bubble wrap.

Oliver taking possession of a new, and rather expensive, throw rug that became a cat blanket quicker than anticipated.

And Ruby staring down her arch nemesis, the neighbour’s cat, Albus.

With renovations next door and building work behind, it is going to be an exciting, if a little noisy, summer. However, I think it is a good sign that all this property development is occurring in our area. More to follow!

The Dining Room

Greetings! It is late winter here in the Edwardian house and we are all well.

Over the last year or so, the dining room had gradually been turning into a stock room for my new venture – boxes were piled high and it was getting difficult to even get into the room. I have just had a major clear out and hope to keep the dining room clutter-free from now on. While it was tidy I took a few pictures.

I think this will be the year that we finally get around to fitting window coverings in this room. I quite like plantation shutters but they can be very expensive and might be difficult to fit on the french windows. So perhaps we will get roman blinds instead.

 

It would also be nice to one get a wood burning stove fitted in the empty fireplace, though I wonder if it might be too hot for people when they are seated at the table?

I guess there is a fair amount of room between diners and the potential fire though.

I will investigate and keep you updated.

In the meantime, Miss Rose says hello!

Christmas in the Edwardian House

Well hello! Is it December already?

We are just about prepared for Christmas here at the Edwardian House.

It is always reassuring when Christmas has been delivered. Ruby inspects.

I planned to make a few sausage rolls for Christmas functions and ended up with eighty!

They look good though.

Oliver won’t be the only member of the household to need a diet when next year comes around…

Ruby being companionable at breakfast – secretly she tries to dip her paw in the milk jug when she thinks I am not looking.

There is not a lot to report on the house front as most of the work is complete. I am still waiting to get curtains for the dining room, and there is more work to be done in the garden, but that’s about it!

Rosie wishes you a Merry Christmas! As do the rest of us!

 

Midsummer in the Edwardian House

Here we are in midsummer and as you can see the front garden is going well.

The lavenders are enormous and attract so many bees. I counted a total of 36 bees on the four plants this afternoon when I was watering them. Mostly the big bumble bees but some honey bees too.

I cut some of the lavender and have hung it to dry. Ruby inspecting.

The Japanese anemones (Pretty Lady Susan) are in flower.

As are the hydrangeas.

The Lisaura will flower in late summer.

Here is one of the lilies from our friend Mindy, who brought the bulbs from her own garden in Portland, Oregon when she and her husband John came to stay and look after the cats for us last year.

The two larger types of Japanese anemones (Montrose) are budding.

Out the back, the fern garden is looking good. I have put bark chips down to help keep the soil moist and the weeds at bay.

I tidied up the corner down the side of the house by the gate for my garden tools and bought this storage box. This was where the pile of logs had sat since the giant silver birch was cut down when we first moved in. On the weekend I moved the logs across the road to our neighbours as they have a wood burning fire and can make good use of them next winter.

Now, here is a photo of the back garden from a few months ago, complete with squirrel stealing the bird food. As you can see the garden was a bit of a mess. Everything was neglected and overgrown, there was bindweed and brambles/blackberry bushes everywhere. The first thing that I did was cut back a lot of the vegetation behind the birdbath there, which I blogged about in my last post. It was a kind of privet growing in amongst the holly tree. I cut it all back and it took several weeks to get rid of all the cuttings in our garden waste bin. I also started to clear the garden beds.

This is that back right hand corner after I cleared it and dug away a lot of the soil. The original plan was to get quotes for a new fence along the back but, as you can see, there is a bit of a rock retaining wall here and the soil level has risen with all the years of leaf litter from the trees, meaning that the fence is buried about a foot under ground level and would take major excavation work to remove.

Here you can see what bad condition the back fence was in. The missing palings, however, were good for the hedgehogs, as they need to be able to roam freely between gardens to feed and breed.

Further along you can see that part of the fence has caught fire at some point in the past. Also the position of the neighbour’s shed means that access to replace this section of the fence would be almost impossible.

The same goes for the structure in our other neighbour’s garden.

My solution was to attach brush screening to the fence to create a more pleasant looking boundary. I also cut back some of the lower branches of the giant yew tree in the garden behind ours.

It makes a big difference, so I plan to put some more along the fence along this side too. In the back corner you can see that I have planted some ivy to obscure the low breeze block retaining wall. I have also planted some Spotted Laurels and small cypress trees and continue to weed the garden beds. The lighter-coloured and variegated foliage on these plants will be an effective foil to the dark green of the yew, holly and conifers that dominate the rest of the garden.

This was taken a few weeks later and you can see that the privet is growing back nicely and the holly looks much neater with all the lower branches removed. If you look closely you will also see the neighbour’s cat keeping a watchful eye on proceedings from the roof of the shed.

 

I kept a section of the screening open for the hedgehog to get through.

 

Here is a shot of the hedgehog. We haven’t seen him for a few weeks but they do have a big territory. Unfortunately hedgehogs are not very good at crossing roads, so we hope he is OK.

Down the other side of the house I have been tidying things up too. There is still a lot of weeding to do here too.

By the back door I have weeded and cleared the beds and planted hydrangeas, the old fashioned mop-head variety. What with the crazy paving and rockery borders, this is a very mid-century garden so I am continuing the theme with what I call “granny plants”.

Also geraniums, pink and white.

This was my latest purchase. Combined with the strimmer I bought a few weeks ago, I have started to tackle the grass.

 

After the first mowing. It almost looks like a real garden!

Cat updates. Hello from Oliver – I think he needs to do more to relax.

The same goes for Ruby, pictured here during our recent heatwave.

And Rose. She is playing with the catnip mouse – the look in her eyes says it all.

Early Summer in the Edwardian House

Here we are in early summer. There have been a good few warm days so far and also some very heavy rain yesterday. This means that the garden is having an explosive growth spurt. All of the spring bulbs are spent, as are the primroses, although a few yellow pansies remain.

Hydrangea with new growth.

The lavenders have doubled in size.

Hydrangea at the other end of the garden bed also looking healthy.

Last week I planted this new Japanese maple to replace the other one that was planted last year. This one has more robust leaves so I hope it will withstand the exposed position a little better. The other one kept drying out as its leaves were like little feathers.

This is what the front garden looked like a year ago when we were right in the middle of Stage 2 of the renovation.

It’s good to look at photos like this and see how far we have come.

Out the back the fern garden is coming along nicely. You can see that I have moved the Japanese maple with the delicate leaves to this more protected postion.

The view from the kitchen window is improving. Avert your eyes from the crazy paving path and the leaning fence. All in good time…

With the new fern garden in place, we decided it was time to scatter the ashes of dear old Doris and Orlando. Doris died in Australia in 2009 and Orlando in Liverpool in 2011.

We scattered their ashes in the garden bed around the Dicksonia Antarctica fern that was imported from Australia.

Doris and Orlando loved their fern garden back in Australia, so it’s only fitting that they should have one here in the UK too. You can also see a more mature Dicksonia Antarctic tree fern that Doris is lying under on the left of the photo.

Oliver and Ruby are well.

As is Rosie, who had her fifth birthday in late April.

I finally got around to framing this limited edition print by the artist Paul Bommer which illustrates Christopher Smart’s poem “For I will consider my cat Jeoffrey”.

It was one of the first things I bought for the Edwardian House when we moved in.

It’s a great piece and I could look at it for hours.

It is in the breakfast room right next to the cat tree.

In the back garden I have cleared one corner that was dominated by an overgrown holly tree and a shrub underneath it. The entire back fence will need to be replaced so I am just trying to clear it enough for access. The soil level is quite high here too as this was an old garden refuse heap, so we will need to do some digging to lower the ground level.

The lawn hasn’t been cut for three years, though I am managing to get a handle on controlling the bindweed that used to grow in the beds by the compost bin.

I am also tackling the other pest – the blackberries. It’s just about keeping the whole back garden under control until we can re-landscape it.At least you can still see the path down the other side of the house.

The wall of ivy has this year’s new growth too.

Our neighbour’s beautiful lawn. If only we could annexe her garden somehow…

Grey squirrel helping herself to the bird food.

In the guest bedroom we have replaced the single bed with a double, in preparation for summer guests.

In other news, we had a nice time on our holiday to the Cote d’Azur.

We stayed in Nice.

Lovely views from the Colline du Chateau (Castle Hill).

We had a day where we drove along the Grande Corniche past Eze, Monaco and Menton and went into Italy.

Eze from the Grande Corniche.

Dolceacqua in Italy.

We visited Renoir’s house in Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Built around the same time as the Edwardian House it was great to see that Renoir also had a quarry tile floor in the kitchen.

It’s just like ours except his tiles are hexagonal and ours are square.

Interestingly, when I visited Monet’s house in Giverny last year with Frogdancer, he also had a quarry tile floor. I’m glad we kept ours.

 

 

 

 

Spring in the Edwardian House

This is the first Spring for the front garden since it was completed. For early colour I recently planted some primroses and pansies.

Also emerging are some of Paddy Fraser’s old bulbs that must have still been in the soil.

Paddy’s daffodils among the primroses. In fact, I also transplanted the fuchsia primrose in the centre of the picture from the back garden, so that was Paddy’s as well.

The Japanese Maple is coming back to life, as are the hydrangeas.

The lavenders are looking healthy and strong and will really take off this year.

Not being an avid gardener, this front garden is a manageable size for me.

How the front garden looked before we began the renovation.

Not so manageable is the generally untouched back garden, or ‘hedgehog sanctuary’, as we like to call it. Last week I rearranged the old pavers to form temporary stepping stones to the bird bath and bird feeder in one direction, and the compost bin in the other. The grass is a soggy, muddy, mossy mess and will have to go one day when the garden reaches the top of our budgetary priorities. I envisage a large area of paving for a BBQ and outdoor seating surrounded by lush garden beds. The back garden is far too shady for a healthy lawn to grow.

Last weekend I also dug out the path at the side of the house again, as it was covered in fir needles and there were bluebells sprouting through the cracks. Down by the dining room’s French doors the camellia is looking very healthy and has a profusion of buds. The fuchsias are starting to leaf and that shrub on the right is starting to flower (not sure what it is).

In the spirit of tackling the garden in small, manageable bits, today I planted the fern garden on the other side of the house. You may remember that this was created in Stage 2 of the renovation. Originally a servant’s courtyard, this space was paved and gave access to the Edwardian coal store and servant’s toilet, which now form part of the breakfast room, utility room and downstairs toilet. Before and after pics here.

Among the plants in the fern garden I planted this, a Dicksonia Antarctica. It’s a tree fern from Australia.

It has been imported from Victoria and when I opened the box it smelt exactly like the Dandenong Ranges National Park.

 

Here are some tree ferns growing in the last fern garden we planted – 11 years ago in our old house back in Australia. Goodness the sun was bright back there.

This is a much smaller fern garden than that one though, but it is what I can see from my kitchen window and will look lovely when it is established.

I was also wondering why the blog was experiencing a spike in hits recently, then I found this link referral on an American website.

We’re famous.

 

Property Maintenance (and some cats photos at the end)

A couple of weeks ago I looked up at the ceiling in the entrance hall and saw this. Guess what’s directly above? The en suite shower room. I had completed some overzealous cleaning of the shower a few days before and hoped that the stain was perhaps from something like a small gap in the floor tile grouting where I has spilled water. When I got my tape measure out though, the stain sat directly underneath the shower drain outlet above.

Upstairs I prodded the drain where it sits in the shower tray and there was water underneath the rim. When I unscrewed the drain section I could see that all the silicone inside it had expired and was wet and mouldy. At the same time I felt the drainpipe drop away from the shower base towards the ceiling below. Ooops. I called P the plumber and asked him about it. Without seeing it he said that he didn’t think the drain would be the culprit as they are basically fitted and then sealed and shouldn’t ever pose a problem. He suggested that perhaps some of the silicone around the base of the shower might be faulty.

It was true that there were a few places where the silicone had started to come away, so we decided that I would dry out the shower and strip away all the silicone and P would come by later in the week to seal it all up. I cut away all the silicone and then prepped the surface by cleaning it with white spirit.

As I pulled the drain section apart I also discovered the rubber drain seal was all mouldy. This confirmed my belief that the drain had been leaking, all that mould doesn’t form overnight. I gave it a good clean.

Luckily we had the shower in the top floor bathroom to use while we waited for P the plumber. After using it a couple of times though, I noticed water coming from under the base of that shower too! Again I prodded the drain and there was water under that rim as well. P the plumber was very busy and a few days had passed. I had some silicone in the house and I have siliconed a shower base before, it just looked a bit messy, so I thought I would give it a try. I started by siliconing around the rim of the the top floor shower drain. When next we used it there was no leak! Emboldened, I decided to tackle the en suite shower too. It was a bit more difficult as there was quite a large gap between the shower base and the tiled walls, but I managed it in the end. I also re-sealed the drain, screwing it all together and re-siliconing it, making sure that there was a light ring of silicone around the rim too. Two weeks later and we are still leak free!

Continuing our theme of water and property maintenance, last week we had some major storms. Whenever it rains heavily I like to check that all the drains and gutters are flowing freely. The cascade coming from the gutter at the back of the house told me we had some problems. The gutter on the roof below it was overflowing too.

The next day, when it was dry, I inspected the lower gutter and downpipe. The plastic leaf guards that we had fitted in the mouths of the downpipes last year were blocking too quickly and easily. I cleared out the one I could reach with my step ladder. When I tested the downpipe with the garden hose though, it was still overflowing. The problem was underground, so I pulled the downpipe out of ground to inspect the pipe. Sure enough it was blocked with a mixture of silt and tiny fragments of terracotta roof tiles – when the roof was being repaired last year the gutters weren’t protected, so all the debris had been washed down the pipes. Underground drain clearing can be expensive, we know that from our experiences with our last house. Luckily I remembered that we had a Wet-and-Dry Vax machine under the stairs that we used in our last house when the cellar flooded (what is it about our houses and water?), so I though it would be worth a try. I brought the Vax out into the back garden and shoved the hose down the drainpipe and switched it on. A combination of vacuuming and hosing with water brought up about a cubic foot of debris. When I tested it again, all was draining properly! No pictures to show you of that episode, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

I couldn’t reach the rest of the gutters and downpipes so I needed to call in a professional.

Today A, the window and gutter guy, came by. He inspected and cleared out the rest of the blocked gutters and removed the offending leaf guards. He could even reach the valley gutter between the two gable roofs of our house and the neighbours, which I had been worried about for some time. There was evidence of it having flooded some time in the past, as there had been blown plaster on the walls of the master bedroom before we renovated. It is far less likely to happen now as the giant silver birch has gone, and we maintain the house, but it still worried me, so I was glad that A was able to get up there with his ladder and clear it out. It was a long way up and looked precarious, but A’s other job is as a fireman, so he knew what he was doing. He even repaired some of the gable tiles and resealed where the downpipe goes through.

Another of the gutters to block easily was the one at the front of the house way up above the front door. Here you can see it flooding in last week’s storm (the picture was taken from the window of the top floor bathroom).

Along this line of gutter, A installed gutter-brushes (which are like long bottle-brushes) to prevent leaves settling in the future.

As A also does window cleaning with special equipment, he was able to reach the really high windows that our regular window cleaner can’t reach. It was the first time the leaded windows along the top flight of stairs have been cleaned, which is great. As you can see, those windows are at the level of other houses chimney pots.

Ruby was fascinated by all the goings on.

Rose seemed pretty relaxed.

And here is one of Oliver and Ruby from yesterday. As you can see, they are not allowed on the kitchen benches.

The Upcycling of the Japanese Chest

You may recall my earlier post about the Japanese chest.

It has now been up-cycled by my friend Claire and it looks fabulous!

I always thought you could do something with it but I didn’t have the time or skill-set. I’m tempted to buy it. I need something to store the Christmas tree in…

Final Carpet Installation

Today we had the last of the carpet installed on the stairs, hallways and landings.

And also in the creepy top floor cupboard. View 1, before.

And View 2.

 

This is why it’s known as the creepy top floor cupboard. Remember how it looked a couple of years ago? Complete with the old header tank, lead pipes, gas light fitting, woodworm, cobwebs, 1920s newspapers, collapsing ceiling and that little hole into the roof I lost the cats in?

Just look at it now! It could almost be another bedroom, or a least a box room (as tiny bedrooms are called in this country) for our steam trunks, portmanteaux and the like. We use it for general storage, which actually does include our suitcases.

It was a bit dark when I took these but you get the idea.

 

Top floor landing, View 1.

After.

 

Top floor landing, View 2.

After.

Reading corner on the landing.

Heading down the top flight of stairs.

You get the idea.

 

Looking back up again.

First floor landing and hallway looking in the direction of the servants landing and maid’s bedroom beyond.

And now.

View from the servants landing.

 

Back towards the main staircase.

View from Bedroom 1.

The closest I got to a matching picture.

View from my study.

You may recall that I painted this flight of stairs last year.

 

It was always going to be a temporary measure but I had planned to have a runner fitted to this flight so that all my efforts painting the stairs wouldn’t go to waste.

A word of advice though, don’t plan to fit a carpet runner on stairs that go around corners.

It is possible but the geometry of it was doing the fitters’ heads in. Mine too. It was impossible to get the runner looking even, particularly when there are also asymmetrical sides to the staircase (in this case the wall on one side and the newel post on the other).

Looks great though, even without the runner.

Inspection crew. It is no coincidence that the carpet is the same colour as the cats’ fur – the lighter carpet in the bedroom tends to get a “grey sheen” on it when it’s time to vacuum…

Pile depth tester.

Heading up.

Oliver not quite sure.

And so on.

Ruby checking her lookout isn’t osbcured, in fact she should be half an inch higher now.

All we need now are some blinds for the dining room and the entire interior will be complete!