The Muuto E27 Light

Another idea for the toilet room light fitting is this Finnish designed Muuto E27 light. They look great hung in a cluster, but it would also look great to hang a single one in a small space with its cable draped from a hook slightly too long.

The secrets of the daffodils

It was a sunny mild weekend and the daffodils are up all around town whispering secrets to each other.

Spring is in the air

I took photos at St. Gilles Church yard near our flat on the weekend, evidence that spring has finally arrived. I liked the colours in these blurry photos...

A new floorboard

One of our Georgian Floorboards in the kitchen was split down the middle so I went to the timber merchants on my lunch hour yesterday and got a new board cut exactly to size. I wont paint the floor in the kitchen until all the work is completed or it will just get damaged, but it was satisfying to get this piece in.

Our new coat and shoe rack

Last weekend we installed the coat and shoe rack which we planned out back in January (see post from January 11th). We modified the design by having a full height back panel because the wall behind was so uneven. We are super pleased with the end result; our shoes can be stored neatly off the floor, and there is space for coats and bags can be hung by the front door.

I cant take credit for the shoe rack idea, for how to make your own look here: www.notmartha.org/tomake/shoerack/

Coat Rack Sketches

Last weekend was a productive one in terms of making progress on the flat as we also managed to get up the coat and shoe rack. I had painted the components during the week, and ordered the hooks back in January (see post from the 11.01.2010) so it was just a matter of screwing everything together and hanging it on the wall.

Here is the sketch I did earlier to work out the dimensions. I wanted to make sure the bag hooks were high enough above the shoes that they didnt touch. I'll take photos tonight, I didnt manage to take any on the weekend as I was waiting for the paint to dry before filling it.

Bedroom Complete

After a day of struggling, the second pair of bedroom shutters finally went in. Because we had straightened up the window frames during the refurbishment, and infilled all the notches in the shutters, they no longer fit so needed to be planed down around the edges in order to close and then the paintwork re-touched up.

This was the last job in the bedroom so this room is now finally complete at last!

WC Basin Tap Options

Some taps would project too far over our narrow basin, resulting in water splashing onto the floor, while some didnt seem to project enough, but after much research and debate we have narrowed down our WC tap choices to these four:

The Grohe Essence basin or wall tap (top two)
The Pura Wall Tap (left)
The Silver Range Wall Tap from Ideal Standard (right)

Handrinse Basins for Cloakroom

Our toilet room currently has a somewhat useless little sink with a separate hot and cold tap on either side of the basin, whose spouts dont project far enough. ie. you bump your hands on the side of the sink when washing them. Not ideal.

I have been looking for a rectangular shaped basin in a similar depth to the 250mm one we have now so it doesnt project too far into the room. These two were my final choices - the Vero from Duravit, and the Quadro from Saneux. We have decided to go with the Quadro as it gives a slightly wider basin size, and we like the linear proportion.

Kitchen Switch Board

The new (MK Electric Aspect Range) switch plate for the kitchen has now been installed, so the old plastic switch is no longer dangling precariously out of the wall like an eyeball out of its socket!

We originally just had one switch, but got our electrician to run two more cables when he updated our kitchen electrics back in December. One switch is for the linear light fitting, one for the pendant above the table, and one is for the LED under-cabinet lights - so we have a fully controllable system.

Plumen Bulbs

When I was looking for lighting for the kitchen, I found these cool new energy efficient fluorescent light bulbs. (www.plumen.com)

They look great hanging alone, rather than hiding under a lampshade, so Im thinking it might be fun to hang one in the toilet room...

Kitchen Lighting

I am pulling together our kitchen lighting, which we hope to install next weekend. The linear 'Talo' light fitting is from Italian lighting company Artemide and will run parallel to our run of cabinets. The Talo we have is white, and was salvaged from one of my building projects at work when they stripped out an old office.

The dark grey enamel pendant light shade was a housewarming gift from my mom which I purchased at Labour and Wait a year ago, which will hang above the kitchen table once we've cleared out all the building materials.
http://labourandwait.co.uk

Ive bought a vintage style bulb holder in polished nickle to work with the enamel lamp shade, and to add a punch of colour we are going to suspend it with red-braided cable from this website:
http://historiclighting.co.uk/category/fabric-cable

Kitchen Sockets

This weekend we made an end panel to finish off the run of base cabinets, painted the walls and finally put the cover plates on all the electrical sockets.

So you dont see the sockets against the backsplash we installed them in the underside of the upper cabinets. We also built two sockets into ends of the 380mm deep basecabinets so we can plug in our toaster and other small appliances on this side.