Christmas is HERE!

Well here at My Old House we got in the Christmas spirit this past weekend. Getting in the Christmas spirit always starts in the same way. Hubby: "Let's get a Christmas Tree" Me: "Oooh Yes! A nice big bushy one with lots of lovely branches" Hubby: "No. Nothing too big" (picks out spindly little tree) Me: (makes unhappy face) "How about this one instead" (pulls out ridiculously big tree) repeat over and over again for 30 minutes.  You get the idea.

However, it always ends well and we have another lovely tree this year and I've added few extra touches to the front and dining room to make it appear a bit more festive.

Our tree (with presents already wrapped) and the small decoration in the dining room 

 Close up of the dining room decoration

My mantlepiece masterpiece in the living room

A bit closer in

 Avery dark shot of the view from the kitchen

As we're hosting this year we have been in a bit of a blind panic to get the house ready and get everything ready to have a lovely perfect Christmas. Now we weren't successful in getting carpet in (the man just laughed at me), but we have a fully working bathroom AND two new lovely armchairs to for people to sit in plus a rug in the living room. Wonders never cease! So happy with these!!!

Here they are in the room:

Each chair close up

Bring on Santa!

The final result (or the 99.9% result)

Well I promised you the finished product and here you go. Or at least as finished as we have it at the moment. The eagle eyes amongst you will notice that the bath panel is still missing. That is currently up with the lovely F-I-L being lovingly painted so we can install them hopefully in about a week...well before everyone descends for Christmas at any rate. You'll also notice that we have left the walls white.  After much debating and colour swatching (I think I own the entire sample pot range in creams and pale yellows from Farrow & Ball now) we still haven't come up with a decision. Although the most tempting is just to go with the leave it white suggestion from a friend. Too clinical? Let me know what you think!!

 Oh the choices....still haven't decied.

We still need to put some storage in as well for all our shampoos and assorted lotions and potions, but have found it so just need to make the purchase!

Ps. Having awoken to a scratching/rattling noise the other night I am now complete supporter of keeping the toilet lid down. Apparently some animal (exact type) unknown somehow got up the soil pipe into our toilet and was stuck. This has been attested to by my dear husband who went to investigate and saw the lid bouncing up and down. His gallant response....hit the flush which seemed to send the little critter whoever he may be back down the way he came. Don't know what it was, but making darn sure that lid is down from now on. Word to the wise.

So What Else Have We Been Doing

So if you have figured us out by now you will know that re-doing your bathroom doesn't really get in the way of trying to sort our a million and one other things. One of those things was our bedroom. Now that we have painted almost all of the other rooms in the house with lovely Farrow & Ball colours our pale blue in the bedroom just didn't feel quite right. Plus we've had the bare prison bulb dangling from our ceiling for quite some time. What does all that add up to??? Paint brushes at the ready!

Our bedroom over time:

The horror show when we moved in (how can anyone forget this award winning combination)

The first colour we painted it

The new light fixture and a shot of the new wall colour

 Another view of the new colour. It's lovely.

I'm so happy with this, especially when you look back to how it looked when we moved in.

Catching up on the progress part 1

I have now been reunited with my camera which means that I can FINALLY update everyone on the fabulous progress on our bathroom. We are so pleased with it. Here are the latest pics:

The tiling starts (the builders don't hate us yet)

 Getting there (builders definitely starting to hate us for choosing the pattern)

 And the bath as well aren't you lucky builders!

The tiling is complete!!!!! 

We are so amazed at the different between the first photo and the last in terms of light and space. I know that a lot of this will be down to us reinstating the sash window (big thanks to Keith for making this for us), but it just shows you the difference the right kind of tiles in a space can make. Some final results pictures in a following post with all the rest of the lovely bits and pieces in.