I've long dreamed of crittal doors in our house, but it's never been a reality before. With hindsight, when we renovated our house in West Didsbury, we should have investigated these metal doors...
Renovation…
In the beginning, our blogs were mainly about destruction, demolition, debris, dirt, dust and sometimes, despair. It wasn’t easy, and sometimes, sitting in our new “home”, surrounded by boxed up belongings and builders’ tools and ladders and half built walls, we did wonder what we had done. But those walls do get built, the tools are finally dispensed with and the familiar belongings find new homes. We’re now able to document the “nice” bits of the reno project – the upcycling, the recycling, the repurposing. Making empty spaces into rooms. Breathing new life back into a house which needed a lot of TLC.
We hope that this journal will provide inspiration if you are embarking on a similar journey. We hope that it will give you the courage to just do it. And we hope that it will give you an unshakeable sense of belief that it can be done. Because it can. And guess what? We’re still doing it. The house may be finished – although we never say never – and so our focus has been on major demolition and construction work at both the front and rear of the house. Want to know all about our renovations?
Open a bottle of wine, curl up on the sofa and come and join us on our journey…
recent renovation blogs
andalucian reno journey #3 : main bathroom
It's been a while since I've done a post about our renovation journey, because we've so busy since actually moving into the house - at long last! - on 26th August. The builders finally departed a...
andalucian reno journey #3 : stairs
The stairs up to the roof terrace, from the first floor, were awful. Just awful. Steep, enclosed and dark. They were so awful in fact, that we gave our builders a bit of a head-scratcher and said we...
spanish tiles
Our lovely Andalucian townhouse, when we bought it, was full of tiles. But unfortunately, most weren't those beautiful Spanish tiles that we all swoon over. They were mostly patterned, but arranged...
garden reno : update 8
I finally feel we're coming to the end of a very long winter. Although we've still got to see February out - and this is month when for the past four years, we've had snowfall in Istria - there are...
project printworks : update 2
2020, as everyone knows, was a pretty unbelievable year, all round. If someone had told me the following, in January 2020, I'd have thought they were daft: that we'd have to have official travel...
it’s a filthy job – but someone’s got to do it…
Ah, Christmas Eve. Snuggled up on the sofa, the woodburner roaring away, lights twinkling, candles flickering, the scent of mulled wine filling the room as we wrap gifts and eat chocolates and watch...
project printworks : update 1
Almost four years to the day, since we bought our first renovation project in Istria, we have the next one within our sights. I think we have always known that the stone house was never going to be...
creating a car park…
We've never had a garden big enough to accommodate our cars. In every house we've lived in, parking has always been outside, on the street. Apart from having to usually fight for parking space...
garden reno : update 7
If you're a follower of what we're up to, you might know that we have a very unusual feature in our front garden. We are right next to an abandoned house and one of its walls forms one of our garden...
hello, october…
So, our long, hot - but very strange - summer, has drawn to a close. As in previous years since we've been here, I'm sure we'll still have days which are warm and sunny, but the intense heat of the...
garden reno : update 6
It was back in May that we finally bought a shed and started the job of building it. We made the initial mistake of thinking we'd bought just a shed, like the B&Q one we used to have in our...
then & now…
I've been sorting through hundreds and hundreds of online photos, from when we first viewed what was to become our home in Istria to now. To a couple of days ago, when weather stopped DIY play in...
garden reno : update 5
For the first time this year, we made the trip to Pula. Normally, we'd by now, be making fairly regular trips to the airport to pick up and drop off visitors, but this is no normal year. Our first...
garden reno : update 4
The garden area at the front of the house has not really been renovated, as such. It's certainly been tidied up and areas of it do look a whole lot better, but apart from the addition of garden...
our little abandoned house of istria…
When we bought our stone house in Istria, we were advised by the sellers that the little abandoned dwelling, to the rear of the property, could be purchased from one of our new neighbours. We were...
the gold room…
I've thought long & hard about adding blogs to the website, in the current climate. It seems too frivolous to be posting about renovations and life-style things and recipes. But, and it is a big...
bedroom three reno : update 3
Unable to ever leave a room, close the door and congratulate ourselves on a “finished” project, we’ve been revisiting our third bedroom. To be honest, we’ve re-visted then all, but that’s another...
bedroom three reno : update 2
Yes, we are edging closer and closer to having the house fully renovated, with the completion of the renovation of the second guest room. This room, on the top floor, currently looks out over the...