Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

I am not quite satisfied with our bathroom ‘after’ pics, but I decided to post about the process and then just update the pictures afterwards.

Originally, to get to the bedroom, you had to go through the bathroom as there was no landing at the top of the stairs – just a door to the bathroom. There was also a trap door through the ceiling with a pull-down ladder that gave access to the loft.

It’s kind of hard to describe as the bathroom renovation is based on some structural changes, including two staircases and several partition walls. But I digress.

Here’s a before picture, taken from the bedroom and looking towards the bathroom.

Before

bathroom before partition 600x450 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

During

This next photo is a ‘during’ shot, depicting how the walls and door changed from this angle.

bathroom after partition 600x449 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

Before

And here’s a closer before shot from that same angle which is slightly obscured by the open door on the left. Through that door used to be a set of stairs. You can see the bathtub and the toilet, complete with vintage 70s toilet paper – seriously, from the 70s!

bathroom before inside 600x451 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

During

Okay, now for a demolition shot. Slightly blurry, I know, but since the panelling partitions were taken out, it’s easier to see the before structure. See the pipe sticking out of the floor? The sink resided there.

bathroom during demo 600x450 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

Here’s what the sink nook looked like. It is now part of the landing.

before bathroom sink 600x398 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

Before/During

Okay, here we go. This is the toilet area, which we left in the same spot as before.

toilet during demo 447x600 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

After

toilet after 450x600 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

It’s a slightly different angle, but you get the idea.

Before

Now from the toilet, looking towards the bedroom.

bathroom tub before 600x449 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

After

This is one of the after shots I’ll replace soon, as you can’t really see much. The floor is slightly graded so all the water runs towards the drain. Then it’s just a shower, with the partition wall extending quite a bit further than before.

bathroom shower after Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

Before

Now, standing at the shower and looking towards the window. This is kind of where the door used to be, so you can’t see much in the before photo.

bathroom window before 600x400 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

After

And here’s our new sink, mirror and window!

bathroom window after1 450x600 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

And looking left a little bit, you’ll see the new door, which leads to the new landing at the top of the new stairs.

new bathroom door 450x600 Our Bathroom: Before and After Pics

Now that I’ve got a proper camera, I do plan on updating these photos. We’ve added some storage and towels and other decorative things, which aren’t in these pictures.

Our Royal Wedding Party

Yesterday we celebrated the royal wedding of William & Kate, accompanied by our neighbours and a gluttonous amount of British-themed food & drink. We all brought a little something British for breakfast and watched the live coverage together.

champagne breakfast 600x448 Our Royal Wedding Party

We were going to bring the TV out to the garden, but it was a bit grey so we stayed in.

pimms royale 600x398 Our Royal Wedding Party

We had Pimm’s royale, which is basically a bit of Pimm’s and a strawberry, topped with cava. It was pretty good, actually.

royal wedding party 600x357 Our Royal Wedding Party

The wedding itself was really exciting. Trudy correctly predicted that the Queen would wear yellow and Alan discovered his love for Pippa Middleton. I kept noticing Canada flags in the crowd and we all went crazy when we saw the Princes arrive.

cream tea 600x395 Our Royal Wedding Party

Alan earned his princess crown…

alan tiara 600x412 Our Royal Wedding Party

After the wedding, the sun came out and we moved to Mat & Sarah’s garden for a BBQ.

pimms birdcage 600x401 Our Royal Wedding Party

Check out the food! We had corn on the cob, homemade beef and turkey burgers, chicken skewers, salads, spicy chicken drumsticks and probably more that I’m forgetting…

bbq food 600x600 Our Royal Wedding Party

Mat cooked it up for us…

mat bbq 600x398 Our Royal Wedding Party

…as Alan dished out more Cava!

more cava 600x397 Our Royal Wedding Party

We enjoyed our feast and had a few laughs as the sun went down. We even toasted marshmallows!

my plate 600x399 Our Royal Wedding Party

At one point, Pipsqueak surprised us by jumping onto the roof of the marquee! I think she was feeling left out…

pips jump 600x600 Our Royal Wedding Party

Once it got dark, we went in and belted out tunes in Sing Star until eventually we retired to our own Tory houses and hit the hay.

sing star 600x395 Our Royal Wedding Party

What a day!

Floral Union Jack Cushion

How cute would this be in a little girl’s room?

 Floral Union Jack Cushion

If interested, you can buy it from the following shops. I’ve included shipping rates in the prices. Amazon’s cheapest, if you have Amazon Prime.

Also, if you like this cushion, you’ll probably like the range of cushions over at Aspace.co.uk. I just so happen to have designed their website last year, so I can assure you that the checkout process there is hassle-free and secure. icon smile Floral Union Jack Cushion

aspace cushions 600x141 Floral Union Jack Cushion

Mom’s Apple Crisp Recipe

Apple crisp is kind of like the UK’s apple crumble, but made with oats and cooked until it’s crispy on top instead of crumbly. My mom used to make this all the time when I was growing up and it never lasted long in our house!

apple crisp 600x448 Moms Apple Crisp Recipe

This apple crisp recipe is easy to remember and totes scalable, depending how many apples you have.

Ingredients

  • 4-6 apples, peeled and sliced (I like tart apples best.)
  • ½ cup plain flour
  • ½ cup margarine or soft butter (I often reduce this amount a little, in an effort not to be so unhealthy.)
  • ¾ cup brown sugar (To my UK readers, this means light muscovado.)
  • ¾ cup rolled oats
  • 175ml merlot, or wine of your preference*

Directions

  1. Mix everything but the apples with two knives until there aren’t any huge lumps of butter left. Or, if you’re super lazy like me, you can chuck it in the food processor while you have a few sips of your wine.
  2. Lightly spread topping on apples.
  3. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 175°C / 350°F until apples are soft and top is crispy. This should give you enough time to finish your glass of wine and as an added bonus, your entire house will smell delish.
  4. [Optional] Really try to force yourself to wait 10 minutes before testing so as not to burn your mouth.
  5. Serve with vanilla ice cream.

You can really throw a crisp topping on any fruit, or a combination of fruits. Apple rhubarb is good, as is blueberry. You can also add pumpkin pie spice (mixed spice in UK) to the fruit for a more Christmassy taste.

*The only thing I could possibly add to my mother’s recipe to make it better!

Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The weather this weekend was so lovely that I skipped making the promised simnel cake in favour of relaxing in the garden. I opted for my mom’s apple crisp instead, which is always a crowd pleaser.

We spent Easter weekend at Chris’ dad’s house, which overlooks the sea in Charmouth, Dorset. Charmouth is a really interesting place because the cliffs are made out sedimentary rock, built up since the Early Jurassic period. The yellow colour at the top of the cliff is Cretaceous (the geologic era that followed Jurassic), so you’re looking at 100 million years of history.

charmouth cliffs 600x399 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

On Saturday afternoon, we walked along the coast to Lyme Regis and hunted for ammonite fossils on the way.

jurassic beach 600x400 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

Ammonites died out with the dinosaurs, but their fossils are still commonly found on the beach in amongst the rock. Neil found me an ammonite fossil and Chris found me a bit of pyrite (fool’s gold).

rocks 600x242 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The weather and lighting were cooperating perfectly and I had to keep stopping to take photos…

charmouth panorama 600x177 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

On our way back, the tide was coming in and I slipped on an inclined rock covered in seaweed and slid into the water, camera and all. It was like something from a movie. Thankfully my camera and phone both survived!

That evening, Neil prepared us a roast chicken dinner, complete with a huge jug of Pimm’s Lemonade.

pimms lemonade 600x326 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

We enjoyed our dinner as we watched the Easter bunnies hiding chocolates in Neil’s garden…

easter bunnies digging neils garden 600x166 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

… and woke up to this!

neils house charmouth 600x397 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

Sunday afternoon we ventured to Chideock, a village just east of Charmouth. We walked around the village and saw some really nice churches and cute thatched roof cottages. Everyone seemed to have a green thumb and I was really inspired by all of the beautiful, fragrant wisteria.

chris and amy in chideock 600x363 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

We also saw lots of wild garlic and blue bells growing along the side of the road.

wild flowers 600x296 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

Privately owned Chideock Manor opens to the public only once per year, so we were very fortunate to be able to visit it. We began our tour of the manor gardens with some tea, cakes and a short sit-down.

tea and cake at chideock manor 600x334 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The vegetable patch in particular caught my interest. It was too early to see much in terms of crop, but I really liked the box hedge that defined the perimeter and the use of branches to construct tipis and sweet pea trellises.

chideock manor vegetable patch 600x316 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The orchard was equally stunning, with row upon row of fruit trees in full bloom.

chideock manor orchard 600x400 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The wisteria on the side of the manor was gorgeous – the best wisteria we saw all day!

chideock manor wisteria 600x388 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

The manor gardens also featured several rows of trees that had been trained into arches. I absolutely love this kind of a feature in a garden. It was stunning.

trained trees into archway 600x396 Easter Weekend in Charmouth, Dorset

We arrived back to Neil’s house sunburnt but happy and enjoyed a delicious ham salad feast prepared by Neil. Sadly, I didn’t get a good shot of our feast as I must have been too ravenous after all the sunshine and walking. After an elegant sufficiency of Easter goodies, reality set in and it was time to head back to Wiltshire.

What a perfect long weekend!