Flibbertygibbet

Ticking over

Got a thousand words into the synopsis tonight which is coming along - thank you all for the good wishes!  I'm now in touch with most of the other winners and we're conferring to see who know what about what's going on.  We're all slightly in the dark but it will be fine, and it's still exciting.  A real spur to keep going.

Work is tiring.  I seem to be spending a lot of time on the net - somehow I seem to be able to get away with that though actually writing seems to be cheating somehow?

The flat is turning into the world's biggest money pit - the most hilarious quote so far is £3,000 for a new boiler.  According to one of the guys where I work, it's a bit like owning a boat:  the two best days of your life are when you buy your boat and when you sell it.  I think it's the same with a house.

On Sunday we had a little clap along - most of us were present - Abi, Caroline, Jenny, Ting, Lucy, Claire... except Helen who's away and Denise who's our international member, mwah mwah.  I still need to crack the carrot cake recipe but the macaroons were fine - love you, Nigella.  BTW, we were discussing the new Kaffe Fassett sock yarns and I said I didn't like the colours - but I think it might just have been that I saw poor photos online.  Jane Yarnstorm has some on her blog and they look great.

It's finally gotten chilly here.  Hence my new knitting project - something for me, finally.  In cashmere...

Do you remember

...I said I had a secret?  I sort of deliberated about saying anything at all because I didn't win but it's a nice incentive to keep going - or indeed, to start properly.   I'm sure you'll all give me a nudge - or a push -  when I need it...

Oh I do like to be...

beside the seaside, in a uncommonly blue-skied Whitby, for a dear friend's wedding.  An extremely stylish, personal, thoughtful day.

Her perfect pillbox hat was created especially for her by a wonderful milliner called Jessie Clifford.  The dress came from a vintage fair and she was stunned to get it for a bargain price (£40 I think) and it was fabulous - princess line ivory satin, and she was completely tickled by the pockets.  Utility designer wear. 

The reception took place in a semi-ruined castle in the middle of the moors.  I've never been so struck by colours in nature before but driving there through vast swathes of heather made me want to rush home and buy lots of Kidsilk aura in what I will now think of as Yorkshire colours.

The next day there was time to be a tourist, with a new friend I met at the bride's hen-day.  We were the two bold divorcees together and it was wonderful to have a partner in crime.  Also substantially cheaper to be able to share a room and fun to travel together.  You get a lot of knitting done on a four hour coach and train trip - more on that later.

And the trains there and back even ran on time.  Apart from perhaps this one:

There has been a little crafting...

The Clapotis in Debbie Bliss Pure Silk.  Cross one Christmas present off the list.  I've gone back to the angora one and it's coming along nicely.

Had a fit today with the kitchen fitter (I thought he was coming to the flat, he thought I was coming to the office) and I've pretty much decided to go down the Ikea route.  Helen gave me a good recommendation but I think I can't afford the designer options.  But I am feeling quite optimistic about the plans...it's off to Ikea for me on Saturday morning. Wish me luck...

 

The Bling Loo

Found it.  And it's in the sale again...

But my question is... can these pipes be moved, bent, whatever, so that the tank can sit on the wall to the right of the bowl as below, rather than directly above like in the picture here... or wait, does it just sit sideways?

You know what, I am sitting here laughing to myself - what the hell am I embarking on.  Let's hope it stays funny and hysterical doesn't become hysteria.  And thanks for all the good advice, good cheer and good wishes on the last post.  I hope to keep you all entertained with the journey to Flib's new nest...

Look what I bought...

The teensy weensy kitchen. More on that later.

The hallway - not quite the 500 sq feet I was remembering but it's fine.  What you can't quite see on the right is a humongous, enormous storage cupboard.

The sitting room - alcove for the table  on left, balcony for the cats to the right.

What will be the Bling Loo.

What will be the boudoir...

The writing room and studio.

 

 

The dirt that must go.  Anyone want to get their Marigolds on and come on down?  Taking volunteers for the cleaning, decorating, moving and catering crews.  In all seriousness, I am more than happy to do the cleaning myself - especially as it's so much easier as the place is totally empty.  But will definitely need help decorating.  The next thing to consider is how much work to do. 

The kitchen is a given.  It's rather foul and also very small so I got a kitchen designer.  I nearly swallowed my tongue when he came back with the figure of £11,100 and that was discounted from £14,000!  (For MDF, minimal appliances and sod all design expertise from what I could see - there wasn't a single useful feature in there...) So I have appointments with other firms for next week so that I can get this ordered and on the go - and I can get moved in as soon as I have something to cook on and don't have to live on pop tarts.

Going up there tonight was much more exciting and in turn, more reassuring than I expected.  It feels right and moving on is starting to feel more real.  I've decided to take the bigger room as a bedroom and the smaller one will be the craft and writing room*.  Contrary to what you're all expecting, I'm not intending to paint everything pink.   But I really do quite like this:

but wish it had arms.

This is rather cool too and is on the Ikea shopping list:

And definitely a possibility:

*More on that later...

For Emile

A little more modern than some of the other quilts I've done but I'm really pleased with it.  Lots and lots going on at Flib Towers, all pretty much good news - more on that later.  Definitely by Friday, I'm slightly sworn to secrecy on some of it....

Who shrank my flat?

Yesterday I went back to the flat for the first time and I walked in thinking 'Hurrah, I still like it!  It's just that someone took away 50sq feet from the hallway...'

You know that extreme tracking shot they use in horror films for the moment of the denouement, where the viewpoint stays static and the world rushes past?  Yeah, it was like that, in my memory.  In reality it's rather more bijou.  Probably because I haven't been there since the beginning of May which really is such a long time ago. I had mistakenly remembered a huge hallway - which I was papering with feature wallpaper in my head - when in fact it's probably just about big enough to extend your arms out fully and twirl around in a giddy circle, thinking 'This is my new house! Mine!'.  Note I didn't say "to swing a cat in" because I don't think they'd really like that.  On the feline space issue - I'm a bit concerned that I'll either have to situate their litter tray in the human bathroom (eeeew) or replace the entire balcony door as I'm not sure that a cat flap could be fitted to the double-glazed door.  Add 'find local double glazing company' to the list.

That's all ok.  I will just have to really start to rationalise the amount of stuff that I am able to take with me.  No, I know I've been saying that, I just have to start acting on it.  I forsee a lot of black bin bags/freecyling in my immediate future...can I really do that?  I have the fear that I'm a clutter junkie. Certainly I am excellent at amassing stash and supplies without utilising them; of buying clothes I won't wear; of hoarding shoes that are no longer practical for me - the list goes on.

Do I really use the big bedroom as a studio, and the smaller one as the boudoir (Oh yeah, I am so a boudoir type of girl - not) or live in the large room.  That's the other dilemma at the moment - trying to figure out what to do with the place.  Not just from a what colour/wallpaper or paint viewpoint, but how much design goes into it.  I've been toying with all sorts of ideas, partly inspired by lots of bloggy people and links that you've sent me, thanks for that.  I suppose I am thinking back to when I moved in here to the house and at first we lived with the frigging hideous stencilling.  For a year or more.  When I got to sorting it,  it felt right to decorate it in harmony with the age of the property (1896) , and to also make it warm but neutral and in some ways a little formal.  A little less 'Changing Rooms'.  And not so yellow, red and green - the traffic light school of home decor!  Though ironically I ended up choosing a colour for the anaglypta which was not unlike the one that had been above the dado rail in the first place.

Now I'm looking at a much smaller space and I wonder how to make it seem more spacious, doing 'enough' to it without going overboard.  The kitchen fitter came in yesterday to measure up and I suffered option paralysis when it came to choosing which ranges I was interested in.  It's curious as many of my friends seem to know my taste better than I do, they point out something and say 'that's so you!' and they are on the money.  For myself, I can't close my eyes at the moment and picture how the flat will look - apart from lusting after a Danish sofa for the sitting room.  But apparently they are difficult to track down because of course they aren't compliant with current fire regulations so have to be (expensively) reupholstered before sale nowadays.  But I found some here... along with a classic case in point of my indecisiveness - I saw this sofa and thought - perfect!  That's exactly what I am looking for...

   

Yup, that's the one.  Then I scrolled down the page...

Oooooooohhhhh.....

How exactly do you marry up those styles (in a house without separate wings)?  How can my tastes fluctuate  so wildly, like a compass near a magnet?  Don't tell me it's just about the colour.  Hmmmmm.

In other news, there has been a little crafting.  As I confessed yesterday to Ting as we were knitting in London Fields, bathed in glorious sunshine,  I have been a bad sister and still haven't bound this, (for my brother's friend's baby) though I'm really happy with the way it has turned out:

[Well, that was after I ripped out the tiniest machine stitches because (and this always happens with me - can you offer any hints. might be to do with tension?) while they looked ok in the middle of the quilt, the end of the line was puckered and I couldn't live with it, so I ripped it all out. Painstakingly, and of course the initial idea behind machine quilting was to make it all quicker and then it took me a week's worth of evenings to remove out the miniscule stitches...]

The Clap is also coming along...

I'm meeting a couple of lovely ladies, co-incidentally both fellow clappers today to wander down the King's Road to look at house stuff, get a little knitting in, then catch a movie perhaps.  What a lovely way to Sunday.   

Wallpaper*

So this weekend (it's a Bank Holiday here) I'm doing lots of 'flat' things.  Getting in there with the kitchen fitter on Saturday.  Researching on Sunday.  Going back with some surveyor friends on Monday. 

If my surveyor friends can't see anything too horrendous, then things may truck along quick quickly.  In fact, even if they do pick up on anything, my intention is to say "Fine, X is falling apart and it's going to cost me £Y to get it fixed, so I'll take that off the purchase price".  The owner, before flouncing off on holidays somewhere, thought that all she'd need to do was sign a few random pieces of paper and the flat would be sold.  Not quite so simple.  But my wonderful amazing solicitor hasn't let them away with a thing.  If things pan out, I'll be exchanging contracts next week, and completing the following week.  MPH just has to get the next load of cash to me so that I've got the deposit waiting. 

On the day I complete, I intend to instruct the kitchen with the people Claire recommended who seem great.  It's going to have to be a masterpiece of design as I've two dinner services, three teasets, most of the Le Creuset range and a Selfridge's showroom's worth of appliances to fit in there.

As frequently happens, this house-moving lark is stressing me out.  I had a big argument with my brother last night on the phone which hasn't happened for about twenty years.  It was trivial and has blown over but shows how nutso I am at the moment.

This Sunday I'm going to go looking for design ideas - for wallpapers (thinking Nina Campbell Birdcage Walk for the hall) and also need to find frosted paper or decals of some sort for the kitchen windows.  Where would you send me in London?  What are your favourite decorating blogs and where do your design ideas come from?

*and who's going to help me hang it?

What's on the menu today

1. Finish freelance job for tomorrow
2. Feed cats, feed me*, tidy house, bake for visitors
3. Spend time giggling with the Clap-along girls and other knitterly visitors who are descending this afternoon.  Yes, I started over.  With stitch markers, in the Debbie Bliss silk. We'll see how it  goes on the increases section with this version - hopefully the stitches will drop better and I'll get it right!
   
   
   
4. Iron the two baskets of laundry that have been sitting there for a while now, ahem, and which were unearthed during the epic housecleaning and laundry marathon yesterday
5. Head off to watch the Bourne Flimflammery, or whatever the last one is called, with Jen (Matt Damon - phwoar, frankly)
6. Make some more appointments for the flat next week - I'm trying to get in there to do some final measuring up.  I have been stressing the estate agent about various last points and have to do it by email as I can't really make personal calls at work.  And of course emails can come across as being stroppy.  So it was delightful last night when I met my estate agent in the queue for the loos at Prince** and the first thing she said was 'I read your email this morning...'... bee-atch... This is the second time I've run into her and both times I've been with Ting.  So she thinks I only have one friend or we are a couple.

Do you think there will be enough hours in the day (given it's already 10:30?)  Well that's what happens when you procrastinate and hang out on a limb (not just today) waiting to see how this or that or the other thing will pan out, not just today but recently, and for a while now.  Some things I'd been hoping for now won't be happening but easy come, easy go.  Now it's time - no, really, the deadline has passed -  to embrace and be positive about the options that are open to me - like buying my little flat. I am SCARED TO DEATH about it because it's kind of madness but if I don't do it now, I'll never be able to afford to buy somewhere.  I am extremely fortunate in that my parents are able to help me financially for a while, but jesus, I am 33.  When am I going to turn into a grown up?

*It's also time to get myself in shape physically and possibly mentally.  I've tried going back to WW on a number of occasions now and can't stick with it, for some reason, though I know it does work but I guess I wasn't fully committed to it.  Head stuck in the sand - or the bag of crisps.  A friend recently told me she'd lost 20 lbs and I thought 'Oh my god that's amazing, well done!'  My next thought was 'And f*** me, I found them!  They're on my hips and thighs right now.'  How many times have I said that I have to change this? Well probably not enough times.  I may be boring you all rigid with it over the next while.  Or I may say nothing at all.  I have to get over the fact that I've made things somewhat worse over the past three months and now it's only going to be harder.  And to borrow a phrase, just do it.

The other thing I have to face up to is my financial health.  It's pretty much terminal.  I have to accept that I need to make major changes to my lifestyle because it is time to face up to the fact that even if I get the salary I am targetting, it will only pay for my basics and not for the amount of socialising or fabric buying I've been indulging in. Being in debt just scares me, particularly as it's not especially good debt - it's lifestyle debt.  But one thing I'm going to be investigating for the new flat is Sky Plus - because I'm going to be spending a lot of time at home! 

** Ok, so Prince didn't play very long, which was disappointing but he was just amazing, he does ooze sex appeal and he's a superb showman.  Highlights were Controversy, Pop Life, Let's Go Crazy, a snatch of DMSR, Raspberry Beret and U Got the Look.  I'm off to crank up the stereo with some of the Prince albums I bought last week, (lifestyle spending!!!)  and get it all started around here...

And there you are!

Thanks lovely people for reassuring me that I'm not going completely ga-ga.  Some of you are also having some tech issues.  Lots of people have experienced Bloglines spitting the dummy.  I'm probably the only person who forgot that changing back to her maiden name will indeed invalidate the credit card that Typepad have in their billing records.  Whoops.  Should be all-singing, all-dancing again now. 

Will post more later when their isn't a nasty little man reading over my shoulder.  Gah.  You have to hate open-plan offices.