My summer project - shed

Throughout the year I have been trying to make my garden a bit more presentable so that we can spend more time out there. You may have seen my previous posts my mess of a garden and my cleaned up garden.

Well cutting down all the Ivy from around the shed just revealed how dirty the shed looked so I thought it would be a great summer project to give it a bit of a makeover.

I gave the shed a good scrub with a scrubbing brush, warm water and a little cleaning spray. When it dried I used sand paper to smooth it down and remove any loose bits ready for it to be painted.

I bought a small tin of Cuprinol paint in the Pale Jasmin shade. I thought, as the paint is designed to be used on wood, that it would be thick like a gloss but it was very watery and when first applied it seemed to just soak into the wood and fade. After finishing one side of the shed I ran out of paint and had to go and buy another, so it would have worked out cheaper for me to just buy a big tin in the first place!

Once painted I hung some bunting across the top which I purchased from Amazon and hung a picture on the door. The paint looks a little patchy but overall I am very pleased with how it looks.

So that's the shed done but it doesn't end there! I have loads of other jobs that still need doing in the garden and the neighbour has plans to cut down the whole of the Ivy as it's on both sides of our garden and growing out from between the fences.

What have you been doing in your garden over the summer? Come and link up with #HDYGG over at Mannaskjur on the icon below.

My mess of a garden

Apologies in advance for the state of my garden!

We have had some work done on the house and as a result we have been left with a mess of a garden...OK, I admit it didn't look too great beforehand. I have every intention of sorting it out but I am not very green fingered and apart from cutting it all down I just don't know where to start!

It is not a very large garden but I think there is potential to do something with it. Hopefully the scaffolding will be removed soon and I can give the grass a good cut but I want a bit more colour. I am thinking of going out there this week with the kids and planting some seeds in the pots that are scattered around everywhere.

After clearing away all the rubbish and cutting back the bushes it should seem a bit bigger, although the shed is already packed full of old tat and I do really want to get that emptied as well.
The fence is falling down which leaves the garden exposed to everyone walking past which puts me off sitting out there but hopefully that will be replaced within a few weeks!

Basically I have a lot of work to do! Which is why I am linking up to How does your garden grow with Mammasaurus. I wouldn't want to shame myself by putting photos of the same mess every week so hopefully it will encourage me to pull my finger out and make it look beautiful...or even half decent will do!

I promise next time I will post some prettier pictures, even if I have to go into someone else's garden!
If you have any gardening advice it would be greatly appreciated x

Kitchen makeover

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to be contacted by my council to say they will be carrying out work in my house as part of a refurbishment project across the borough. This meant they would be fitting a new kitchen, bathroom and toilet!

It was a very quick process which saw plumbers, plasterers, electricians and the like, in and out the house like a conveyor belt. The work took around 10 working days to complete but because we were practically living out of the front room, so as to not get in their way, and cooking on a little electric hob it actually seemed like they were here for at least a month.

The units and tiles were all pretty basic but we were given an option of colours. They were also providing flooring but as we already had ceramic tiles that were not too shabby I decided to stick with those.

I do love a before and after photo so i thought I would put a few up.

Its funny that even though I have gone from white cabinets to a dark wood, the kitchen actually feels much lighter!

I love the new green colour! I need to add some more decorative touches here and there, like shelves and pictures to make it more homely but I'm very pleased with the outcome and the work that was done!

I am going to put new curtains and blinds but this month the workman are meant to be back to put in all new windows and doors... much needed as I have really old windows and you can actually feel the breeze coming through when you stand next to them. Just hoping it doesn't make a lot of mess throughout the house in the process.

A-Z favourite Sunday afternoon movies

There's nothing I like best on a Sunday afternoon than to snuggle on the sofa with my kids and a blanket to watch a good movie, especially when it is so miserable outside!
Snacks are optional but personally I think a movie just isn't a movie without popcorn!!
So here is a list of what I could happily watch again, some of these are my all time favourites but as it's limited to 1 movie per letter I have missed some good ones out :(

A- Avengers assembled

B- Batman (all of them)

C- City of god

D- Dirty dancing

E- Edward scissorhands

F- Forrest Gump

G- Grease

H- Hairspray

I- I don't know how she does it

J- Julie and Julia

K- Knocked up

L- Love actually

M- Matilda

N- Notting hill

O- One day

P- Pretty woman

Q- Quantum of solace

R- Robin hood prince of thieves

S- Shallow Hal

T- Toy story

U- Up

V- Valentines day

W- When Harry met Sally

X- X-Men first class

Y- You've got mail

Z- Zoolander

I have realised I'm very much a superhero and Rom-com type of girl! What about you, what would you put on your list?

Living room creations

I have recently joined Polyvore (just another website to take up my time) I have seen loads of sets on Pinterest that are made up using this site, some of which I have re-pinned but I didn't realise how simple it was to put your own sets together.

My own house is not too bad but I'm sure if money were no object then I would change EVERYTHING!

I have put together this blue and cream living room as I think it looks light and relaxing and I can just imagine lazing on that sofa watching eastenders with a nice glass of wine sitting on the coffee table, although it would have to be white wine or it wouldn't match the decor!

The site is great for making rooms for the home or creating your own outfit, the only downfall is that it is American (not that I'm against Americans) It shows where you can buy all the goods in dollars and I think if it showed products from Britain in pounds it could actually be used as a kind of wishlist. It does show the website addresses so I'm sure goods could be shipped but I would prefer to buy from stores I know that I could visit.

Out of date TV licence

I got a letter through the post last month to remind me that my TV licence was about to expire and I needed to buy a new one, my first thought 'oh yet another thing I have to pay for' and then I got wondering, why do I need to pay for a TV licence? I mean I already pay extortionate prices to be able to have hundreds of channels (which I barely do watch) on my screen already, why am I paying extra just to watch a few BBC channels??

When the TV licence was first introduced there was basically 1 channel to watch - the BBC, so you were paying to watch 100% of the TV channels!
Now however there are around 200 channels and if you include all the news, international, gaming, shopping and adult channels that's probably another 200 bringing it to 400 channels. Compare this to the amount of BBC stations; there are 8 in total (not including the radio) that amounts to 2% of the channels available!!

There are thousands of people being taken to court every week for evading the £145.50 charge of an annual licence (or £49 for a black and white licence, but who really has one of those nowadays?) So I ask myself, shouldn't we really have a choice of whether we want to pay the fee? Should we opt in to subscribe to the BBC like we do to the movie channels? I mean personally the only thing I watch religiously on the BBC is Eastenders and we all know that's the most miserable thing on there and they would be doing me a favour if they took it away from me!

Or on the other hand how about they just put adverts on like they do on every other channel, it gives us that 3 minute break to run to the loo, make a cup of tea or raid the cupboards for chocolate (OK, maybe that's not a good idea) and compared to the advert breaks I had to recently endure while in Spain our ones are nothing. The programmes cut off mid sentence and '6 minutes' appears on the screen (in Spanish) to indicate that you now have to watch 6 minutes of adverts then after the programme returns for 2 minutes it pops up again saying '7 minutes' now that's probably why they have siestas in the afternoon, out of boredom from sitting through all the TV adverts!

If the choice was yours what would you choose?:
TV licence
Subscription
Adverts