A Frog Pond

During the summer, my neighbour gifted me a fibreglass pond which she'd taken out of her garden and no longer needed. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it...…...I had a kind of weedy desert where I looked out onto the garden from my dining room window - it's a fairly shaded area, so I thought it would be a great spot to establish a fern and shade-plant garden. So with the free pond and a bit of rock shifting and digging, that's exactly what I did...…...I bought a few plants and shifted some from other parts of the garden where they'd been struggling to compete with other plants. I'm happy to report that everything is growing well and looking lush. Now the frogs just need to move in. 

On that point I heard some frogs in the garden a few nights ago for the first time ever.....I hope it's not too long before they discover the wonderful home I've created for them. I've still to buy a little solar water feature so I can have the sound of water as well.

Oh yes - I'm also planning to make some small pieces of sculpture for the pond surrounds using a cement based sculpting medium that I bought a while back.

A Paprika wall

I had to stop work on the spare bedroom before Christmas, because I needed it for a few house guests over summer..............they didn't seem to have too many objections to the fact that it was not quite finished!
All the summer guests have departed, like birds flying South, so I've been able to get back to work.

I have devised a plan of attack for the coming months.....apart from continuing with outstanding jobs inside, I'm about to start repairing and painting the roof as well as the external woodwork. This is something of a priority, because I want to get it done before the weather gets too damp and Autumnal, so I probably have until mid-April.

I've done a few small repair jobs around the house - my portable fan needed new feet, because the flimsy metal ones it came with got all bent and no longer held it up straight. It's now sporting sturdy new wooden feet! I also repaired the broken frame around a large mirror that was here in the bathroom when I bought the house. More about that later.

I decided the spare room needed a bit of pep, so I opted to paint one wall in a beautiful warm paprika shade - it goes really well with the mainly blues in the room.....

 

This is the mirror frame I repaired - sturdy enough after the repair job, but it was looking a bit grotty and tired, with a sort of dirty cream paint on it........so I went wild with a mottled painterly effect using all the colours that are in the room. It looks great and a real one-off. I'll varnish it later with a matte varnish to protect my artwork. True "designer frugal" style! I'll be putting up some shelves in the blank area of this wall, and I have a lovely old table waiting in the garage for some tlc. That along with another bentwood chair that was a gift and the room should be complete. Except for a second coat of paint on the white woodwork and another coat of oil on the floor, which will then be polished. I love this room!

 

Blue Door!

At last I have a blue front door! I spent yesterday prepping and painting my front door - it now looks bright and fresh and very welcoming.

Now you can walk up the fourteen steps and actually FIND a blue door!

The lighter shade will be the colour I'll be using to paint all the external woodwork on the house - barge-boards, soffits and window-frames. I'm hoping to get it all done this summer, but that depends on how much repair work needs to be done. I know there is some.
I'm also going to repaint the concrete of the balcony and the steps - at the moment its a rather awful shade of yellowish cream and it shows every speck of dirt and dust and I'm forever scrubbing it.........I'm going to choose a colour that will go some way to hiding some of that dirt and I'll be replacing the old wrought-iron balustrading with something a bit smarter and more enclosing. I want to create a more private and lovely place to sit out the front, with a potted garden and some nice outdoor furniture. This balcony is shady in the afternoon, so it's a great place to find a bit of cool on a summer evening.