What's in Progress - Home edition

There's lots going on here at the moment, hence this is a WIP post rather than and FO post!

The biggest work in progress that we have currently is our house and we are giving it some well deserved TLC at the moment.  Some day I'll write a whole post about it, but the short version is that we bought the place nearly 4 years ago for a pretty good price because it needed work doing on it.  Mostly this was all cosmetic because it was looking pretty dated, but there were also things that we wanted to do to improve it even if they weren't strictly necessary.  This summer we did some sums and spoke to the bank and got a small mortgage extension so that we could replace the aged back boiler, get a new bathroom and landscape the front garden.  We were also going to get a new front porch but that turned out to be a really expensive job so Stu decided to try and spruce it up a bit himself and then the entire thing basically crumbled off the front of the house. The previous owner had basically bodged in together with things he'd found from god knows where and we definitely feel like we're better off without it now.  So the last week or so has basically revolved around workmen and the preschool runs with very little time for much else.

Stu also decided that now was the perfect time to make some big changes to the dining room too.  Why not eh, in for a penny, in for a pound or so they say.  Our dining room has basically been a library/craft room/home gym/crap storage room for years so we've completely rethought the whole thing so we can actually use it for those things, rather than all the different stuff competing for space.

Basically we've taken down the bookshelves that took up the whole of the far wall and replaced them with high up shelves after weeding the book collection severely.  We've also added a lovely long worktop with an extra wide bit at the end to give me a bit more space for cutting out fabric.  Stu has also bolted some sort of contraption for his exercises to the wall meaning that he can move his weights bench out of the way too.  This has all freed up enough space for use to actually use the dining table for eating and is a great space for the girls to play too.  Right now I'm sitting at the table typing this on my laptop while they play playdough.  There's still a lot to do and loads of stuff to find permanent homes for.  The first priority is to find an extension lead so that I can get my sewing machines plugged in as soon as possible, I've got a dress with one side of the zip sewn in and it's making me twitchy not being able to finish it!

"I like this thingy Mummy"

I have managed to squeeze in a little craft time so I'll be back soon with a What's in Progress - Craft Edition really soon.