The Smilgin-Boxs Dancing!

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Anyone got the soldiers?

The first batch, straight from our chickens' butts.

A Clucking Great Weekend

The day finally arrived when we could pick up the new Box family members, Pru, Constance and Roley. We drove down to Surrey to pick up our three ex-battery chickens (ex-bats) and the girls spent a few hours this afternoon roaming around the garden. They're now tucked safely away in their lil hut for the evening - anyone for fresh eggs?

A sunny summers day in April!

It's just like Christmas! A good way to thin out the farmers market, if nothing else.

Joe and Little Ollie

Some time ago...

Another one of little Ollie

Panamian Jump!

From our holiday in Panama.

Lots of boxes.

Just when we thought the hard work was finished, the unpacking begins. How quickly we forget how good things look, and become obsessed with putting things where they belong. It should be fun seeing if we can fill the wall units though!

Second room to be finished.

Another room is done! It's been close for a long time, but our living room is now officially finished. The wall unit is painted, the floor has been waxed many times, and we have a neat pendant light that will eventually go above the dining table. It's a lovely room isn't it?

ooooo, aaaaahhh.

We're so chuffed with the wallpaper in our bedroom, we thought it deserved another photo :)

Kitchen coming along nicely.

The kitchen is getting close, and we're really happy with how it's coming together. The objective for this room, apart from making it very cool!, was to add more storage, but make the room feel bigger. It's a pretty small room with little natural light, and it previously felt very cramped.

In a moment of pure genius (in our opinion) we had the brainwave to remove the worktop, base units and wall units on the left side of the room (where the fridge is) and replace it with floor to ceiling shelves - creating an open larder-type setup. We thought the open shelves would make the room feel bigger (as the room full of wall units felt really claustrophobic) - and we absolutely love them!

The tiles are really cool, retro style white bricks with a neat bevel and were laid in a brick-wall formation. We have some more open stainless steel shelves near the oven, which I am dubbing industrial-chic.

But it doesn't end there. We've added a belfast sink, which has been sunken into the worktop, so it kinda sits above the work surface. We love belfast sinks, and had one in Tooting, but this installation is a little different from the usual exposed approach. We think it works well in the small available space.

So, almost there with this room. Only things left to come are doors for the kitchen units and a cooker hood from above the cooker hob (setting the smoke alarm off is getting a little tedious). We think it's going to be one of the coolest small kitchens ever (modesty, innit).

A glass of chilled, filtered water anyone?

Our fridge is a space-age piece of gadgetry with a digital display for the temperature (yes digitial!), and an integrated brita water filter, which allows us to get a glass of cool, filterered water at any time of the day. It's just like our very own water butler. I shall call him Wentworth.

All but done in the bathroom.

Bathroom... tick! (almost). We didn't really do too much in this room, but the small things we have done have made a huge difference. We took out the original basin cupboard, which was pretty minging, and replaced it with an amazing edwardian table from 1850. The lady at the antique shop we bought it from wasn't too happy to hear we would be cutting off part of the back leg and drilling a hole through the top, but we did it anyway! With a bowl basin plonked on the top, it looks the business. Soooo much better that what was previously there!

The shelves we added to the left of the mirror are really useful for storage, especially considering we lost the space under the previous basin. And the tiling we added to the side panel on the bath (same tiles as the floor) looks a lot better than the previous beech wood panel that there.

Sometimes it's the idea that's more important than the items added. Only thing yet to be added in here is a big, gorgeous mirror.