A white wash

With the completion date nearing I'm allowing myself to get excited and start planning the interior design of this grand old vicarage. A big disappointment to me were the floors. I just love old natural timber floors. The vicarage however has the beautiful floors, but, as the picture above shows, at some stage these beautiful slats of wood were painted black. Black can look amazing. I do love the look of black floors, white walls and vibrant splashes of colour. But that's not the look I'm going for.

We considered a number of options. Replacing them completely with reclaimed floorboards, stripping them, or using new machined timber floors. Something we didn't consider initially was to white wash them. That was until we went to a furniture shop on Upper Street, Islington (sadly can't remember the name but must visit again).

Their floors are in the same condition as ours and had even been painted black. The owners white washed them a couple of years ago and the result is incredible. Of course they get a lot more foot traffic then we're likely to but the paint had worn away on the heavily used areas so you could see the black and sometimes the raw timber underneath.

What really sold the white wash idea to me was these images posted by blogger Nancy Flowers. While the full white thing just isn't me, how beautiful are the floors? So that's it. White floors it is. We just need a huge house warming party to wear them down quickly to the worn through look I'm after.

Images from NancyFlowers

Simple crafting: Memo board

We have a lovely white wall that's been crying out for colour. I also wanted a memo board to display the boys' "artwork" from nursery, birthday party invites, lottery tickets etc.

All you need is shown here in the picture. A corkboard, fabric to fit with at least a 1cm hem all the way around, string (or ribbon is even better), drawing pins and some cute mini pegs. This fabric is leftover from the cushion covers I made for our lovely Ikea chairs.

Press the fabric and fold over the hem. Secure it to the corkboard with the drawing pins ensuring that you space the pins evenly. I was two pins short so added some coloured tacks at the top corner. Wrap the string around the pins and clip on some mini pegs.

As soon as we move into our new place I can mount this properly to the wall. At the moment it's on a temporary hook. Still, it's effective and now is covered in cards and art from my little Picasso's .

Homemade seedy granola

I've eaten Dorset Cereals muesli for over 4 years and recently have switched to Lovedean granola. But my man pointed out Lovedean was over 30% fat spoiling my new breakfast fav. I also want to get my 2.5 year old to eat something other than plain oats with milk or a banana smoothie for breakfast. Generally anything with sultanas is a hit.

I'm very particular about my granola. I don't like too much dried fruit, especially cranberries, preferring to add my own fresh fruit, and I do like lots of seeds and not too many nuts.

After playing around until it looked right, this is the recipe I came up with. And it's good! Master R thinks it's great too. Although he does pick out all the sultanas and give the rest to me. We'll stick to smoothies for him for a while.

Seedy Granola

4 cups oats

1/2 slivered almonds

1 cup dessicated coconut

2 cups mixed seeds (Neal's Yard salad sprinkle)

1 cup maple syrup

1 cup sultanas (raisins)

Preheat oven to 180C (350F).

Mix all ingredients except sultanas. Spread out on a large baking tray. Place in oven and brown for 1 to 1 1/4 hours turning every 15 minutes until it is nicely browned.

Add sultanas. Serve topped with yoghurt and fresh berries.