Daydream fund challenge part 4

lostinrates

Choille, I missed your birthday! Happy birthday!

azzabazza

Although a bit windy here, it is a lovely sunny day. I had brought my solar lights in at the weekend and have recharged their batteries. Hoping there is going to be enough sun to keep recharging them outside.

In the autumn I planted up a couple of pots with spare Tete a tetes and today have planted them in two borders where there were a few gaps. During a tidy up of other things, came across a gardening journal my DD gave me Christmas before last. First page states "buy and plant Tete a tete for two half moon borders - planting a bit sparse"! This is the only entry!! Note to myself - this is a useful book and I must keep it in a prominent place!!!

choille

Torrential rain here - again. Ground just a bog & the driving rain is charging across in curtains. Everything is slidy.

Off to bed I think as it's so yurk

Davesnave

Hope things are better weatherwise today, choille. We have a decent day here, and no more frosts on the horizon.

My tomato seedlings are up, but no sign of the peppers yet.

I can see me cutting the lawn before long!

choille

It's rained & rained & rained......since August really.....

The ground is underwater - the fields, everywhere is disgusting. At least I'm on a slope & it does run down eventually.
We are supposed to get very heavy rain tomorrow - goodness knows what they think we've had so far & then the temp is to shoot up to 17 degrees - mad.

Waiting for the plumber who we've managed to track. We are supposed to have a joiner & plasterer back today, but seems they are not.

lostinrates

First lawn cut of the year. Incredible. Incredible its DRY enough!

Fir has some stuff todo tomorrow and I hope we can spend the rest of the day in the garden.

choille

How I envy that LIR.

We have weather warnings for flooding but it is just the same as it's been for a week, but I think there will be floods about.

Any advice welcome on worktops. I have an island unit with marble top. Black gloss units underneath. I will have a wall of grey painted kitchen cabinets down one wall - what would anyone suggest as a worktop? I know it seems odd not to match, but couldn't afford a length of matching marble worktop.

lostinrates

choille wrote: »

How I envy that LIR.

We have weather warnings for flooding but it is just the same as it's been for a week, but I think there will be floods about.

Any advice welcome on worktops. I have an island unit with marble top. Black gloss units underneath. I will have a wall of grey painted kitchen cabinets down one wall - what would anyone suggest as a worktop? I know it seems odd not to match, but couldn't afford a length of matching marble worktop.

I don't think its odd not to match. It is your island, so natural it would be different, its your 'pastry bench' . Unless you are going to do pastry every where its too samey. My island surface will be different to the rest, so i for one think you are STYLYSH.

Concrete?

Glass?

Recycled glass chip?

Quartz? ( I'm not keen on this but fir loves the sparkly bits)

Plain white or grey very basic surface....( laminate? )

No idea how much any of them cost.

ferretkeeper

Hello all

Choille, belated birthday wishes!

FWIW I like wooden work tops with painted kitchen units, have cupboard handles and knobs in the same wood as the tops, classic. But keep it oiled esp if it's by the sink...ask me how I know that!

Or slate? But that's dear, honed and polished up, Not far off the marble I guess? I wouldn't know what to suggest specifically without seeing everything, have you got a wall colour in mind?

Well it's been a busy couple of weeks, with DH home we really cracked on with jobs and I'm trying to keep the momentum going. I haven't been able to make best use of this lovely dry weather, but I caught up a bit today, it was so mild, and hopefully more of the same tomorrow I was thinking of going out for a few things but I just can't pass up the opportunity of this good weather - sorry Choille

I've been watching a load of last autumns gardeners world progs I had recorded and never watched, well no point in winter eh? But it's got me very enthused and making lists and plans, and I forgot how much I LOVE Monty Don! I loved Alan and Geoff too, all so inspiring, and the new series starts tonight!

I will DEF be ordering seeds this weekend, I've got none over from previous years so it's a fresh start. I just hope I can get what I'm after from Real Seeds, they weren't taking orders for ages last year they were so busy.

Right, just time for a quick bit of dinner before animals' bed time, then it'll be fire on and under the duvet on the sofa for the evening!

phoebe1989seb

choille wrote: »

How I envy that LIR.

We have weather warnings for flooding but it is just the same as it's been for a week, but I think there will be floods about.

Any advice welcome on worktops. I have an island unit with marble top. Black gloss units underneath. I will have a wall of grey painted kitchen cabinets down one wall - what would anyone suggest as a worktop? I know it seems odd not to match, but couldn't afford a length of matching marble worktop.

choille - I agree with LIR, it's definitely not odd to have different work surfaces on island/perimeter cabinets.....totally stylish imho

In a couple of our houses (last one and last-but-two) we've had teak or iroko work surfaces on the perimeters and granite on the islands made by DH.

The restoration work on the last house was such a huge spend - way over our original budget - and as we'd decided to move on when it was finished, we decided to splurge on the island only. The Labrador Antique granite for that was around £800 and the Iroko for all the remaining work surfaces was less than £2k, which would have been far higher had we opted for granite throughout

I think concrete or steel are fab

This time we're going to do it the other way round and I want cararra marble (not granite) on the work surfaces with wood (walnut maybe?) on the island, although I need to persuade DH to make me another one - his fourth!

US kitchen designers in particular seem to use different materials to differentiate between prep areas etc, so perfectly feasible imho....

Not got much done here the last two days as yesterday we were down in Wilts clearing out my parents' stuff (and some old ebay stock) from our storage unit. ''Twas all going so well till someone crashed into the back of the hire van on the way home No-one hurt and minimal damage to the van, but DH nearly lost his deposit as a result......just got to hope the driver of the car that hit us was speaking truthfully when he said he was insured Today - after a lie-in to recover - we've been sorting out the newly stuffed garage

Do hope all our missing posters are ok and that Alfie will be feeling well enough to rejoin us soon!