House update

rug and books

 bathroom work-in-progress

flowers from friends, and light at the end of day 1 of the Irish heatwave

We have been in the house for almost nine months now, which is hard to believe. With each year that passes I marvel more at how much some people get done in a year. Writing a novel. Having several art residencies, in different parts of the world, with a solo exhibition at the end of each (yes, I know somebody who does that). A year is quite short. I now realise that having a project is always great, and having several projects means everything seems to take a very long time.

A whole weekend can be taken up by painting one small area. A lot of time can be taken up by deciding what colours to choose (so we are keeping the testing out of colours to a minimum), and it is so much easier when choice is limited. We like the prepared walls, which almost look like properly painted white walls, so much that we are probably going to use different shades of white for most of the house. But for the bathroom we got a dark grey for the wall above the wood panelling, and we found a mirror that will look beautiful against it. It is just leaning against the wall for now. I am also beginning to see why it takes people ages to hang things.

John bought the rug in the first picture from the lovely weaver in the local crafts village (which is only a short walk from our house). We are using it in the sitting room for now, but it will go somewhere else. It looks good everywhere.