RENOVATING THE SPARE BEDROOM

Built in cupboards, a bar and a fridge!

This room definitely was in very poor condition and our biggest challenge out of all our internal rooms. When we purchased the house it was full to the ceiling of items which the tenants did not want in the main rooms of the house and closed off for a long time. The bar was also in here which we cleaned up and moved into the lounge. We first had to remove all the junk and see what was reusable. A lot of items were removed by the bulky waste men and hubby took a long time dismantling huge built in wooden cupboards which smelt so bad and took up a lot of space. One cupboard contained an old fridge! It was disguised as a cabinet so imagine my surprise when I drag it away from wall, wonder why it’s so heavy, open it to find an old fridge. We had a 10 min discussion on who should open the door of the fridge and apparently this task was better suited to me! What can I say I’m fearless and hubby is a pussy! Luckily there was no dead bodies inside! Once the cupboards were removed they had to be sawed up onto pieces to fit through the door! This is before we purchased a chainsaw so had to be done manually by hand with a tiny hand saw which broke in half. Once the room was clear we were left with an awful state. Damage to walls from damp and water damage (white stains) on terracotta floor tiles. This room is below ground level so dark and prone to damp. The wooden skirting boards were rotten so we removed them and had them replaced them with terracotta tiles.

Next we scraped off all old paint, filled areas/holes and sanded. Then we applied a damp proof measure and painted walls in white. The floor tiles were beyond repair and we tried several high strength cleaners as well as natural remedies to clean them with no success so we primed and painted them with grey tile paint. If this hadn’t worked I had viewed some nice lino in a local store but the whole charm of Portuguese houses are the tiled floors so I am glad that I could save them. The steps were also painted grey. The wall by light switch is damaged and has had a shit repair job. I’m not a DIY expert but some peoples efforts at DIY astound me and leave me speechless.

Let there be light

The old ceiling fan was removed as there is an air con unit on the wall so not needed. This left a hole in ceiling and seeing as we have ratty in the roof it needed covering. The simplest way to fix the hole left from the fan removal was to fix a smoke alarm – practical too and will prevent my daughter from sparking up a joint in the middle of the night (joke she hates smoke and is drug free to my knowledge – ha ha). We thought long and hard about changing the light fitting as we are trying to be frugal and use what is in the house if it is functional and not horrendous. Although I don’t hate the light fitting, it is not to my taste (gold chandelier candle type design) and it was a bit rusty too with layers of dust and grime. We decided to change the light fitting and let Teanna choose. It’s lovely and was under €30 so all good.

Although I’m not keen on the old light fitting, I know a man who was. In fact the previous owners loved it so much they bought three, one for spare bedroom, one for our bedroom and one for the upper hallway – such joy! If you think the old light fittings are bad, you should see the lounge one. It’s some weird ass pendulum eye sore and the strings pull up and down altering the length of the tiny glass lampshades so you can read and smash your head on them, both at the same time. It is positioned in a really weird place too, not in the middle of the room for some reason, it’s just all a bit strange. That’s not all, it comes with two matching picture frame wall lights which have long ceased to work. They are staying put for now and we try to look past them out the window to the scenic view of nature (ha ha).

As the light fitting is fully functional I decided to utilise my DIY skills, spray it black and replace it for the gold one in the upper hallway as the bannister railing is black metal too. If it wasn’t successful then not a worry as the spray paint cost under €5. It actually turned out very good and I really like it so repeated the process with our bedroom light fitting and it matches our black metal framed bed nicely. Light fittings similar to this style in Leeroy Merlin cost at least €59.99 so I’m happy we could upcycle them. Regarding spray paint I just got hubby to buy whatever they had in the store so sometimes we bought the one from Leeroy Merlin for around €5 and other times he bought a cheaper brand from our nearest village small DIY store for €2.50. Some are matte and some are shiny. The cheaper ones need more coats and randomly spray in all directions from the nozzle painting everything in sight and your fingers.

Make sure you spray paint outside and wear a mask (if you wish) and gloves or you will get stained black hands like me. Cover floor well as I also managed to spray paint the floor of our sun room and myself of course even though I sprayed mine on some old curtains. I have now realised that a cardboard box is great to spray paint items inside of. The wooden curtain pole was removed and sprayed white along with the door hook – a task I am rather fond of, I kind of enjoy breathing in all those toxic fumes and getting high as a kite on a sunny afternoon! Then whilst still high you can pretend you are in a world famous javelin contest and pretend to throw the long curtain pole across the garden (ha ha). The door was removed and fixed so it can now close properly instead of only half way and we thought it needed a new door handle but it doesn’t. We also sealed the bottom of the step with silicone as I witnessed a creepy crawly disappear through a small gap and you know when you see a bug (woodlouse) there is never only one, they have lots of mates. Then it was just a case of buying a new bed, mattress, bedding, curtains, rugs, mirror, bedside lamps, wall art and accessories. We decided to go with a white, grey and dusty antique pink colour scheme. The bedside cabinets I recycled by priming and painting white with furniture paint and I replaced the drawer handles.

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The lounge lights

I know I can sense your pure inner feelings of jealousness. You want them don’t you? What do you mean NO! Maybe Antiques roadshow will come and collect them (ha ha). We will change them at some point, I have no idea when, hopefully before I die!

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A bedroom fit for a pretty princess

The bedroom is for my daughter for when she visits us so we asked her for her input on the design and colours. It’s also a spare room for visitors. Why design a bedroom for a nearly 18 year old who will be going to uni in the UK you may ask. All my life I haven’t been able to afford to buy my own house and had to rent places in the UK that were affordable so never that nice. There was always a lot of woodchip and magnolia walls and magnolia always reminds me of school toilets. Although I spent money and tried to make nice bedrooms for my children, many landlords do not let you change the wallpaper or colour of paint on the walls so Teanna has never really had a room of her own designed to her taste. This is our first owned home together and we own it outright which is a huge achievement and took 8 years of saving up so we want to make a lovely bedroom for her. When we relocated here my daughter had 6 months left of Y13 (Post 16) so moved in with her dad. She went from having a huge bedroom in Redland, Bristol to a much smaller bedroom in St Anne’s, Bristol. Although she has a fantastic relationship with her dad she hasn’t lived with him since she was 4 and has lived with me and her stepdad for the past 10 years so I bet it was a huge adjustment moving in with her dad and his girlfriend.

Teanna is such an amazing young lady and was really encouraging when we wanted to move here. She never has a bad word to say when I message her or video talk to her daily even through the difficult times with Covid 19 and her April visit here being cancelled. The least I can do is give her a bedroom and make her feel special. It also makes sense for the bedroom to be more girly as hubby has 2 sons but 6 daughters and 1 grand daughter so they can also use the room when Teanna is not here. Sorry fella guests – you are gonna have to fall in love with pink (ha ha).

What you see is NOT what you get

This is the photo from the real estate, house selling advertisement. It is clear that the photos were taken some time ago. This room did NOT look like this when we viewed it. It was crammed to the ceiling of junk so it was difficult to see any damage to walls or floor. One corner was ceiling high with tupperware. Previous occupants did like a plastic container with a lid. They must have attended all those tupperware paries in the 90’s and felt obliged to buy a container or 500. Those parties sucked, tupperware, Pippa Dee and Ann Summers parties were my highlights of the 90’s with tupperware parties being my least favourite out of the 3 (ha ha).

Before photos

I am a bit annoyed at myself as I took a video of the before condition of the room and somehow I have accidently deleted it. I am sure you can see the degree of work required from the photos below.

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Work in progress photos

I am such a messy painter but in my defence this special acrylic paint is supposed to be really thick but it was a weird ass texture and somehow splashed everywhere. I probably should have removed my wedding ring, oh well. Hubby joined me in the afternoon and he likes to work with a roller directly above my head so he drops tons of paint in my hair which he finds funny. The paint went everywhere, not sure how as we covered the whole floor too with old sheets and blankets. This is how it looked after one coat of paint to walls:

After 1 coat of paint on the walls (and a coat all over me!):

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After 2 coats of paint on walls (and a bit more all over me):

I did debate about painting the wooden wall panelling white but to be honest it matches the window/door frames, 2 doors and ceiling and I didn’t want the whole room to be too white and sterile looking. Also I ran out of the expensive white paint.

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The floor (primed) and still wet:

We primed the floor twice as it was heavily stained and we didn’t want the stains to bleed through the paint. We waited 24 hrs in-between the priming coats and a further 24 hrs before painting with tile paint.

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The primer and paint (50 shades of gray!)

We had 2 options of tile paint in Leeroy Merlin. The first option was a smaller tin (so would require 2) and worked out more expensive but did not require a primer and had more options of different colours. The second option was a cheaper tile paint and a larger tin (so only would need to buy 1) but this paint required a primer and was only in very limited colours. As the tiles were heavily stained we wanted to use a primer so opted for the cheaper tile paint and 2 tins of the primer and all 3 tins still worked out cheaper than the paint which didn’t require the primer.

We soon realised that we did not require 2 tins of primer and used less than 1 tin after applying 2 coats. I have no clue if the special tile paint is latex or oil, I let the guy at Leeroy Merlin recommend tile paint and I can’t translate the side of tin as it translates weirdly and now there is paint spilled over the instructions on side of tin as we are messy DIY fanatics (ha ha). The primer was great and the floor had less stains showing after only one coat of the primer so if you have a stained floor then I would highly recommend using a primer first. We tried to sand the tiles too before priming but that didn’t really work. I had a plan that the stains on the tiles would sand off like magic sparkly unicorn power with our electric sander but my plan failed big time. As usual I just made another big mess. To be honest I would have preferred a darker grey but they only had one shade of grey. Weird as I thought they might have 50 shades of gray!!!!! (ha ha). I was tempted to make a joke about this in Leeroy Merlin with the my favourite English speaking staff member but I thought better of it as (A) Although his English is very good he may not have read the books or watched the films (as he looks about late twenties) or got my sense of humour. (B) I don’t want to get banned from Leeroy Merlin for being a pervert with my erotic jokes and (C) Hubby said he would disown me in Coimbra if I said anything to the poor young man who is the same age as my son (ha ha). It’s a lengthy train journey home so I stayed silent for once.

After 1 coat of paint on floor (and only a bit on the soles of my feet – result!) and still wet

Now this looks like hubby is doing all the hard work. I only stopped to take photos, I’m working like a beaver, I can assure you. Most of the painting in this house has been completed by me solo me as hubby works M-F. That’s why it looks so shit (ha ha). To be honest I am definitely the better painter. I don’t know why as I have arthritis in my hands, a bad back, poor eyesight and balance but I’m just better at it. I am a perfectionist and if a jobs worth doing it’s worth doing properly or why bother? Hubby doesn’t really give a shit and says everything looks O.K. I could literally wear a bin bag with a pair of pants on my head and he would say I look nice. I have found 2 painted over hairs in the corner that he painted over and now I have the need to tell him off good and proper. Then we will debate on whose hairs they are by analysing them at close range. Quite difficult as usually if blonde and long mine but I have dark roots now and some grey amongst the blonde so the hairs could be anyones, who bloody knows! I also keep finding dog hairs everywhere and I don’t even have a dog! Sometimes I wonder if I adopted a dog from a local shelter and just forgot. Now the challenge of climbing up the wall and leaning in the room to turn the light off that I left on. I’m like spider pig from The Simpsons!

Once it dried and had 24hrs to do it’s magic we painted a 2nd coat. Quite a challenging task as the room has an external door (opens to garden) so bits of dust kept blowing in the room as I’m trying to paint the floor. I also decided to go over the grouting with a small paint brush and tile paint before the 2nd coat so the grouting is sufficiently covered. This ended up with me trapped in a corner, trying to strategically step my way to another corner to save a tiny spider. Kind of like a game of twister – I wonder how many games of twister have taken place around the world during lock down? I have worked in education for years and it always made me laugh when teachers would ask me if I had the game twister they could borrow during the half term breaks. I would bring it in and tell them to have fun with their kids and they would reply that they don’t have any kids. At which point my mind is in overdrive, I’m thinking all sorts but mainly ‘naked adult twister’ and with my OCD I don’t really want the game back now as although I can sanitise the plastic sheet, I’m just not ready for that kind of nasty (ha ha).

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After 2 coats of paint on floor (and a whole lot more on the soles of my feet – as I stood in many areas I had painted – ha ha)

After 24 hrs we gave it a 2nd coat. Then I waited a further 24hrs to take photos. I turned the light out (so apologise for darkness) as it shone on the floor making it look like there were weird light patches.

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To seal or not to seal?

We forgot to ask the guy in Leeroy Merlin if the special tile paint require a sealant to protect it. After multiple google searches it looks like a sealant might be a good option as although the paint has a satin finish it may easily scuff and get damaged by us clumsy elephants. A google search advised: Give the paint at least two or three days to dry. Then seal the tile with two or three coats of a clear, water-based urethane sealer, not an oil-based sealer, which can yellow your colours, allowing the first coat to dry completely before applying the next. We have decided not to bother. I think if the paint had required a sealant the guy would have said so at the time. We have also used this brand of paint to paint the office furniture and although it was a special wood and MDF paint it didn’t require a sealant. We have some tile paint left over to touch up any scuffs or mishaps and the room is only being used occasionally and I will make sure hubby diva takes his stilettoes off prior to entering the room (ha ha). I also bought those fluffy felt protector discs for the bottom of bed legs and bedside cabinets and I will shout at guests who drag their suitcase across the floor. Quick update: We re-visited Leeroy Merlin and double checked with staff – the tile paint does not require a sealant. Then hubby dropped a tape measure on the floor and chipped the paint. I re-painted the chips but it’s mission impossible to get the bloody lid off of the tile paint, I think it’s a marketing ploy to make you buy more paint and not re-use leftovers.

Re-sizing the door

Seeing as the electric plane was not much more expensive than the manual one we opted to buy an electric one which takes of 2mm each time. The door does not close so we need to shave a bit of the bottom. Wish I could use it to shave a bit off my own bottom, a bit more than 2mm please (ha ha). The plane was amazing and job done in a few minutes, make sure you do this outside. The door handle in the kitchen was wrapped in padded black tape so we assumed it was broke. We swapped it for the spare room door handle a while ago as all the doors and handles match in the house and the kitchen door was priority as we needed it to close just in case of a fire. We decided to remove the tape to see how broke the door handle was and it turns out that it isn’t broken at all!

I think they wrapped it in tape to prevent it banging against the side of the fridge and denting the fridge, it didn’t work as the fridge has a small dent. We have kept the old door and door handle for now as not only does it match the others in the house and has a lockable key it is made from heavy quality solid brass and it’s very difficult to source another door handle that has exactly the same holes and fitting, I don’t want to have to buy another tool for one job and I don’t hate them. With a quick clean up it looks fine. Upon cleaning the door I noticed the varnish job was likely completed by a clumsy or not so talented 5 year old or someone who has visual difficulties (possibly registered blind). Now I am very clumsy and my eyesight is extremely poor but I take pride in my work and would never varnish over hairs and I certainly wouldn’t varnish over a mosquito! I am just going to tell everyone who visits it’s a unique Portuguese type of door art ‘Mossie art’ as I can’t be bothered to sand the whole door and re-varnish it. Also the key works from the outside but not the inside so I can lock guests in if they piss me off but they can’t lock it from the inside which is a total mystery to me that I still can’t grasp to understand. We will just have to knock loudly before we enter when guests are here as once you have seen your in laws naked there is no way back! (ha ha).

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After photos

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Portuguese phrases

So although we are accident prone we haven’t had any major disasters or injuries during this renovation. The Portuguese have so many weird funny phrases. My favourite phrase is: We are not “clumsy” we just “look like a silly/dizzy cockroach” (“Barata tonta”).

I also love the following phrases;

We don’t “shut up and listen to things we do not like,” we “swallow frogs.” (“Engolir sapos”).

Go comb monkeys! (“Ir pentear macacos”). Meaning: to tell someone to get lost!

Bread bread, cheese cheese (“pão pão, queijo queijo”). Meaning: Things are what they are.

I often use these phrases and say them to hubby whilst renovating rooms (ha ha).

Furnishing the room

Furnishing the bedroom was an exhausting task. Before I moved to Portugal I had a fixed negative opinion about buying furniture from Ikea. I knew we would need to replace the old furniture in the house at some point and my mindset was why would anyone shop in Ikea Portugal when you have so many other options of buying beautiful hand crafted furniture, I take this all back! It is not easy sourcing furniture in Portugal when you live outside of a city in a small rural village. Many companies will not deliver to us or want to charge us an arm and a leg for delivery fee. Our nearest shopping retail park: Mondego retail park which is near Coimbra approx. 1 hours drive each way has many furniture shops: JOM, JYSK, Homa, Moviflor etc. but they have ridiculous delivery costs. Homa want €120 or €180 per delivery depending on weight, the furnitures weight, not mine (ha ha). I am not paying that! So we needed a flat pack bed and a roll up mattress that would fit in our car. At some point we are going to need to replace our dining room table and 6 chairs, X2 sofas and a sofa bed so will either have to pay the delivery fee and cry, hire a van and drive it ourselves or offer low key sexual favours for a reduced delivery fee to the sales staff – I nominate my sexy hubby for that (ha ha). Some stores wanted a delivery fee per item so a table and 6 chairs = 7 delivery fees – WTF! He then went on to say that if you add a small item like a candle it would then be 8 delivery fees – do I look rich or just stupid?

We decided to drive to Porto (a 4 hr round trip) as it has many options and a huge Ikea in Matosinhos. Hubby decided to take a day off in the week so it would be less busy than a weekend. Most stores limit the numbers (capacity) due to Covid-19 so queues can form on weekends when more people are out and about. Although I love Porto, I dislike the busy traffic of a major city and the manic drivers. I also have a love and hate relationship with Ikea. Last time I visited Ikea here, I was in there 6 hours. We had the famous hot dog for lunch but it nearly warranted us being there for dinner too. Bring on the Swedish meatballs! This time we visited Ikea and Norte shopping mall and bought items from Ikea, Primark, Casa and Area. I also previously bought a few items from Leeroy Merlin, ordered a couple of items from Amazon UK and visited a local store in Arganil. The only queue was at Primark. Most stores ask you to pay contactless to minimise person to person contact and I have noticed that they have raised the maximum contactless spend to €50 for each transaction. There is hand sanitiser at every entrance and exit and you have to follow the one way arrows around stores. Social distancing was great in the mall but not so great in Ikea.

It was a long day as we left the house at at 8am and returned home at 10pm. We made really good timing and arrived in under 1 hr 50 mins. I really struggled with the face mask and ended up getting a really sore throat and abdo pain. I got some strange looks in Ikea as I video chatted my daughter in the U.K and kept asking her advice on which lamp, curtains and wall art to buy. The funny thing is the video chat kept breaking up signal so I would send her 3 photos and ask 1, 2 or 3 and every single time I guessed which item she would choose and I was correct. It was usually the most expensive too (ha ha). I know her so well! The best bit is, it doesn’t matter if I look like a fool as nobody knows me (ha ha). We do get some stares and strange looks though and I don’t blame them at all. Especially when I really want a photo frame with this beautiful print in but I can’t find it in Ikea on the shelves so I try and steal the sample one but it’s glued down to a shelf so I try and rip it from the shelf setting alarms off and then find there is one in packaging around the corner – you can’t take me anywhere, I am a liability – pure and simple.

We managed to fit everything in the car including a double bed and mattress and the car held up and didn’t break down so all good. I also made hubby bring scissors and open the bed box and check every piece in the car park as I have learnt from my mistakes and that bloody compost bin that was missing a part so we had to go back and waste 2 hrs of our lives. Hubby is happy as he bought a ‘girafa’ for his office, he loves them! We named him Geoff. He can keep Trevor McTurtle (instead of Trevor McDonald) company. There is a furniture shop here called Area and it is super posh but actually not that expensive. Some items are really expensive but others are actually pretty reasonable. I’m actually surprised they let me in (ha ha).

Meet Geoff

Meet Trevor AKA Trevor McTurtle/Trevor McFlurry

Hubby purchased Trevor the turtle for me during our last Viseu trip. I will write more about him in my future garden furniture post. The journey was a nightmare and although at one stage we had garden furniture inside our car we left with none! It’s a long story for another time but hubby bought me Trevor as I was sad as he left me in our hot car for what seemed like an eternity. He also had to buy me a McFlurry to console me. Hence why Trevor is called either Trevor McTurtle or Trevor McFlurry.

Curtain chaos

One thing I don’t understand here is curtain sizes. In the U.K there are different set widths and lengths e.g. 66×72, 46×90 inches. Here in Portugal they seem to just sale one size which is really long in length and we all know one size doesn’t fit all! I needed a 200cm drop but all the curtains here are 300cm so I had the decision of either finding a tailor to take them up knowing that the walls and floors are not level so they might look odd and different lengths or leave them drape the floor which is apparently a thing called puddle/puddling! and I thought that was something I did to the floor when I exited the shower (ha ha). I’m going to leave them long and pretend I’m an interior designer. If I want to take them down I have to unscrew the curtain pole in 3 areas as previous occupants used one long pole instead of 2 separate ones. I know why they did this as the windows are different sizes and at different heights. I quite like the one long pole as it gives me somewhere to hang the bird cage decoration from. Leeroy Merlin have ready made curtains and made to measure and I have seen a sewing machine in their store but we purchased ours from Ikea ready made. I ended up buying tab top as although I sprayed the curtain pole white, I threw away the curtain rings as it’s a chore to individually spray paint them and then when you pull the curtains the paint chips off over time. Curtain rings were expensive and €15 for 2 packs so it made sense to buy the tab top ones. I purchased some lovely grey tie backs and wall fittings from Leeroy Merlin and I am actually surprised at how nice the draping/puddling effect looks.

There is also a tiny window on adjacent wall and I spray painted 2 pieces of cardboard to block out the light and just in case some random stranger wants to have a perve through the window (ha ha). I spray painted one side black and one side white but preferred the black. When I went to slot the cardboard into the tiny windows they were too small and slithers of light shone through. I blame the spray paint as the cardboard must of shrunk in the sun whilst drying as there is no way I cut them too small (ha ha). I ended up visited my local store and buying a piece of black foam like material and stuck it to outside of the window, job done.

Flat pack furniture and accessories

We managed to put the flat pack furniture together without filing for divorce which is an accomplishment. I still have nightmares of putting an Ikea Billy bookcase together with my son Josh. There is OCD me who has to count every piece and look at instructions verses a 15 year old Josh who chucks the instruction booklet out of the window – never again as you can’t divorce your kids! Fixing the mirror to the wall and trying to direct hubby with positioning of the wall art was also relatively easy. Who needs a spirit level when our walls are as wonky as a donkey! The grey throw I bought for the end of the bed sheds like crazy. I bought it because it looked and felt like Milo (bunny) but it also sheds like Milo too! I purchased some pretty accessories from a local store to add a personal touch to the room: flowers to dress the plain mirror and I sprayed some shells gold. They form a long line on the ledge of the wooden panelling and some heart/flower petal designs on the window insets. I had an idea to spray them all gold but spray 1 black and 1 white and position them in the middle of the line to symbolise race equality. Personally I think I deserve the Turner prize for my effort. I tried to spray 1 shell 1/2 black and 1/2 white but it didn’t work. My aim was to collect shells from favourite beaches but I’m still nervous about visiting beaches so I bought some instead. I’m not very creative, I have wonderful ideas but I usually just make a mess although I do try! Arthritis in my hands also makes any fiddly crafting difficult, basically any task which requires fine motor skills is not gonna end well for me but I wanted to make a special effort. I updated my daughter on the progress and she is such a sweetheart she sent me this message (bless her):

End result

I am really pleased with how the room has turned out. I was not sure it would work but overall I’m very happy and all the hard work has paid off. It’s a little more modern than our bedroom which is more Portuguese style with all the old dark wooden furniture. The walls are not flat with a few dodgy patches here and there and it’s not perfect by any means but it’s an old Portuguese house so it was never going to be to a show house standard. Our whole schist house is quirky and a bit shabby (not shabby chic, just shabby) but we love it. I say it’s a house with rustic charm (ha ha). I like the transformation of the floor so much I want to paint the lounge floor but I’m not allowed (ha ha). Hubby almost prefers it when a DIY task fails as if it succeeds I get DIY crazy and want to do everything! I do like painting together and if he annoys me I accidently on purpose roller paint his hand or ass and say it was an accident! The lounge is open plan with the kitchen and also leads out to an upper hallway and stairs onto a lower hallway so basically I would need to paint lounge, kitchen, upper hallway, stairs and lower hallway which is not practical. I also think the old tiles are best for Milo as he can scratch them and poop on them to his hearts content – just a reminder Milo is our pet bunny not a relative, relatives are not allowed to poop on the floor unless they get really drunk and it’s a code brown accident. Dirty protests over my bad cooking are also not allowed (ha ha).

We now have a bedroom for Teanna and other guests who will likely visit us in 2021. The only items I am waiting for our some pretty bunting and these fairy bulb/flower lights to go on the headboard of the bed. I ordered both from Amazon UK but I think they might be coming from China as the estimated date of delivery is 5th and 14th Aug! Who knows if I will ever receive them as our deliveries have become pretty erratic lately.

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Pending visit – hugs on the horizon

I am super excited as we have booked flights for Teanna to visit us in August for 2 weeks to celebrate her 18th Birthday. Also I have found a pet animal transport company to bring Milo (bunny) to join us in Portugal as if he travels by plane he has to go into the hold! Airlines discriminate against bunnies. Dogs and cats can go in the cabin under seat in carrier but bunnies cannot. NOT FAIR! Anyway the whole family will be back together again soon. I can’t wait for mother and daughter hugs and fluffy bunny cuddles.

Update

The fairy string lights arrived and so did the bunting. I have sorted the lights but the bunting will have to wait until I have better balance to negotiate a ladder. I’m not drunk, honestly, just hot and tired! I love these lights so much. It’s always a bit of a gamble when you buy from Amazon but the flower inside is adorable and not tacky which I was worried about. Teanna loves them too X.

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