A few more house pics.

The master bedroom - whilst the wall paper and border are not my style, they'll do for a while. 

The dining room - again, not keen on the yellow walls but they're clean and in good condition so it would be pointless to change them just yet.

The stairs - They were carpeted - green and gold swirls - it was quite a sight. 

Some muppet had drilled silly big holes in some of the uprights to install some cabling at some point.  My lovely Dad sorted that out for us (he also rebuilt some of the steps as he didn't like the way they creaked!)

I had the bright idea to sand and paint the stairs and have a nice runner laid.  I've always wanted stair rods and found these really gorgeous reclaimed oak ones on ebay.  Having done it once, I'd never paint the stairs again - what a nightmare! The paint wouldn't dry, it needed more coats than expected and it was tediously dull doing all that painting.

But it was worth the effort as they do look lovely.  It's the only carpet we have in the house and it's like walking on cotton wool as you go up the stairs.

The daft front wall - we were quoted £1k to dig it out, level off and turf the area. 

So I set to! This was after three days of digging out bushes and trees.

This was after two weeks of digging, bashing, banging, digging, swearing, digging and a bit more bashing.  Whilst the wall looked small it was 14 courses deep!  I had to do it in between the normal household stuff and normally persuaded hubby to go to bed for a few hours so I could get on - if he's in bed I know he's not going to fall over!

It took a lot of runs to the council tip to get rid of the rubble and earth but I did it - I got the wall down, the ground level and the turf laid.  We went for a dwarf apple tree to give us something of interest.  George helped lots - he was a fantastic worm hunter and every hold I dug he had to investigate.

This photo was taken the day after the turf was laid - it's all settled in well now and I really must get a more up to date photo.

This was the monster tree in the back garden, it dwarfed everything and took up so much room.

One afternoon I got fed up of looking at it and went in search of loppers, saws and axes.  It took a lot of hard work, a lot of blisters and a lot of creepy crawlies in my hair to get to this stage but it really opened out the garden.

The bricks are now up and it's been turfed to elongate the garden, the red tree in the corner has loved having some light and space and has been stunning this year.