So here we are New Years Eve. It’s been a super busy year, one of lots of change, it’s been challenging at times but it has certainly taught us lots. We say hello to 2012 a wiser family in many ways. Here’s our round up:

Lowlights
Mr L’s employer started to struggle financially in January
Wages became at best sporadic, but mostly not at all
We discovered Lil’ H had a loss of hearing which required grommet surgery
We had to pay stamp duty & lots of other boring costs to move house, sorry but they totalled close to £25,000 and I remain bitter!
In November Mr L’s employer went into administration making us income free – argh!
I made a friend who reminded me how false & insincere people can be

Highlights
We sold our old house
Diva G started walking
We enjoyed a great Royal Wedding weekend with good friends
Lil H turned 4 years old
We had a great break at Center Parcs
We held an amazing naming day with family & close friends
We had a fab, almost rain free, fortnight on holiday in Cornwall
We bought & moved into our new home and project for the next decade!
Lil H started full time school, settled in well, has lots of friends and has developed massively
I stepped back up to do more freelance work continuing to work with great clients and also gaining more clients & projects
I ran some projects that I was able to work with my online community, sharing good stuff with them
Baby G turned 2yo promoted to Diva G & started a couple of mornings at Pre-school
Mr L released from the shackles of employment started his own handyman/joinery business in Cheshire (go – like his Facebook page!), less than two months in and we already know we won’t look back.
I value myself. I don’t like everyone and I don’t expect everyone to like me. I’m cool with that.

Looking ahead
I have had a theme word rather than resolutions for the last two years, 2010 was a year of enjoyment, 2011 was a year of change. Both lived up to their themes. 2012 is a year to PLAN. I am woefully behind on blogging house updates that’s just putting living life with two kids, a house move and a redundancy I’ve been surviving life with very little time to document it. I have my mojo back as a blogger, a mother, a professional, a person. I’ve missed it. So now, now I’ve got ideas and thoughts and I need to reflect and PLAN, first up is find an architect to get my Pinterest inspired dreams into plans that can be both approved and afforded. So that’s the PLAN for 2012 to PLAN!

Wishing you a fantastic 2012!

Claire x

At the end of September, I was invited to check out the new John Lewis at Home Store in Chester which was opening 28th September 2011.  I am lucky, I have a three floors of John Lewis loveliness just down the road from me at Cheadle.  But I have never been to a “John Lewis at Home” store and as a girl who likes to shop this I had to see!  Chester is only 40 minutes away so I thought I’d whizz over and check it out, new house and therefore new home furnishings to dream about!

It was just me, the store manager and the PR and 38,000 sq ft of perfectly stocked John Lewis with the very latest and best products across furniture, homewares, furnishing accessories and electrical and home technology.  Not a pair of shoes, a top or latest toy to distract me from its perfection.  Although I did wonder about the shoes, top and toy – never fear – free click and collect is available here for those items.  So anything else I wanted I could order online and pick up at the John Lewis at Home store, perfect.  Being the only one in the store was just like a calm relaxed online shop but I could touch, turn, feel and see everything.

I sort of forgot the manager and PR girl were there as I had my first glimpses of John Lewis Christmas.  It may have only been September but I was truly festive within moments of stepping into their Winter displays.  I loved the Advent Calendar House 

I thought the John Lewis Brights Photo Frames in Red, Pink, Lime, Turquoise and Silver were great value starting at £6 with childrens photos and drawings in they would be great Christmas presents.

I was stopped in my tracks by the Rob Ryan ceramics if a new tumble dryer and a new dishwasher weren’t on the list I’d be asking Santa for some new loveliness for my dresser, except a dresser would have to also be on the list!  Tumbler dryers, dishwashers, furniture, technology and a lovely cafe can all be found upstairs.

I felt like some sort of peculiar honour to witness the John Lewis towel wall which took a team days to create its perfection and when I say perfection I mean perfection!  No sooner than the doors open this towel wall will never again be quite so perfect.  The clock wall was pretty fab too, but the towels had the edge.  I was also able to indulge my love of lighting with its galmourous aray of sparkles and colour too, like the Jolie table lamps in red, pink, blue, green, yellow and white for a very reasonable £35.

Having never been to a John Lewis at Home store before, I really liked my experience in Chester, its was great to have a preview and when I am ready to do some homewear spending I will go back.  The Chester store is on the Greyhound Retail Park where you have a huge choice of all the usual out of town furniture suspects if you want to check out and compare plus you can also park and ride from there into, the notoriously difficult to park, centre of Chester.  So even though I have John Lewis Cheadle on my doorstep this is different and a change is as good as a rest as they say.  Thank you John Lewis at Home in Chester for showing me round.

Related Links
Web:  http://www.johnlewis.com/
Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/JohnLewisRetail
Twitter:  @JohnLewisRetail
You Tube:  http://www.youtube.com/johnlewisretail

The bedroom in our new house is VERY 1980′s with fitted wardobes, cupboards over the bed but no bedside cabinet/shelf/table thingys.  Add our Super King Sized bed  and ours from Lancaster Towers don’t fit.  The has resulted in a growing stash of books, magazines, chargers, alarm clocks and glasses of dusty water on either side of the bed.  Glasses of water are a great idea when you are going to bed but when you add small children to them in the morning they are a terribly bad idea.

To be honest I wasn’t that fussed by it, on the list of things to do at Villa Lancaster it was low, like page 2-3, but Mr L decided to “make something” and a jolly good job he’s done too!  Off he popped into his new, his first and most favourite place in the entire house, his garage.  Returning and installing these two child-proof, glass-of-water-protecting bedside shelves.

What do you think?  I was impressed?  Then I looked down – I was less impressed!

Luckily I had the  Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum given to us at The Lowry on our Dirty Stinky Day.  We have been putting it through its paces and Mr L initial declaration that it was “a nifty bit of kit” still stands.  I put it through the mammouth challenge of removing two weeks of beach from the car – it met that challenge with brushes, suction and passed the test.  The car is now a mess again but that is a reflection on my family and not the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum.  I regularly use it after meal times mostly around Baby G’s Tripp Trapp and the wake my husband leaves from his lightbulb moments of genius!

We like the convenience of the Dirt Devil Handheld vacuum, its affordable price at £59.99, its rechargaeable, wall mounted and ready to go.  On the downside we found got a bit blocked up when we used on new carpets – its brushes are very good so to be fair I would say probably user error there!

Anyway – back to the bedside shelves – what do you think?

I’m wondering this at the moment. We bought the house two weeks ago, decorated Lil H and Diva G’s bedrooms, set up the playroom, stripped the bathroom wallpaper, moved in five days later and finished the last of the unpacking. We’re in, our things are in, we’ve done the ikea run, we’ve had friends round, we live here.

The house is great, it’s all the potential and more we saw but we have no real places where things live, there are places where things have been put but that’s just an output of unpacking. We have no memories here, have had no birthdays, celebrations, no little traditions. When I think about our wedding, being pregnant, my children being tiny newborn babies, their first steps, our Christmas tree, the pile of H and G’s birthday presents waiting for them to get up and be super excited, BBQ’s and sharing jokes with old friends all this is at the old place. We’ll create all new memories, as good and better memories from this address but right now I’m living in our house, our project and its not yet our home.

Could it be because I don’t have any broadband until 20th August? I literally feel like I have had a limb cut off, I promise I will be uploading and sharing piccies of everything we’ve done just as soon as we’re back online. I think we need to put our pictures up on the walls, maybe have a housewarming? What do you think, when did your house become become your home and is there anything I can do to help me connect, connect in a non-Internet way?! Love to hear your thoughts on this?

Yesterday we moved house.  After nine very happy years, one wedding (ours!), two children (ours!), countless parties, celebrations and hangovers it is time for a new family to live here – we hope you will be as happy as we have.  Over the years we changed, remodelled and decorated every part of Lancaster Towers, I love what we did and whilst I’m excited about a new project and blank canvas to start again with it has been a great home to us, let me show you round … this is where we were:

Welcome to Lancaster Towers, the first thing we did was laid wooden floor throughout the ground floor, on the diagonal something a bit different.  Through the living room into the dining conservatory and out into our courtyard garden, all our plants are now flowering and they’ve come with us to the new place but never have I had to do any jobs in the garden at the weekend.  Those days are over, but boy there were good!

At the front of the house is the twenty-thousand swear word kitchen, whilst the process of getting this kitchen was, well utter nightmare doesn’t come close, my goodness its good, like really, really good.  Whilst small all the modern storage solutions and systems made the most of every centimeter, we moved the washing machine upstairs to make more room, oh and  I had a kettle tap, instant boiling water – LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!  What do you think?

Upstairs we go to the first floor, note the stair lights on every other step – bargain – £75 on eBay and Mr L fitted them.  Here’s the children’s bathroom, we did this at the same time as the kitchen, a mistake in hindsight.  The big orange hammock is a toy hammock from Ikea I use it for bath toys, I’ve left it for the new owners as it goes with the bathroom.  Its about 99p but I am definitely getting another one.  Underfloor heating also cleared up children’s bath time splashes quickly, also on the must have list for the the place.

Then Lil H and Baby G’s bedrooms – can you guess which is which?!

Up to the second floor and this is where the magic happens *snort* well we collapse in a heap of tiredness, watch telly, surf the Internet, plan holidays, stress about things big and small – you know the usual.  The en-suite is probably about 7 years old, but I still love its natural theme and the pebble border remains one of my favourite things in the house.

So there you have it a through the keyhole look at our before house – where we were – what we did.  The move went smooth, right back to 1961 with some 1984 highlights, a big garden to keep us busy and now, now I’m off to choose paint.  The plan is to get H and G’s bedrooms painted and the playroom set up and then move them in.  So far so good – so what do you think?  Let me know your thoughts, what should I do again do differently?  Cx

Its week 67 for The Gallery over at Tara’s place, the theme is Vintage, which makes me think of clothes, which makes me think of charity shops and a certain wee-esque fragrance.  We are house-move-minus-five-days, I don’t have anything vintage, I don’t have a post.  No worries, I shall enjoy the posts of others with a cup of tea instead and dish out some comment love.  Then it hit me – our new house is 100% vintage 1961 in origin with 1980′s highlights – get in!

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By the way I realised my Vintage subject after I had been to the house to take photo’s of radiator locations etc so the shots aren’t great but you can see the potential – right?

Since we accepted the offer on the house I’ve been getting ready to move by clearing out stuff. All the baby baby stuff has gone – bouncy chair, bumbo, baby walker, baby gym I donated to a local charity, other equipment I used Net Mums noticeboard, clothes, Grobags etc I sold through eBay.  I’ve blogged “how to sell baby clothes on eBay” guide if you too need to get rid, I did just this but I didn’t have time to use Auctiva.

The removals people have been confirmed and they are coming to pack us up this Saturday 23rd July *gulp*!  I’ve been on a redirection mission, most seem to need five working days notice, which is lucky as I have five working days until I move.  Here are some of the links that made my life a little bit easier today:

Royal Mail for postal redirection
BT.com for telephone redirection, we get to keep our number!
MoveMe lots of useful check lists & reminders
Iammoving.com a quick way to tell lots of organisations you’re moving
Moo.com for stickers and stationery for your new address – I need stationery!

Tomorrow is a big day – we are going back to our new house to measure up for blackout blinds, appliances etc.  I will of course be taking my camera and taking some “before” photo’s.  I’m excited but nervous – its the most expensive thing I have ever bought and we’re broker than a broke thing on broke street come Monday’s completion!

Laters, Me x

Its official we’re moving – this week contracts were exchanged on the sale of our current home Lancaster Towers and the purchase of … erm … what to call it … how about “Villa Lancaster”?  It’s a mere 0.3 miles away from where we are now, so suffice to say not much changes in terms of friends, shops, schools etc. but its a new front door behind which is a whole heap of potential dressed up in 1980′s finest.  

We’ve lived at Lancaster Towers for 9 years and we have re-done it from top to bottom, inside and out all ourselves.  Lancaster Towers is a tall town house and Villa Lancaster is a wide house, it’s on a great south facing plot, a great garden for my smalls and with a garage for bikes, scooters and the like!  I wish I had taken the time to at least photograph the before and after transformations, now I blog so I am going to blog our journey to our new house and its transformation into our home.  It will be a journey, the house purchase blows all our savings, so we’ll be taking our time but the planning, considering, choosing is all so much fun – I see a lot of mood boards in my future! 

We are leaving behind underfloor heating, stair lighting, a Quooker boiling water kettle tap, a Miele dishwasher *sobs*, a Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer, a Bosch washing machine and John Lewis tumble drier.  I have all my laundry kit upstairs – carrying the washing downstairs is just ridiculous in my opinion – I will have to get used to that though but first I will need a washing machine to carry laundry to! 

You see Villa Lancaster has got a lot of “spaces” and I don’t just mean the rooms, the garden or the garage which it does have – I mean literally “spaces” for a washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, microwave – having sold all my appliances with Lancaster Towers are they were all built in my first challenge is to get me some white goods.  I’m off to measure up (and take photo’s!) at the new place on Tuesday 19th July and we move on Monday 25th July so time is of the essence, just a tad! 

I need to know what you are using, liking, disappointed by, lusting over when it comes to Fridges, Freezers, Washers, Dryers, Dishwashers and microwaves?   Chest Freezers – yes or no?  I’m watching some appliances on eBay – what do we think people, good or naff idea?