I was taking photos of our house today to post here (see copious pictures below!) and Patrick kept asking if he could take a picture with my camera. I've let him do this before, as my avatar proves, usually with varying results. However, today he actually blew me away with the picture he took. Bear in mind that there was a zoom lens attached so it was fairly heavy and he has tiny nearly 4 year old hands. This is what he took -

How cool is this? I seriously couldn't believe it! The camera wasn't even on auto! All I said to him before he took it was "Can you see yourself in the mirror through the camera?" To which he replied, "Do you mean this?" and showed me the lcd screen. Amazing!

Anyway, now that we've established that my child is indeed a protege (which may explain the extreme tantrums of the last few days!), on to the photo show of the new house. I call this following series of pictures "A study in Magnolia". It will be apparent why! The first photos are of my  STUDIO. Not the study. Michael may say what he wants, but this room will be mine!

 

This is Patrick's bedroom. There are great plans for this in our heads that involve removing the peach anaglypta wallpaper sometime in the very near future!

At this point I feel I need to reassure you that we're not exactly all unpacked and tidy! This is the guest room - any time you Bolands or Hafermanns feel the desire to come visit, this is where you get to stay!

The landing was originally a bedroom which was done away with to make room for a proper staircase up to the master bedroom which is an attic conversion. This was one of the features that really drew me to the house. I've always wanted to have this bench out on display somewhere, and on this landing it almost looks lost!

Now, the reality of the kitchen is not apparent in this picture. The cupboard doors are all on their last legs, the floor tiles are fairly poor and the walls are tiled from floor to ceiling and the tiles have been painted over in another lovely shade of magnolia! In a few months, after the builders and kitchen fitters have been it will be the most stylish kitchen ever, but until then it is a littlle short of hideous!

The main living room is lovely, although it is in need of some soft furnishings and a lick of paint! It has double doors that open out onto the garden which the boys will especially love come the warmer weather. I love this room:)

And the view out to the garden (notice full line of washing - this line makes me very happy!)

Our bedroom is in the attic conversion. I have to confess that I love the fact that we're on a whole separated floor from the boys! Perhaps it's the extra distance between us and Conor that has assisted his sleeping through the night! Patrick insisted on being in this picture as he was having great fun jumping on the bed!

Now the sea is a mere 5 minutes away from us, but try as I might I cannot see it from the house! I've craned my neck and stood on chairs, but it's not happening! But to prove that it does sort of have a sea view, I stuck the camera out the skylight in the ensuite and zoomed in and this is what I got! Pretty impressive, eh!

Right, that must surely make up for not posting any pictures for ages! One other thing that I was thinking today, whilst browsing on 2peas was how great the creating garden is. I love just spending time looking through the mountains of inspiration that the Garden Girls provide on there. (Is it just me or does anyone else secretly want to be one of them?!) I save so much stuff into my book of scraps, and then just forget about it. So I was thinking, perhaps I should challenge myself to use this inspiration. And then I thought, I bet stacks of other people do the same as me, and maybe we could have some sort of online challenge based on the creating garden or our books of scraps? If you're interested in doing something like this leave me a comment on this post and I'll see what I can come up with. I'm going to do it anyway, but it's always more fun to do this sort of thing with others. Are you with me?