Settling in at home...

So...can I start a sentance with so, and not "sew"?

Well anyway...I know you're all probably DYING to see my friend Emma's wedding photographs, BUT I am waiting a little longer incase there are some lovely "official" ones with pictures of all the bridesmaids stood alongside the beautiful bride & groom...

Instead, I wanted to post some photies I took of my home...I recently moved into a house. I've never lived in a house before, I've only ever lived in apartments or flats...apart from growing up. I say recently, when in actual fact I moved in September. For those of you that know me know me, you'll know that I moved out of necessity not desire...

I used to live in a really lovely 2 bedroomed apartment in Manchester City centre, with a cute little balcony and a little community of some awesome mates around each corner. I don't drive, never learnt so the convenience of this flat was fab...I could walk into town and be right in the centre within half an hour and feel like I was right in the heart of a bustling, cosmopolitan (Manchester?!?!? -cosmopolitan!?!? Well yes actually) city...

I was happy where I was. But you see I met this person...this particular person I fell in love with. We lived together for a short while in this lovely little flat in the city centre; until oneday he said to me he needed to move...Jim, owns a house you see in a small town or village between Bury and Bolton called Ainsworth. He owns this house in complicated circumstances. Bleeuuurrgghh! - I don't need to go into details, but it was draining money and the current tenants weren't paying rent and well so together we decided that we must move...so we gave our landlord our notice and told our friends and gave notice to the naughty tenants...who then didn't move out and didn't move out, but of course we had to...so ended up staying with Jim's parents for a while, with all our things in boxes...

Eventually we got into the house that belongs to Jim, and it was stinky and filthy and filled with someone else's junk...I felt sad and weirded out...

I complained a lot I won't lie and lovingly nicknamed Ainsworth, "Ainshole"...and continued to complain, but slowly Jim and I have started to put our stamp on the house, to turn it more into our home...

To be perfectly honest, to begin with I didn't know what to do with all the space!! I had gone from living in bedrooms in flats, to flats to a 3 bedroom house, I felt a little rattly! - We don't really have much money either, so we kitted it out really thriftily...These are a few snaps of our living-room, the side board was from freecycle, my good friend Beth found it for us...the old singer sewing machine I've had for years and the jug is from wilko's believe it or not...

The little blue tea-pot is actually an oil burner that Beth & Bryce gave to me a few years ago as a birthday present and the knitted/crocheted monsters are one-off customised creations by the fabulous HelenMakes Jim built her website, she's very talented...but then again so is he, he made my website too!

We're both pretty much mega geeks, so we've framed a couple of illustrative loveliness, in the form of Bed Knobs & Broomsticks original poster and some comic book art postcards...we bought our school desk from this amazing place in Bolton...couldn't tell you where it is, but we also got our 60s dining table and chairs from there for about £30 bargain thanks! Our house is pretty mish-moshy, we both seem to collect little bits and bobs and like objects for objects sake...I'm waaaaay more of a hoarder than Jim is, but he's not far off!! (he's just a bit tidier than I am, oops!)

There's a little paper house that our pal Katie Hanratty made, she gave it to us as a house-warming present, she's an amazingly talented illustrator...the rocking chair, Jim has had for a while and he says he wants to recover it, but it's got this amaaaazing vintage brocade fabric, which I know is majorly tatty now, but I love it...then the old fireplace...which is a bit weird because someone has put a mirror in it...we filled it with books, because it's such a neat little space...

and the rug...well I need a better photo really as you can only see the corner, but the rug was made BY HAND by Jim's beautiful Mother and his Grandmother when she was 19!!! It really has lasted the test of time! - It's one of my favourite things in this room...for ages I'd complained and moaned about the "horrible-cold-cheap-nasty" laminate flooring and how we desperately needed a rug...Jim went over to his folks house (coincidentally) JUST as they were about to chuck this beauty away!!!!!! Good save I say!

The dining room is really little and cute...for aaages I hadn't put anything personal in there, it was just a table and some chairs...my mate Emma came over just before christmas and said "you don't sit in here though do you?" and I felt really gutted, because well we did...I suppose part of it was my reluctance to make it my home, but I'm so glad I've just made that little bit of effort!! It's a really nice space now, I should take some more photographs of the pictures on the wall too really...

The bike I may have shown in previous posts, it's so cute Jim and his Dad sprayed it for me and Helen knitted those extras...the cork board me and Jim made and the small metal guitar his Dad made...the wine bottle just had an amazing label with a gorgeous art nouveau style red-haired woman on it, so I couldn't bare to throw it out...the sock plant pot Beth made...

So really we have a home of handmade and personal bits and bobs and I really like it...I've discovered that even though it's a massive pain in the ass commute to get into Manchester, I actually really love how we've made it our own, and the good thing is that if I'm perfectly honest, it doesn't matter where you live as long as you live with the person you love most in the world, it's all alright!! - PLUS we get to surround ourselves in really cool stuff from friends and family.

The ultimate plan is to restore the house and garden a bit more and see if we can sell it, so we can move back to the City again...failing that I'll just have to learn to drive!!