Fairy Merry Christmas

Yuletide felicitations my faithful blogworms, this weeks will be my last until the new year as next week we're off to sunny ? Colchester to do the first of a two stage fit of one of our marvellous eco kitchens, one of the new idea using the sustainable Tulipwood I talked about in an earlier blog.

Our task is to install all the cabinets, worktops and appliances as the first stage to get a working skeleton kitchen ready to be used over Christmas, the second stage will be going back in the new year to complete the kitchen with the doors, panels and handles etc.

When you consider the responsibilty of our success next week standing between us and someones Christmas dinner, it takes a massive leap of faith in us by our client to have the confidence that we'll get it done !!

This does happen on a surprisingly regular basis and we've never let anyone down in our 25 year history and I'm not about to start now !. I always have an immense respect for the trust that people put in us when doing projects like this so close to a major calendar event.

We've got all sorts of goodies lined up for the new year, so stay tuned in 2014.

To give you a snapshot of one of them, I thought I'd sneak this one in at this time ...... Flower Fairies !! Fans of our Roadstone Plaques now have a new line of interest, we understand the popularity of the Flower Fairies genre and were asked recently to create a plaque featuring one, well ... this is it !, what do you think ?? By the way ... the hands aren't part of it ! we just had to hold it up to photograph it.

The Flower Fairy thing seems to have a massive following and there are many, many characters involved in the whole concept so not being one to ignore new ideas, this is our first one, we hope, of many. I would be interested to hear all your opinions

Don't forget that we can start with a standard roadstone plaque of 300mm x 375mm and go right upto large panels of 2400 x 1200 or more, so there are many, many applications to which the plaques can be put. Food for thought for the new year.!

So, eat & drink as much or as little as you want, enjoy yourselves over Christmas and the New Year and I 'll see you all again in 2014.
Stoke up your log burner using all the tips I've given earlier and get yourselves nice and cosy.

 Top Tip: Don't forget Christmas is a time for sharing so if you have an elderly relative or friend see if you can help bring a bit of cheer into their Christmas too, We will be !

All the best. Jules.

My Reclaimed World

 E. U. M. F. B. I'm sure you can figure the initials out if you followed me long enough !
Anyway, this week I thought I'd take a gentler pace and give you a snap shot into my inspiration for our "Reclaimed Madness" kitchen ( see earliers blogs )

The pics I've loaded this week are all items I've made for our home using the same reclaimed timber source as we used for the kitchen.

The top pic is a box frame housing a fabric patchwork we bought in Tenerife many moons ago flanked by 2 candle sconces which were made absolutely donkeys years ago using a template pattern that was given free with Issue 1 of The Router magazine ( that's router pronounced row-ter, row as in argument ! which is a woodworking power tool .... not roo-ter as in the thing that send signals to your computer ! ). Just thought I'd clear that up to begin with.

Any one who's into woodworking may remember that mag coming out and who knows ...... you may have already made one yourself.

The second pic is from my wifes penchant for ducks ! turned into a coat rack in our hall. Couple of boards glued together and the duck freehand sketched onto a pattern, template made, roughly cut out with a jigsaw   ( Oh God! ... this is going to be a long blog .. jigsaw, as in power tool with small saw blades in it, not cardboard picture made up of funny shapes! ), then followed the template with a router ( see above ) and put the detail lines in by hand with the same router, fitted some wrought iron coat hangers and Bob's your mothers brother.

This shows our cloakroom ( or downstairs loo, if you prefer, as we don't hang cloaks in it ) created from scratch, timber frame, mdf doors, black iron hinges and marble tiles.

All topped off with reclaimed factory beam rip cuts as countertops and window cill, simples !






The inspiration for this shape came from an african warriors shield and was the follow on from the fact that I like the idea of a large candle sconce with an imposing shape and prescence. There are two of these hanging in my dining room and provide a wonderful subtle light, reflected into the room by the mirrors behing the candles.

They are nearly 5 feet high ( 1500mm ) and hold large church candles. As you can see, I really need to put new candles in, they do get used a lot !.

As a design idea, I would like to make 2 more, even higher, using a complete mirror in the shield shape and mounting the candle holder straight onto the mirror. The candle holder would look stunning in the blackest piece of solid walnut I can find !

Who knows, one day I might get around to it !

Anyway, welcome to my Reclaimed World, enjoy !

Jules