My name is Sian I'm 27 years old and I live in Leatherhead with my family made up of my partner Tim, our cat Rosie, and our two chickens, Margo and Jerry. I live in a small, but beautifully formed, terrace house which we have managed to restore loveingly back to its original form. We may not have our dream house in the country, but we have made the best of what we've got.
We recently dug a 3 x 3 metre vegetable patch, planted numerous fruit trees and have our chickens who provide us with lovely fresh eggs everyday. At the moment we haven't got any veg growing, but we've cleared the patch ready for planting. We planted some fruit bushes along our border last weekend, including a gooseberry bush, three raspberry canes, blackcurrant, redcurrant and two blueberry bushes. The blueberry perfers acidic soil so we used the pine needles from last year's Christmas tree and dug them in; when these breakdown they should reduce the ph enough to allow the blueberry to flourish. Nothing goes to waste in our house, if we have any leftover salad or vegetables the chickens are happy to oblige us in getting rid of them, and any veg that isn't fit for Margo and Jerry gets composted. We also compost our tea bags! The leftover egg shells get baked in the oven and fed back to the chickens to provide them with the minerals they need for egg production. Our chickens live in an Eglu, which I like to think of as the ipod of the chicken world. It is a plastic chicken house with a fox proof run. Eglu's are ideal for people who want to keep chickens in urban areas. They are low maintenance and aside from that they are a bit of fun and a talking point for all the neighbours who love to come along and chicken watch! Tim and I both work in the city, but we always find the time to start a new project on the house or the garden.
The latest project is the bathroom, I want to create a victorian look and add in a few unique twists where possible. It is my great passion to take inspiration from magazines like country living and stamp my own personality on a room. Often many of the fabrics and furniture shown in these magazines is way over my small budget so I scour ebay, antique and charity shops loooking for rundown pieces of furniture for restoration and beautiful treasures to decorate our home. It's surprising how cheap an original piece of victorian/edwardian furniture is compared to a modern replica. For example, I purchased a huge victorian dresser on ebay a couple of weeks ago for £360. It was painted in a hideous brown colour, but now that it's stripped it looks fantastic and has much more charm than a brand new dresser could possibly have! It's also inkeeping with the period of the house. The next job for me to do is wax it.
We recently dug a 3 x 3 metre vegetable patch, planted numerous fruit trees and have our chickens who provide us with lovely fresh eggs everyday. At the moment we haven't got any veg growing, but we've cleared the patch ready for planting. We planted some fruit bushes along our border last weekend, including a gooseberry bush, three raspberry canes, blackcurrant, redcurrant and two blueberry bushes. The blueberry perfers acidic soil so we used the pine needles from last year's Christmas tree and dug them in; when these breakdown they should reduce the ph enough to allow the blueberry to flourish. Nothing goes to waste in our house, if we have any leftover salad or vegetables the chickens are happy to oblige us in getting rid of them, and any veg that isn't fit for Margo and Jerry gets composted. We also compost our tea bags! The leftover egg shells get baked in the oven and fed back to the chickens to provide them with the minerals they need for egg production. Our chickens live in an Eglu, which I like to think of as the ipod of the chicken world. It is a plastic chicken house with a fox proof run. Eglu's are ideal for people who want to keep chickens in urban areas. They are low maintenance and aside from that they are a bit of fun and a talking point for all the neighbours who love to come along and chicken watch! Tim and I both work in the city, but we always find the time to start a new project on the house or the garden.
The latest project is the bathroom, I want to create a victorian look and add in a few unique twists where possible. It is my great passion to take inspiration from magazines like country living and stamp my own personality on a room. Often many of the fabrics and furniture shown in these magazines is way over my small budget so I scour ebay, antique and charity shops loooking for rundown pieces of furniture for restoration and beautiful treasures to decorate our home. It's surprising how cheap an original piece of victorian/edwardian furniture is compared to a modern replica. For example, I purchased a huge victorian dresser on ebay a couple of weeks ago for £360. It was painted in a hideous brown colour, but now that it's stripped it looks fantastic and has much more charm than a brand new dresser could possibly have! It's also inkeeping with the period of the house. The next job for me to do is wax it.
