Painting- for that 'English Country House Look'

And what is an 'English Country House' look? I am not talking about Country Homes which are grand places, few of which remain in private hands, but larger country homes owned by families for generations.

What defines this look? It is difficult to pinpoint but it is a look which is achieved over time and generations. So not everything is from one period, but just what fits in a space and has been found in the parents attics. Sofas will be recovered (but only when the dog has eaten so much of the stuffing the springs are painful), battered chairs painted, old rugs used until they are in such a state you are in danger of tripping up through the holes.....

I don't come from the sort of family whose house had attics full of furniture (I do remember all our Victorian and Edwardian furniture on a big bonfire before we left England for Australia). We did get a few old pieces from my in laws house and an old aunts but we had to part with most of these as they just wouldn't fit in the cottage. I will never fully get this 'look' but enjoy using elements of it.

I bought these four oak chairs about 8 years ago from an antique/junk shop. I loved the barley twists on the stretcher and the backs. I painted them cream and as we used them the paint wore off in various places, like the right hand of each stretcher where we rested our feet as we sat after dinner. Toad Hall was big enough to lose another set of 6 chairs in the bedrooms and around the house for when there were more than four for dinner. So now they have to go for someone else to write their own history on them. I have room in this house for a larger kitchen table so the other six chairs can be used here. The table arrived freshly reconditioned and painted but in the wrong colour for me. So the old table, the four chairs, the six chairs and the new table have been repainted. I washed them thoroughly and the applied a coat of Zinser BIN. This amazing paint is a Primer, stain blocker and sealer all in one and best of all, it takes out the need for complete sanding.

This is one of the legs of the smaller kitchen table. 

This is one of the set of four in the process of getting it's first coat.

So now I have two new 'sets'. The table and the six chairs is in Farrow and Ball Blackened.  The other four chairs and table in House White. (these will go on Ebay this week)

I have commissioned a new dresser (a buffet for those over the pond) to go on that far wall and that is arriving on Saturday.

Not quite a disaster

But it could easily have been.
I was happily sewing away in my studio and heard a dripping noise. I located water coming from the ceiling onto the floor (oak) and my fabric storage drawer system.

This was after I removed my stash of Freezer Paper. For those of you in the States this might not seem a big deal but Freezer Paper cannot just be purchased from the supermarket over here. It has become more obtainable in recent years but it isn't cheap.

Then I discovered my Ricky Tims hand dyes and some other hand dyes in one of the drawers were sodden.

A quick wash in the machine sorted out the fabrics. The paper dried surprisingly well upended on the radiators for a few days. Some of them, I just washed and gave to the local quilt group to make cushions and bags for the breast cancer ward at our local hospital.

And the cause? The family bathroom is over my studio. I had turned the tap onto a slow drip because George asked me to. (the cats have their own water fountain downstairs but cats being cats they like to prove who is boss). It seems there was a very slow leak from the waste outlet. I think we have both only had one bath each since we've been here preferring showers instead. Because the waste was continually filling, it was also continually leaking. Until under the bath was flooded, then the ceiling void below, until it eventually started coming through the ceiling. Jeff the plumber came quickly and the side of the bath is still off whilst it dries out underneath.