Corbels and Newel Posts: finds

can you tell what it is yet?

Sorry for the pun post tile but I couldn't resist. The staircase we're getting has been designed & made by Kev the Stairs. In fact everyone working on the house so far has a great nickname; our builder is called Brewie and our plasterer is Ian Two-Heads. I'm not sure of the plumber's nickname but I bet he has one. Does that mean I need a nickname too? Answers on a postcard.
Anyhoo, a week after Kev the Stairs had measured up and drawn the plan, the staircase arrived in pieces. I'm not the most spatially aware person, so the sections were an enigma wrapped in a conundrum. But they look beautiful.

I have no idea what finish we'll go for on the stairs. I fancy stripping them to some extent but I'm conscious of the fact that there'll be feet thundering up and down so some kind of carpet or runner will probably be the most practical. I have a Pintrest account where I'm storing images of ideas. For those who don't now, Pintrest is an online scrapbook you can create for yourself, and I have pages on kitchens, bathrooms, lino cut artists, garden designs, homeware, and other assorted pages. The good thing about Pintrest is that when you find an image, say of your dream cooker, when you 'pin' the image it also attaches the page from the site you found it on, so I can click on the image in my scrapbook and it takes me to the online store I found it on.

Krypton factor

I digress, and I am prone to do. I mean, why use one word when you can use a dozen? Brewey and Two Heads worked hard on flooring the attic, covering the gaping hole of a stairwell with scaffold boards to deter accidents. At this stage everything is looking stripped and raw. It was a nervous tie for us. Tony walked through the front door one day and exclaimed 'Steph, we've broken the house!' And I knew exactly what he meant.

weird assortment of found objects

safety is paramount

I have always dreamt of having a garret to dwell in, make art, think, sulk, cry, dream. And TJ always said he wanted to live in an attic. Rebecca wants a basement, but there's none in this house. But there is a big attic. So we got chatting in the pub, as you do, and found that a mate of ours who lives down our new street, a taxi driver called Brian, has his attic done without lowering the first floor ceiling. So we went to have a look, and liked what we saw. Long story short (too late!) we got cracking. Well, not us, but our tame builder. Now Brian had told us it was messy; he'd gone on a foreign holiday for a fortnight while he'd had his done. But nothing prepared me for the mess this made. A century of soot. Wow. It went EVERYWHERE. But the space it's made is beautiful. But I'm just going to show you some teasers today;