And so it begins...

Welcome to the first blog post of The Old Post Office Project - ramblings and pictures of us renovating the 165 year old former shop we're now calling home.  This is a project of firsts - our first home, our first renovation project and the first time I've even picked up a paint brush.  It's going to be a steep learning curve that's for sure!

Lets start with a guided tour of The Old Post Office

After months and months it was finally ours

The old shop

The shop into the kitchen

Kitchen

Middle floor lounge

Beautiful bay window

Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

A very orange bathroom

The main bedroom

Lovely staircase

We've been in a couple of months now and it already feels like home, but I can't wait to get stuck in & transform the house bit by bit.  We've had lots of advice from friends and family in recent months, about where to start...some saying start at the top and work your way down, others saying pick the room you'll spend the most time in and do that first.  One thing everyone seems to agree on is that its best to get one room sorted at a time - easier said than done when each room I go in has pealing wallpaper calling to be ripped off.  

So of course listening to everyone's advice I started with the garden.  Probably not the most essential job on the list, but we did move in during the height of summer and it would have just been wrong to spend all that time indoors.  Also, it's a really teeny garden, in fact some might say yard, so it actually felt quite doable.  While JCH worked away taking down shop walls, I got the loppers out and starting clearing. It was in quite a state when we first arrived:

Our teeny garden is in there somewhere

 Our old next door neighbour had chopped back a tree between our gardens and decided our patio was the place to leave it.  It was also all completely overgrown, so I had to be somewhat ruthless with the overbearing bushes and trees.  Bit by bit, the space was cleared and the patio underneath was revealed:

There's a bench in there somewhere

Gradually something resembling a garden was revealed and all in a satisfying day's work.

I rearranged the rocks around the flower bed, dissembled the rotten garden bench, treated ourselves to some new pots and plants, and finished clearing the debris.  

After adding our new friends Owl & Hedgehog, and the garden bench kindly donated by a friend of the family I'm really happy with how our colourful patch of nature is coming along.  Watch this space for some exciting new additions coming soon.