Back from painting!

At long last i've finished painting. For over a week i've been doing so every day for about 8 hours each day. Had enough of it now, and all the cleaning and clearing involved too.
The downstairs is now a clutter free and clean place to be. I've not held back with the chucking out of clutter either that's involved numerous trips to the dump.
Infact I've been so good, lol, i now don't have enough furniture for books and ornnaments, so fo now storing everything i cant display under the stairs.
I need to make or buy an island for the middle of the kitchen for more food preparing space, and need to hang all the art and pictures back up again (also in storage under the stairs).
My craft room has also been cleaned from top to bottom, and everything put in easy to clean boxes rather than all the clutter i was working in before. I hate clutter and find it distracting when working, plus all it ever does is gather dust.
I've painted the brick wall that joins the house too, although not shown the bit where ive ran out of paint, lol. Job for another day!
I'd like to make my room pretty with nice items on display. but so far all i have is functional. I love looking at everyones work spaces and the nice art/sculpture they have on display and would love this too, but it just never happens.

Anyway heres my tidied up getting there kind of functional space to work.
Really should get doing some work too, lol.




Will post more pics of the house when i can take good pictures in the daylight. But you can see the shelves i hated in one of my recent posts that i was going to throw out. I made my ever so reluctant husband chop them in half, and now i just need to find some nice wood to match the baskets for the top to hide the screw holes.
I think they will look nice when the top goes on.

I need to still paint some canvases for the walls and buy some shelving for the kitchen above the coffee making area. I'd also like a nice thick rug for the living room but so far only like the really expensive ones i'm never going to be able to afford. The sewing of cushions and curtains has only amounted to two so far because my sewing machine packed up, and so the old curtains went back up too.

Here's a paitning my son Francis did when he was nine. The painting is of one of the giraffe's at Colchester Zoo. I have loads of similar paintings equally as nice from when he was the same age and plan to hang them in a group somewhere. .
The picture in a frame next to it is my favourite poem Diary of a Church Mouse by John Betjeman. The picture i have borrowed and printed from somewhere and love the way the artist has painted the mice.



You can listen to and read it here http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/poetry/outloud/betjeman.shtml
I found this picture too while looking for pictures of mice. I love the mice i bought from Jain of Giddy Kipper and have been thinking of maybe using them in a frame in some kind of church setting with the poem too.



Best get to bed, its very late and way past a normal bedtime.

Planning on finally sitting at my desk Tuesday and getting back to making minis too!
I've really missed doing so!

Nikki xxx