Sofa, so good?

With the ground floor complete, except reinstating the reused skirting, our thoughts have moved on to additional furniture.

Our two existing sofas have done sterling service over the past 8 years and we have no plans to get rid of them as they're still in good shape, quite literally. Not bad considering they're covered in a cream cotton fabric. Goes to show that it was worth paying slightly more for good build quality from the Sofa Workshop.

That said, with the extra space we now have we'd like some additional seating so we've spent some time looking for another sofa. Not as easy as it sounds, even with the temptation of the New Year Sales.

Our existing sofas still look good partly due to build quality, partly due to simple modern design. We've been able to rule out a vast array of the sofas on the market due to fussy and over detailed design, especially most of what DFS sell. In other stores where the furniture initially looked attractive, such as Next, we ruled out their sofas as they were upholstered in either artificial fabrics or leather with excessive numbers of seams. (We've still not decided on leather or fabric - if it's fabric it'll have to be natural, ensuring it's sustainable and limiting our exposure to toxins. And we recognise that leather production can be a very polluting process even if the hides are a by product of the meat industry, so it's not an easy decision to make)

Sofas from other stores have been tempting, especially with some of the deals that are available, but there's always been something to stop us reaching for our wallet. Usually this has been build quality, as not only is it not financial sense to buy cheap and have to replace it in a few years, it's a poor use of resources.

We've even looked in our local second-hand shop but there's nothing there that suits us - after all we want to be eco and chic at the same time, albeit maybe not quite to Oliver Heath's standard (http://www.ecohomeideas.co.uk)

So three options remain:

1. Find a cool secondhand sofa, and with a friend of a friend getting rid of a Chesterfield this may happen.

2. Return to Sofa Workshop and dig deep into the bank account - we know we'll be happy with the UK made quality product, but it comes at a cost.

3. Find another supplier of UK made and sustainable furniture - Green Woods in Clifton http://www.greenwoodsfurniture.co.uk/ seem to fit the bill so we'll have to pay them a visit.

Alternatively we could just sit on the floor. Not sure all our visitors would be keen on that though.

Level

We finally completed the laying of the oak flooring in the hallway today. My very sore fingers, partly due to the cold weather but mostly due to cuts from the oak floorboards, are testament to the job of putting the floor down. But, and even without being oiled or finished with skirting, the floor looks great so the minor discomfort is a small price to pay.

What probably took as long as laying the last lot of boards was deciding on what to do with the fireplace that is in the hall, and what used to be the dining room. Old deeds of the house refer to a Parkray stove being in that room, but unfortunately that was long gone when we bought the house. Instead we inherited a bare hole of a fireplace with a raised hearth of anonymous grey ceramic tiles. Combined with the very uneven bare concrete floor, this made the dining room a not particularly pleasant space!

So we've been researching a replacement to the Parkray that will do justice to the house, and that is in keeping with it's age and the style of the original Edwardian cast iron fire places in the bedrooms. A visit to Period Fireplaces in Montpelier, Bristol was helpful but they didn't have quite what we wanted in stock. However, they did give us enough info and inspiration to allow us to fix on a approximate fireplace size and, more importantly, hearth size. This has enabled us to finish the oak flooring knowing exactly where we'll put the hearth, and how big it needs to be. To avoid having a wood trim around the hearth we'll put in a sub-hearth of self-levelling screed and float the final hearth (possibly localish Welsh slate) ove the oak.

And whilst we've not really had chance to appreciate it, at long last the floor in the hall is now fully level, with the drab grey concrete gone from view and replaced by the warm tones of solid oak. Offcuts of which have been doing sterling service keeping us warm in the stove!

Deep freeze

Work on the house has taken a back seat over the last few weeks. After getting the oak floor layed and oiled in time for Christmas, and with the essential doors hung for privacy, it's been time to have a bit of a break.

The record breaking freezing weather we're having is taking up more time, be it ensuring we have enough wood for the stove or topping up the boiler pellets and emptying the ash at a faster rate than we ought to be. That's one of the downsides of biomass, higher maintenance especially when it's colder than is normal for the UK.

In the brief moments I've had to enjoy the snow that surrounds Hillside, when I've not been at work, it's been interesting to see signs of the nocturnal wildlife, especially the deer tracks outside the front of the garage.


Last month I mentioned that we'd survived -6C without the harvested rainwater pipework freezing where it runs above ground for a couple of metres. Unfortunately last nights -8C and a full day of sub-zero temperatures finally caused the system to freeze up so we can't use it for flushing the WCs. Hopefully no damage has been done, and at least we still have mains water so can top-up the cisterns manually, although I suppose we really ought to be out collecting snow to fill the cisterns. Maybe not tonight...