English Countryside Spring Morning 🪴🌿| Historic 1800's Kitchen Renovation🌸Fairytale Cottage Garden

The street outside while the children are asleep feels like the rest of the world. Although our garden is small here, I do love how much variety we have. So many different things happening every 30 turn. So much going on. So much to look at. This is our current crazy setup. I'm talking quietly because I don't want anyone to wake up. Welcome, we have been mid-renovation this week. Look at this chaos. There is so much happening in here. So much has been removed already. This is pretty much a working space at the moment. It's not functioning apart from the dripping tap. We do have a dripping tap. We have had a dripping tap for a long time but I'm so excited because in just a few short weeks this is, well on Monday which is three days from now, this is all going to be ripped out. There's not going to be anything here apart from an oven, our fridge, our washing machine and our tumble dryer. So quite a few things and the dishwasher but all the cupboards are going to be removed and it's all going to be stripped back and re-plastered and oh, I'm so excited. It's going to be interesting the next few weeks living without a kitchen as a family of five. I'm excited to show you the results. We do have some interesting wallpaper options going on here. It seems like the people that lived here before went through a few phases of wallpaper. We have a nice kind of cottage garden feel going on here which is quite cute. I can imagine next time would have looked very sweet. We've got some sort of 70s funky green brown sort of vibe going on as well and then up here we have also some like blue cherry, again 60s, I don't know, movie sort of vibe going on. But lots to do, lots to remove. When we first moved in here, it was originally, the tiles were blue and red and we kind of coped with a bit of makeshift kitchen for a while. We painted the tiles white just to neutralize everything. I think knowing that in the long run we would eventually renovate and then we also put some vinyl wrap over our countertops which has held up okay. It's not been perfect but it's held up okay. I thought I'd give you a quick update of where we're at because we are in chaos and you know sometimes life is chaotic, sometimes life is not picture perfect and it's okay to just embrace it and walk through it and just like outside, seeing all the beauty that's outside and all the nature and the plants and just being in here and trying to take in what do we think is beautiful and interesting and shows history and just trying to embrace it honestly. But I'm excited to show you the big reveal in just a few weeks but it will be a bit of a process before that point. One little sad point that I am bittersweet about is that we have put one coat over our beautiful blue walls that we had before, kind of a gorgeous warm cozy greeny blue that I absolutely loved and we've used it in our guest bedroom office but we've painted over it because we need to brighten up the walls a little bit before we put on our final paint colour because it will be a lot lighter than the oval room blue that we had on here before. But I feel a bit bittersweet about it because I loved the blue in that in in here before but hey it's okay and the reason I've changed it is because the cabinets that we are using in our kitchen are not going to go at all with the wall in the dining room and the blue in the dining room walls so it's okay. I'm gonna just redo this space and I'm excited for that but I do feel bittersweet about it especially because it's not in that like finished phase it's just sort of we've put on a very thin layer of white to brighten it up and so you can see the colour coming through it's kind of a bit sad but it's okay it's fine we're letting it go and I'm excited for that for the things to come. I've been thinking about curtains and decorations and everything in here so I'm just I'm excited to share it all with you. A bit of a different video here for you guys today if you're at all wondering where our kitchen currently is and what we're using as a kitchen and then follow me. Tea is brewing. I'll just take you through a little bit of how we've made this kitchen set up in our hallway work so far and you must forgive the super low light because our hallways are dark. Our house has kind of got very random corners and cute bits to it so it's quite a dark section so ignore that if you can if you can even see me but we've set up our trolley this is an antique trolley that has been in my family for years and we've set up this trolley it is on wheels and we've got this as a very useful kind of working space for now. We've got our plates and crockery and essential items on the bottom here and obviously I feel like in every camping kitchen any holiday kitchen anything here in the UK you need a tea station or a coffee station both we have both so we've got our teas and coffees here and we have lined up two of our garden tables and put on a tablecloth and included all of our appliances that we possibly can here because there are plug sockets behind means we're able to plug in a kettle a toaster and ninja multi-cooker and because this is where I'll be doing our cooking. As we move through to the other side of the hallway we've got our microwave just kind of sitting there that I do use occasionally and some crockery. Basically anything that's essential anything that's not essential we have a very kind neighbour who has let us put all of my kind of decorative items and things like that stuff that we don't really use serving plates and table setting stuff that we don't need in the next few weeks that's all in her home which is so kind. But for now this is our setup I think it's working well albeit a little bit stressful to cook but we're going to try and make it work for the next few weeks. Good morning mister. Good morning. Are you up a little bit Alec? Yes you are and are you happy about it? Yes you are happy about it. Look at you Rowling, you're so big, so big. Relation this week um which has been really fun and and interesting to experiment with but I have three children under the age of four. I've said that before I feel like I've said that a lot but there is something to be said for the amount of work that is involved when you have little ones and just little ones as well I think when they start to get older I can't I can only speak from what other people have told me but they seem to have said that it does get easier as the others get older. Oh you're rolling around again aren't you? And having littles doesn't seem as intimidating but just having little ones can feel quite intense sometimes and I can often be doing one thing, changing a nappy, making the food, caring for the children, caring for the crying child while trying to think about every other thing happening in the house and the um the to-do lists and everything that needs to be done but I've been really practicing having a present mind for each thing that I'm doing. There's a quote that's by Elizabeth Elliot um and I'm gonna completely screw it up but it's something like just do the next thing or you know it's just about doing that next thing, what's the next task at hand? Now I fed Judah, I've changed him, he's on the floor having a lovely time, the next thing I'm doing is I'm reading the bible and I'm being present. We have a crazy morning ahead, there's lots to be done but I'm gonna try and I've been trying it this week and it's really been quite profound but being present in the next thing that I'm doing so that I'm not thinking about what's the thing after this, what's the thing after this, I haven't done that, I haven't done that, I haven't done that, why is nobody doing this, why is that person over there and not over here where I want them to be? I'm trying to control the situation um in my mind even though what I'm doing is I'm changing and happy so let's try and be present. Trying to communicate is that if I'm going to be doing all these tasks anyway I feel like showing up in a present and joyful way is the way that we're supposed to do it and not be so internally stressed and thinking about other things but just showing up present and surrendering it to the lord and letting go.