Ciao DIY friends.!

My door and room are progressing - with much effort and concentration!

For the past few days I've been wrestling with lots of smaller jobs and details. This half of the room was the messiest space of all the Arthouse until recently. It was the least functional, and the issue of the very low doorway (as in my recent sharing, which you can read here) held me back for years; a solution seemed impossible.

This week I made loads of corrections to the door, the 'ceiling' of the tunnel, and the floor of the room. I filled in lots of holes, and the sides of the door frame - I just finished the shaping of the rather specific piece of wood for the tunnel ceiling: as you can see, it took many cuts with the jig-saw before it fit nicely above the door!

I hummed and hawed a fair bit over how to open and close the door - found several fixings that might work in my box of bits, and was really pleased that I had two of these lovely old drawer handles - plus the correct bolts to set them into the door.... I just had to cut the bolts shorter, so they would sit tight. My clamp didn't have a table nearby to attach to, so I used it as shown above.

I also made this attachment for a lovely lamp I've had for years and never found a place for... I used strong string 😍 and half inserted the old iron hook into the wall, above a metal piece that was already there... Wrapping the string really well around the two pieces of metal, and the re-cementing the hole seems to provide a fairly solid new hook for the lamp - it sits nicely, neatly, above the wee table 🌟

Below is a long-standing hole that sits above the steps - I find it challenging, filling dusty holes in ceilings! It takes such a symbiosis of moisture, thickness of cement, weight of stone, etc, to get it right first time - and I did it!!

I still need to paint the walls and floors, steps and edges - but am sooooo happy with each small stage of improvement.... I was wire-brushing the big marble stones at the bottom of this new step, this morning - and marvelling at the beautiful alchemy of taking something so precious, out of the dark earth and bringing it into the light.... it feels incredible to see its beauty come through.

So exciting to have claimed/ beautified/ made useful another space in my home.... Feeling very proud! 🤩🙏💖🔨

Blessings on your projects!

Love!

Clare.