when is a door not a door...

...when it's a wall!
God bless the husband. As November came roaring in the time seemed right to remove the old, unused, unloved front door - and block it up entirely. Noel thought this a fabulous plan - if a little breezy for a couple of days.

ou est la porte?

We've had the bricks a while - they will never match exactly of course - but a trawl through the salvage yards of sussex offered a near match. the bricks would originally have been made not far from our house - but short of knocking down a wall the new, old ones will have to do.

They'll weather in time too. The actual fabric of the building is amazing - it's beautifully made - but it's still plainly a cottage - the brickwork is rough, the cavity is empty and clean, the lintels are made from wood!

Just removing the original front door has made such a difference to how the "courtyard garden" looks... better we think

and best of all, with the old door gone, we've been able to crack on with laying the new wooden floor, which arrived on a pallet, no less, on friday morning.

getting a ton of wood for guy fawkes night was ominous - even more so as it was the husbands birthday - but what a good bonfire boy he is...

the new floor looks beautiful & shiny and best of all clean...

c'est tres jolie
it is very pretty!