Month: November 2014

Chair upcycling

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In previous posts I have mentioned having a plan to spruce up our playroom / dining room.  Well, it had stalled for a while.  The next thing on my list to tackle was getting an extending dining table and some chairs.  The table needed to start off small enough not to get in the way when the room was in play-room mode, but extend to seat all the extended family comfortably.  I had seen something I wanted about 18 months ago, but it was expensive, so I decided to try to get something similar on eBay, and use it as an up cycling project.  After nearly a year and a half of monitoring eBay for second hand chairs and tables close to home, I finally got lucky. Someone was selling fifty chairs reclaimed from a closed-down restaurant, that were identical in shape to the ones I wanted. I managed to snap up eight of them for £20 each.  The only difference was that they were dark-stained wood and had a plasticky fake-wicker seat pad that had seen …

Pumpkin spiced muffins with maple orange glaze

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We have had a busy couple of months here, starting a new job, starting school, starting preschool and celebrating a 40th birthday.  Milestones all round.   Between all those things and the increased layers of organisation that they have entailed, the unfortunate blog has been rather neglected. But it feels like we’ve turned a bit of a corner after the half-term break.  We’re finally settling into the new routines, and finding time for more activities together.  Autumn is giving way to winter, but before all the christmassy stuff starts, we decided to have a go at an autumnal bake.  And with halloween just gone, I decided that meant pumpkin!  In truth, the pumpkin decision was mainly because I had added tinned pumpkin puree to my online grocery order on a whim a few weeks ago, and it was sitting in the cupboard begging to be put to good use. As usual, the recipe below is an amalgam and adaptation of various recipes, based mainly on what we had in the cupboard and what sounded simple enough for a two-year-old helper to assist with! Pumpkin spiced muffins with maple …