There's no place like home.

The boxes are unpacked, the endless, soul destroying task of contacting everyone in the world to update our address details has begun.. we are finally moved in! I can't believe it's been a year since we moved to the last house, and I am so utterly grateful that our new landlord agreed to a two year contract, so it is guaranteed that we won't have to do this whole rigmarole again next year.

Moving house just a month before the wedding was always going to be a big ask. Having only three days crossover between houses rather than the two weeks we had last year was always going to be tough. Not having those days coincide with a weekend was always going to make life difficult. Fortunately, we learned a lot of lessons last year and made one decision that meant the whole move went smoothly.

I cannot recommend this company enough. They were absolute superstars.

Last year we moved with the assistance of a whole group of our excellent, kind and generous friends. This year, we paid some men to come and do all the heavy lifting. Best plan ever. They were at the house the day before to pack all the delicate things and our entire kitchen (which went really smoothly apart from a minor chip pan spillage incident), then arrived at 8am on the day of the move to start loading up. All we had to do was make sure we had packed everything that could possibly go in a box into a box beforehand. They were so efficient, we were all loaded and on the road by half eleven!

I live in a chalet! With a huge magnolia tree
in the front garden

Our new house is deceptively large. It looks really odd from the outside though!

The house comes with a gardener, so I don't have to mow all this lawn!

One of the back doors is a stable door!

Living room, half unpacked.

Because we had such a short handover, I didn't get a chance to properly measure up the new house and come up with a plan for the furniture. All we had to work from was a brief discussion on the morning of the day we picked up the keys. Luckily, everything fitted where we thought it would! The one annoying thing is all the rooms downstairs have wall lights rather than overhead lights, so we've been a bit restricted in where we can put bookcases and other tall furniture.

We love our range cooker!

I was very impressed with this suggestion from one of the removal guys though, as my CD tower came off the van I said "I'm not sure where I'm going to put this"; he suggested using it in the kitchen as a spice rack, as he'd seen just how many spices we have when they did the kitchen pack the day before. It fitted perfectly into this space next to the cooker and has just enough room on it for all our spice jars (although some of them were shockingly out of date and had to be chucked!).

Another of my spur-of-the-moment decorating decisions. I've kept these empty champagne bottles for years with a vague idea of using them in a decorative fashion. I thought maybe putting candles in them or something. But this pointless windowsill in the dining room proved just the right height and width to display them all. There are six different champagnes, plus a very special red wine bottle in the middle that was bought by my parents in France when I was 11 years old.

This is the part I'm sure you are most interested in though - where I've set up my stash and crafting space! There is a gorgeous fireplace in the living room, and the alcove to the right of it proved just the right size to fit my piano and my yarn shelves. I've re-organised my stash by weight, with my large collection of acrylic DK on the bottom shelf that you can't see in the picture above.

We call this part of the living room "the nest" as it is where
we are both storing all of our hobbying equipment

I've also expanded a bit on the other side of the room. Whereas before I had one of these narrow deep bookshelves to store my WIPs and tools, I now have two! All of my crafting books and magazines are stacked up on top, and there is room not just for my knitting and crochet tools, but also my sewing bits, jewellery making supplies and other crafty things. My enormous wooden chest of fabric is also downstairs, behind my sofa under the window. Everything is within arms reach of my seat (or just a few steps away).

I haven't actually done any knitting this past week, I've been too busy packing, moving and unpacking again. I only unpacked my WIPs yesterday evening!

Cat on a string

Fidget has settled in well, although he has been sulking a bit about not being allowed outside. We've taken him out a couple of times on his lead, but he's got a few more weeks of this before he'll be allowed out on his own!