Christmas is coming!

It's official, we will be having Christmas at Cullen!  We only need to finish off bits and pieces inside now so we will be staying and having our first guests during the Christmas holidays.

We saw Santa at Christies in Fochabers then had some lunch and Christmas decoration shopping at Baxters. When we went back to Cullen we had a walk around the harbour to see the damage caused by the storms last week.  Our poor harbour beach was battered, the sand level is normally more than a foot higher than the picture and the harbour jetty was littered with pebbles and a few boulders washed off the beach.  We have never see the tide come so far into the harbour.

The boys had fun making some decorations for the Christmas tree out of broken bead necklaces and old buttons I bought at the Cullen Antiques Centre.  I love this converted church, I always buy something in there!   We finished the day by lighting our newly installed wood burner and decorating the tree in my favourite style; a bit of old, new and home made!

You can see the debris washed up at the back wall.  There also used to be 2 benches!  Even at high tide this part of the beach is not normally under water.

Pebbles and stones washed over the wall on the right.  Even some of the tarmac was eroded and washed along the jetty

The baubles made by us!

Another step closer!

Things do feel that they are moving too slowly but we are nearing completion (of inside anyway!)  We have no heating but do have a hot shower so we spent most of our 2 week October break there finishing off lots of little bits and pieces and enjoying the mixed weather!

We did a bit of painting, sealed and grouted floors, put up curtain rails, installed the cooker hood and showers and even attached some door knobs!

The first few days were lovely and we got out on the bikes to explore some of the area.  We discovered Cullen House which is an old mansion which has been converted into apartments.  The grounds are open to walk through a couple of times a week.  They were beautiful with the leaves all beginning to change colour and nice and flat for the bikes! There is also a church which dates back to the 11th century within the grounds.  The boys enjoyed finding out how old the stones were and figuring out what the symbols meant! The boys also had a few circuits on the

BMX track for the first time which is just 5 minutes away from the house.  I now know where to find them when they get a bit of independence!

A trip to the Macduff Aquarium is always on our list of places to visit and Miles was even lucky enough to win a shark in a raffle!

We had our first visitors some of whom got soaked and some enjoyed the fantastic October sunshine!  Miles and Zack both enjoyed showing their friends all their favourite places, crabbing and playing in the sea.

Fantastic summer

I didn't realise it was so long since my last post!  It has been a fantastic summer in Cullen.  The sun has shone and temperature has been warm for over 6 weeks!  This has meant that there was more play than work at the house.  Things have moved on though, just very slowly.  We are now staying for several days at a time and visiting Buckie Swimming Pool to shower as we have no hot water!

Freshly painted windows and front door

We have been on the beach every day that we have been in Cullen swimming, body boarding, crabbing, fishing or sailing.  The boys and Michael even did some harbour jumping - I was too chicken!

Our dads have been fantastic and painted all the outside windows - a huge job, one that they don't want to do again in a hurry.  I am STILL painting - that's a whole year I've been doing that job and I am getting a bit bored with it!  Front and back door as well as the architrave have been painted this weekend.  Kitchen is nearly in and flooring is going down.  The bathrooms now have some privacy too with adhesive film from Brume, it looks great.

My 99p sofa!

Brume film on downstairs bathroom window

A dusty day!

Today was a beautiful day in Cullen but we didn't really get a chance to enjoy it.  We spent the day sanding down and oiling our reclaimed gym floor in the living and dining room.  It looks like a completely different floor!

Before

After

 

June update

Sorry I've not updated for a while!  We have been quite busy and the house is nearly ready for us to stay, hurray!  We still have no heating as we are waiting for the electricians to come back but at least the weather is warmer and we don't need it yet!

I had a fab day out with 3 of my oldest friends.  We had hoped it would be a girlie weekend away but it wasn't to be!  We started out with lunch at Rockpool, had a wander round the many antique shops in Cullen including Cullen Antiques Centre, Bits and Bobs and Cullen Collectables.  We finished off our afternoon at the Deskford Galleries for afternoon tea.  We will have our girlie weekend there soon!

We had another great day out with a newer friend and her family who are sadly moving back to Norfolk.  We had lunch in Rockpool (again!) and spent the afternoon on the beach.  The boys and their friends had their first day in the water, exactly 2 years since we got the keys to the house - we didn't think it would take us this long!  We stood in our jackets and they ran around in the water not caring about the cold.

Kitchen units are in place ready to be fixed in, a great friend attached our reclaimed facings round the windows and doors downstairs and I spent 4 hours today cleaning upstairs ready for us to stay!  Portsoy Boat Festival is on the 22nd and 23rd of June.  We have our tickets and are staying for our first weekend.  Mattresses are being delivered on the 21st so we will have some comfort!

  

Busy, busy!

We spent a very long day working on the house yesterday!  Michael attached the last of the radiators ready for the boiler to be switched on, repaired some reclaimed facings and put up the new bannister at the top of the stairs.  I finished painting the kitchen and the builder started finishing off the outside of the extension.  We ordered mattresses today, carpets are here ready to be laid and curtains are all ready to be hung.  I just need a few days to blitz the cleaning first!

Downstairs bedroom nearly ready for curtains and carpet

Landing is now safe!

First coat of render

Drawers lime washed and lined with wallpaper ready to go back in the cabinet