We don’t know a great deal about the history of our cottage. It seems it was built around the 1830s, and this room, with its large fireplace may have been some kind of workshop. The window was added in the 1980s after the place had been condemned, and then pretty much rebuilt. Originally, the back of the house was butted against the field bank – without footings or a proper floor. The privy was at the top of the bank beside the field, and to reach it you had go out of the front door, round the house and up the garden.
Back then, too, the house was basically a barn, the upstairs subdivided into two rooms with thin boards, and downstairs probably one open space. The owners who did the restoration work turned it into a two up, two down, and added a small upstairs bathroom. The next owners built on another room up and down, and installed the spiral staircase which featured in an earlier post. When we moved in ten years ago, we turned the new downstairs room, which hadn’t been used for any particular purpose, into the kitchen. The heart of the home of course. Which reminds me – I’d better scoot back there. I left some stock cooking on the stove about an hour ago.
Tish Farrell 
I will be right over, and enjoy a cup of tea with you this afternoon Tish 🙂
Cheers, Mitchell. A nice cuppa it is.
What a nice idea! 🙂 We are late, very late, but we’re coming too. If you don’t mind, Tish. 😉 It looks so cozy and inviting.
Warm greetings,
💃🏼 Dina-Hanne
🚶Klausbernd
👭Siri & Selma
💕💕💕💕
I can’t think of anything nicer than a visit from the Fab Four – I have made some scrummy ginger cake 🙂
Do you have a room for guests? I am on my way over there.
Just need to move the ironing off the guest bed, Noel. Karibu!
Thank you, Tish.
How are you today? The lighting in that house is quite something
I am well, dear Noel. Hope you are too. The house tends to be a bit gloomy downstairs due to small windows so we have lots of lamps 🙂
I am good.
The lamps give it a great look
Your home looks wonderfully inviting….and I can imagine the glorious smells coming from your kitchen:)
Thank you, Janet.
Me too 😊
Blue, red and yellow. Nice glows.
We pride ourselves on our glows 🙂
Tish, what a lovely place! The ambience is palpable as is the welcome. (Of course, if as many of us showed up as would like to, it would be a madhouse!)
janet
An impromtu party the, Janet. What fun.
As long as we’re not all planning on staying the night! 🙂
Now that would be a challenge. A nursery rhyme moment methinks: There were ten in the bed and the little one said,. ‘Roll over, roll over!’
🙂 And one fell out.
What a lovely home, Tish. Just perfect. You have made a super job of the kitchen and it is indeed very warm and welcoming. That woodburner looks perfect for chill January days. 🙂
It’s rather like a family member that woodburner. Don’t what we’d do without him crackling away. Thanks for the kind words 🙂
My pleasure and thanks for sharing your lovely home 🙂
A lovely cosy home with the flagstones and the wood burner, most welcoming. Comfy cushions, rugs and piles of books. I can feel myself settling in already… 😀
I’m thinking I might be having quite a few house guests any time now . We could have a blogging chums convention, now that would be nice 🙂
Oh yes! Mulled wine all round?
It seems we are all on our way … 🙂
Oh, good-eeee! A party of nice blogging folk and fayries too.
What a wonderful cottage, Tish – it looks so delightfully cosy and colourful! I also have a spiral staircase and similar renovation work was done by the previous owner. I’m considering whether to pay the lady behind the House Historian blog to research the history. It’s an 18th-century fisherman’s cottage and I love it. Eventually, I’ll need to put in a lift but until then, I shall relish the staircase!
House historians usually do a good job, and it might be fascinating to know more about your cottage. And long may you continue to use your spiral staircase. They’re more secure and supportive than people tend to imagine when looking at them.
They are, aren’t they! People look at it and say, ‘But surely it’s so difficult for you, Sarah.’ I try to explain that the reverse is true because of being contained by both sides. I’m much dodgier on the ordinary stairs to the top floor.
I’m not so hot on ordinary stairs myself 🙂
That’s a leather rug in the first picture, isn’t it? I love those 🙂
Ceramic tiles pretending to be slate with a bit of a high gloss on them due to the lights I think. I like the notion of a leather rug though.
What a delightful ambience your home has, I’ll join the convention please, I’m sure you’d make afternoon tea 🙂
You’d be so welcome, Gilly, and afternoon tea would certainly be served 🙂
Ooh, scones! 🙂 🙂 Such a welcoming look your home has, Tish. It’s going to be a tight squeeze 🙂
Sort of like fitting elephants into a Mini. Worth a good try though, and I would definitely make you some scones, as long as the elephants wouldn’t eat them first 🙂
Perhaps it would be a mistake to invite the elephants, Tish 🙂 🙂 (not wishing to appear greedy!)
Ha! :O
Very cosey, Tish – a lovely winter home. Just right for hibernating and watching films.
On that topic – as you like Dead Man, try A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Similar mesmerising cinematography – a mixture of Jarmusch, Sin City and Let the Right One In (the Danish version). As you say, dangerous recommending films 😉
Thank you so much for the film hint. Of course I trust your judgment – brought up as we were on Cheshire saltiness.
I love this!
Thank you.
You are welcome!
I’m a sucker for those exposed beams. I like that Graham’s in the mirror of that first shot (I think that’s him?). Him, or a ghost. It does have a real warmth, and I’ll say (having seen it myself), you captured it. Nice eye, Tish.
Hi Bill. I was thinking of our recent chat when I posted the pix. And yes Graham in the mirror 🙂
Nice…that’s good. So happy we did that. Bill
A very charming ambience. 🙂
So snug – lovely patina of light and age.
What a lovely warm abode, glowing with good things – including a portrait in the mirror!
Thank you, Meg. And yes, other half in the mirror giving me that ‘now what’s she doing’ look 🙂
Beautiful place!
Thank you!
Welcome!
I think the ambiance is all down to a Miss T & Mr G.
One sugar, no milk, sill voos plate
🙂
Well I’m still waiting for you and Mrs Ark!
If time and means allowed I think we would be on a plane tomorrow!
But you never know when that knock on the door might happen?
😉
Oooh. Now you’ve got me all on tenterhooks 🙂
It’s lovely and the kind of home I’d somehow expect you to have. I always think of our houses and how they look as the stage set on which we perform the long drama (or comedy) otherwise known as life. It should be as much you as anything in your life. And, of course, yours is charming, unique, and artistic. What else could it be?
Such thoughtful appreciation. Thank you.
What a beautiful and warm ambience – just as I expected would be in your home.
Thank you, Helen.
You’ve a lovely home, Tish. Warm and inviting, very much like you yourself.
Ah, that’s a very sweet thing to say. I see you’ve been doing some heavy reading of my blog today, so many thanks for that. I appreciate the fellow feelings on so many topics 🙂