Doing up the house

If physicians should 'heal thyself' then artists should probably paint their (thou?) own houses, and I have been.

It was time for a big push on finishing the shower room in the downstairs extension. Normally 'before' pictures would be shared, but the before in this case was a driveway.

As boyfriend struggled with the plumbing, the toilet appeared in various rooms like a sort of ceramic tardis, its 'back to wall' design making it look amusingly like it was plumbed in...

The toilet appears in the kitchen...

 and next to the fireplace...

 Meanwhile the new shower goes in, 

 Then the tiny, narrow Ikea sink, complete with cupboards made from old garage doors.

 Of course I can't resist messing around with mosaic... blue circles on white, 

 then the reverse for the tiny windowsill.

Finally a shade of blue is selected that won't interfere with my boyfriend's blue/green colour blindness.

And the room is ready to use; it's perfect but very small. Generally I prefer baths, with the exception of straight after my martial arts class, but bath's are out because now of course with are ripping out the upstairs bathroom :-)

Then it was back to work. After finishing my painting of Cornard Country Park in time for the 'Visions of Sudbury' exhibition,

The painting was entered with my 'Sunflowers behind Melford Church' painting, and both will be featured in the 'Visions of Sudbury 2013' book this year.

In between taking turns stewarding the exhibition I was working on three more mosaic hearts for a repeat customer. Georgina from Surrey adores hearts and everything pretty and vintage. This time she pushed my skills to the limit sending me both vintage china with delicate gold leaf and vintage plastic buttons, asking for three different sized mosaics:

The first and largest used her polka dot blue china and a pretty button in the centre...

the second featured gold edged pale green china and a tiny round button with little crystals, 

The smallest (just 10cm) used the remainder of the pretty buttons, in a pale pink surround.

The customer has declared herself delighted although the mosaics are not yet with her, being currently with the courier. I have ditched Royal Mail as their prices are now ridiculous, I am at a loss to understand the shares fuss when everyone I know is turning to alternative services.

In the middle of all this general busy-ness it was time for the teen to head off to Bath Uni. Discussions about how to get her there talked about driving, trains etc but then I spotted the big box laying around in the garage. To my surprise the teen was keen on the idea of being posted and gamely posed for a picture:

In the end her father drove her, and her minimal contact reports her to be very happy. Whether she is actually doing any work is doubtful, but then students of Philosophy & Creative Writing perhaps have their minds on higher matters...