Fitting of a new front door

We have lived with the old "jam-jar" glass  front door since we bought the cottage, but the old Yale lock on the door has never really been totally secure. We decided to invest in a new composite door for additional security and to provide a draught free hallway.

We've opted for a Farrow and Ball French Grey colour, to co-ordinate with the outside front window frames of the cottage.

Removing the old door and re-fitting the new model took around 3 hours from start to finish, with no mess to clean up afterwards! A totally efficient workforce.

Footstool recovered

After buying the Parker Knoll sofas, the footstool we already had didn't match the decor. Quotes for a new footstool in this range touched around £400-£500. As we already had the footstool, and it was a shame to throw it out, we looked into the cost of having it recovered in a fabric of our choice.
We found a local upholsterer, a lady from a nearby antiques centre, who lovingly reupholstered the footstool, with amazing final results at a cost of only £90, including fabric, collection and delivery.

Stag's Head

We have been looking for something to fit into the alcoves either side of the fireplace in the lounge, and may have decided on a stags head of some design. The trouble being, that once you start to look around the stores and online, the choice is enormous. These carved wooden ones are a piece of art work, but are quite large, maybe we need one for each alcove!

 

I found this festive stags head - quite cute to use as a Christmas decoration.

 

Old Bishop Auckland Map

This old sepia map of the Bishop Auckland area turned up on the internet a while ago.
See if you can decipher the village names and recognise any that you know.
The nearest to the cottage is Wytton Castell (now Witton Castle) and S.Elen Auckland (now St. Helens Auckland).