Our house through time | Vintage pictures of Whitchurch
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
It’s been a busy few months since our new puppy arrived, it feels a bit like we have been chasing our tail (excuse the pun) and haven’t really had time to blog. As he is settling down we find ourselves with a bit more time on our hands to get back into the swing of things. One of the advantages of having a puppy is a great excuse to get out and about to explore the local area, it has been fun discovering about our new town and the surrounding areas.  It has now been a year since we moved to Whitchurch and we really do love it out here. It is a great little town with a good sense of c ..read more
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Our Friendsgiving Table
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
What is Friendsgiving? On Saturday we held a Friendsgiving dinner with a group of our close friends.  We have previously blogged about out love of Thanksgiving.  Friendsgiving is basically just Thanksgiving but with your friends rather family!   In America it is usually the weekend before Thanksgiving where you gather with your friends and enjoy good company, good drink and good food.  We were in America for Thanksgiving a few years ago and enjoyed the gathering of family and friends and wanted to get in on the act. Its a great way to spend time with the peop ..read more
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DIY West Elm Style Chevron Headboard
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
Big ideas but a small budget Since we have lived together, Rich has been keen to get a headboard for our bed.  Inspiration for this came from a trip to the USA and a visit to a West Elm store.  Whilst wondering around the store, Rich came across a headboard that he liked.  Unfortunately, it was too big to try and get back to the UK.  Many searches for a similar headboards in the uk came up with nothing.  After we painted our bedroom, we agreed that we needed to do something about this and build our own headboard. Right, we can do that! One of the benefits of space ..read more
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Garden Gin Tasting Bar
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
When we moved into our house in January, a ‘selling’ point is the proximity to the Bombay Sapphire gin distillery.  This is something we learnt after we bought the house, and at a mile and a half down the road, it is great to be able to send people off to sample the local gin.  For some of our friends, we are not sure if they were coming to see the house or to get a sneaky trip in to the distillery! A few weeks back we had a group of friends come and visit.  This group fit into the ‘nice house, where’s the gin?’ category and came to visit the distillery (as well as us!). &n ..read more
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Roses in Our Garden
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
If you follow Rich’s Instagram you have probably realised his love of gardening.  For the first time in many years we have a garden to potter about in so we are going to start doing a few gardening updates on the blog to share our successes and failures. To start off lets have a look at the Roses we have planted in our new garden. We love roses, especially old fashioned and vintage style roses. Four out of the five roses we have chosen are English Roses from David Austin Roses. David Austin is the breeder most often associated with this style of rose.  He has bred hundreds of va ..read more
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Updating our Fireplace
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
We have now been in out house for almost six months. We have settled into Whitchurch nicely and have started some projects around the house. This week we are going to give you a couple of little updates; the fireplace in the living room and the master bedroom. Living room The first room we painted was our living room. The room was previously mint green below the chair rail and white above, not really to our taste.  We decided to flip the colours to have the white below, we painted this in Crown’s Canvas White with a silk finish.  Above the chair rail we opted for Lopen Taupe fro ..read more
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Making Elderflower Cordial
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
As spring made its appearance, we made the most of the outdoors and the Hampshire countryside.  One thing we noticed on a recent walk was the number of Elderflower trees in the vicinity of the house and decided we would make our own cordial this year.  Armed with a scissors and a bag, we ventured out to gather  a number of Elderflower heads.  It seems that this is a popular activity in Hampshire as it looked like a few people got to the easier to reach branches before us. Elderflower cordial is a drink that can be tracked back to Roman times.  This may explain wh ..read more
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Upcycling Furniture with JuniperBo
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
Moving into our house a few months ago, we have be trying to work out what we want to do with the rooms.  Plans are hatched and then changed, and changed again!  So many ideas, but we are narrowing them down!  As we moved from a furnished flat into an empty house, we need lots of furniture.  With our plans changing as the house develops, we didn’t want to buy big pieces only to find they don’t work.  As furniture upcycling is something we have done before, we decided that it would be a good idea to do this again whilst until our plans were still changing. &nb ..read more
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Meet Gustav
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
Exciting news! We have rehomed a cat from the nice people at Cats Protection.  Meet Gustav, out 11 year old domestic long hair cat!  We might be a bit bias but we have decided he is, in fact, the best cat ever! Pets make a home Getting pets has been high on our agenda since we moved, we both feel a house isn’t just not a home without some furry critters wandering about.  We had been in contact a couple of branches of Cats Protection, having a house visit to make sure we were suitable.  As we are quite close to a road so we decided that it would be best to rehome  ..read more
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Choosing a New Sofa
Orchard Blog
by Orchard Blog
3y ago
One of the reasons we decided to move out into the country was we could afford to buy a house with more space.  We loved living in Hampton Wick, but if we were to buy there we’d be lucky to afford a one bedroom flat.  Having made the move to Whitchurch we had gained space but one downside of this is our furniture was purchased for a small flat and doesn’t fit. We have therefore decided that it is time to buy a new sofa, well actually a pair of sofas. We are looking to buy a two seater and a three-seater sofa for the living room, we will compliment these with a couple of acc ..read more
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