Update soon

wowzers - it feels very busy at the moment!

 

Looking at the old posts makes me realise we have made a little progress here and there in the house over the last couple of months - although most of our efforts are being put in to making money to pay off the last of the credit card!

 

I haven't got time now to talk, but come back soon for an update or two.

 

Cool.

Plugging away

hello all.

Just a quick update as there is football to be watched. It's been a month since i last posted, so wanted to stick up the few things we've been doing. Mostly we've been enjoying living in a nice house and having a few folks around. In between this and work and general day to day stuff we've been trying to work on the snag list. If i can remember correctly i think this is what we have been up to...

We went up north for ma evans' birthday meal and to pick up all our stuff that had been in storage at long bank. We made a good start sorting stuff out and putting it away - but this has significantly slowed recently. We also got the dining chairs back from uni where i had stored them since we tore the house apart 11 months ago.

I've spent 2 saturdays and a couple of evenings working in the garden, trying to get the place looking respectable! The garden has been a builders yard for over a year now so I felt we owed it to the neighbours (who assumed we must have had a complaint to spur us in to action (we hadn't)) to get it sorted and looking nice. We also want to make so we can enjoy it and maybe have a BBQ and a few beers in it over the summer!

So far I've taken 5 trailers full of rubbish to the tip! I also used up the 1.5 tons of gravel we had left from the french drain to freshen up the gravel at the back of the house and make a path in front of the sheds. I used the stones from the old fireplace we tore out for the border.

One afternoon we spent cleaning the windows which made a massive difference. Hannah also cleaned the bathroom which was mega nice - it had a years worth of dust and muck in it. No excuses now!

What else... umm, we bought a cabinet on Ebay for a bargain price of 12 english pounds to house our AV equipment. It has our amp, cd player, xbox 360 and virgin box in it. It's nice to have it tucked away.

We also mounted the 5.1 speakers. we plumped for the canton movie 80cx cinema system. They sound ace and relatively well priced for their quality. However, as we were mounting them not at head height and the supplied brackets didn't tilt, i had to buy some tilting brackets and modify them to attach the fixings for the speaker. This leads to not such a sleek look but it does the job. We are really happy with the speakers and enjoyed watching I Am Legend in glorious 5.1 on Friday. Nice.

We also got a projector mount to put the projector on the ceiling. It only came in silver though, so a dab of white paint was applied before fixing it to the ceiling. I still need to wire the vga, video and power sockets hence the dangling cables!

What else. oh, i fitted the laundry maid on the landing. very useful!

Still lots to do but we just keep plugging away. Got to go now, football is on and i want to make the most of the big screen.

until next time...

here are some pics in a random order.

Laundry maid. Brilliant

living room in it's current configuration. Note surround speakers and cupboard full of books cd and dvds from oop north

things to note: projector and clean windows

builders yard/garden

big screen sports int he comfort of our own home. Brill.

garden in it's current state - 5 trailers of rbbish later

the real head of the house - george

le path of gavelle - as the french would say.

Let there be light

So soft and clean. mmmmmmm home sweet home

Hello.

Another update. Only quick though as I'm at work with lots to do!

Carpets were fitted yesterday. yay! This is a significant milestone! Although there is still a lot to do all the big jobs are now done and all the dirty jobs are now done. Get in there! We're really pleased with the turn around. It's just over 7 weeks to do the living room. Great!

The carpet fitter did a really good job and got a really nice fit into all the nooks and crannies. So we're pleased with his work. He also looked a lot like Simon Pegg and had quite a few of his mannerisms which, as I'm a big Spaced fan earned a little more of my respect!

It is truly strange to be 'finished' (sort of). To have a usable living room is great and it kind of ties the rest of the house together, joining up the new kitchen bathroom and bedroom - it makes everything else feel new again aswell. Not putting shoes on to go to the bathroom is odd - and even stranger is being able to walk around in socks - it is really rather odd and a huge novelty.

We Love it.

To celebrate we had our good chums Luke and Britta over for a Bottoming out celebration! (rather than the traditional topping out when the roof goes on, this is when the floor goes down). It was a late start - about 10pm, but we cracked open the champagne and had the first of many nights in with friends!

Next job is to put lights and sockets in. Hopefully get that done tonight which will be good.

Here are some photos.

The one and only light so far.

Simon Pegg the Carpet Fitter

Stripped and ready for action

Just a quick update - apologies for typos!

Today is the today that the carpets go in. Hurrah. It has been a little bit of a race to get ready in time but we managed it. We have sanded, painted, cleaned, swept, built shelves, cleaned windows (sort of) waxed doors, plastered walls re lime washed walls re organised sheds, tidied tools and not slept much, but very very soundly when we have!

Everything has gone quite well. I needed to take Friday off work to make sure everything got done, and it was worth it as I finished getting the shelves in the cupboard which I wouldn't have managed otherwise as well as painted the windows and the like.

Here's the twist - I knew everything had gone too smoothly.

Earlier on Sunday I packed my plumbing equipment away and at the time wondered if I was jumping the gun! At about 8pm I had one last thing to do, run the TV cable around the edge of the room. I proceeded to drill a hole through the vestibule wall to run the cable and soon hit a radiator pipe! I was slightly annoyed with myself. It was in such an awkward place! gutted. Some good thinking and a handy wife to put fingers over holes and mop up meant it was fixed and the system refilled within about an hour and a half.

Hannah did a great job of clearing up and wiping down paintwork etc while I messed about with bits of copper. I am so grateful! Somehow we still didn't manage to eat tea until about 12:30am. Ah yes, we were lime washing walls, that's why. All the sweeping and cleaning kicked up a load of dust, not well disguised on white walls.

So it was a funny day. We were/are both absolutely knackered, we were both excited to have finished the bulk of the work, but the bust pipe and late night took the shine off it. The highlight of the day though had to be the prophetic word brought at church in the morning containing the phrase 'Shit and grease' not once, but twice. Brilliant.

Here are some photos with the living room stripped, cleaned and ready for carpets.

Vestibule done and wall and beams cleaned.

Fireplace all cleaned up

Lime wash still hadn't dried

Stairs all painted

The bathroom door is waxed

beam well cleaned by hannah

wall looks green as lime wash hadn't dried yet.

Done Lists - almost complete! Still no lights or sockets though. All in good time.

Little by Litte

Guten Morgen.

Just on brew break at work so not got much time but thought I'd stick up the latest photos.

Didn't do any work on the house on Sunday, but Monday was a good day. Hannah and I spent the first day of the living room project working together sanding all the woodwork and painting. I also got the frame for the alcove cupboard finished


and applied the last(?) coat of lime wash to the walls. Hannah did a great job of painting the stairs. Very neat and look good.



last night i finished the top of the dwarf wall on the landing and plaster boarded one side of it. it was far trickier than it looks as the angle of the wall isn't 90 degrees, so various templates were made to try and get a good join. Woodwork isn't where my talents lie so this took a fair while longer than hoped.

Mmm, doesn't look as good on photo. looks better in real life! - not as big a gap...

Got an evening out tonight but hoping to squeeze an hour or 2 of DIY in before we have to go out. Lots to do before carpets go in!

until next time...

Day of rest

Morning.

Treated myself to a lie in this morning as I woke to an aching body - one which wasn't moving anywhere very quickly (not Hannah, me).

SO I've taken a steady morning rather than rushing out to prayer meeting.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to write up yesterdays happenings - briefly. I've decided little often is better.

I spent the whole day plumbing pretty much. The pipes for the radiator in the living room needed moving as they ran over the new lintel which we waned to keep exposed. SO the pipes got moved in to the vestibule brought down the floor level then brought into the living room. We don't have any skirting boards anymore so the first job was to put some in to attach the pipes to. The house is plumbed with 8mm microbore coming from the main loop which is in 15mm. It's a love hate thing with microbore. It's very hard to make it look neat as it just wiggles everywhere... but then it is handy as it wiggles everywhere so it's a little more forgiving when measurements aren't quite right!

Any hoo. I cute some wood for a skirting board, attached it to the wall and filled in behind with some coarse stuff (1:3 lime/sand). Due to our wibbly walls it wasn't possible to get the skirting flush, so didn't bother trying and went with the 'character' of it all.

Next up was fixing the new radiator to the wall in the living room - not straight forward as the plaster is still very soft. Lime plaster takes 6 - 12 months to properly go off. Until then it is pretty much wet sand so it has no strength at all. Drill into it and it all flakes away. Anyway, some anchor fixings and some bracket modifications and I got them attached to the wall - hopefully they'll stay there. Taking car to get them straight and vertical was worth it as putting the radiator on and off the brackets was a doddle. The bedroom brackets aren't quite in line making it awkward to get on!

Next up I ran the new microbore in. Something I've learnt is that you can't rush plumbing. SO steady away i went. Another lesson learnt is never to rush the cleaning of the pipes. Better to spend the time giving them a really good clean than the rush on, fill the system only to find it leaks.

Wise.

I finished off plumbing the radiator and moved on to putting the radiator in the vestibule. We weren't going to bother, but thought it might get a bit damp in there with out as that is where we'll keep coats etc. Anyway, i was anticipating having to redo the piping and replace the valves etc as I took no care to protect them during the plastering and building works... however upon inspection I noticed they were in pretty good condition considering - so took the risk of reusing all the pipes and just putting the radiator on the wall. Which was good as I had bought the wrong valves for it and the local DIY shop didn't have any - Hannah went out and looked for me, so credit to her.

So got that plumbed with a few new olives here and there. Next step was to terminate the pipes where the second radiator used to be in the living room. I've left them in a place where if we decided we needed a second radiator we can easily expand the system. We've removed that radiator as it would be on the stone wall and would spoil the effect.

I've done the calculations and the single radiator we have should be enough for the room. And we have the stove which is worth roughly another 3 radiators - so I think it should be just fine for heat!

ABout 9ish last night i filled the system, and despite not turning the bleed valve off in the bathroom last time i emptied the system which led to lots of water squirting everywhere it all went smoothly. No leaks - all good.

I've brought it all up to temperature and it still seems to be fine. So I'm dead please. It was a job i haven't been looking forward to for about 9 months now so it is nice to have it out of the way.

While this was happening hannah did some carpet research, found one for not the cheapest price but not the most expensive and is the perfect colour and pie we have been looking for. It's a bargain as well. was £25 per sqm, now £12. Great. Still adds up though with a big area and underlay and fitting. It was £130 more than another decent alternative, but it was far more luxurious and the colour is spot on - so we figured it was worth it.

That is the last big send now. Everything else is little bits and bobs - phew, the accounts are creaking with the strain!

With carpet chosen we made a final choice on paint - we have gone with the dark brown carpet light brown (ish) paint.

Looks like my speakers might have to wait a little longer now though...

Hannah also did a good job of filling my tummy yesterday - so, much respect.

I think that is all.

We might do a little work today - just easy stuff.

Right, going now.

Cheerio.

Decisions decisions

Still can't decide on woodwork/stairs/carpet colour combos. So we've taken to mocking ideas up in photoshop. Still non the wiser.

these are a few ideas - some bad, some not so bad. Comments welcome!