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!

Are you are sitting comfortably? Then I will begin

Ahhhh here we are. Blogging. Means I must have done something. Which I have… I just can’t really recall much about it. Life is very much spent in a daze between 7am and 7pm, and then again from 7:30pm until midnight. There is a good half hour when I feel alive and capable of holding a coherent conversation. Anything outside of those times and you will get a jumble of words.. nay, syllables amounting to nothing more informative than a grunt – the information derived from tone/length/volume.

The ability to function as a human has taken a beating as hannah and I have been working hard at work and home! Hannah continues with her 2 part time jobs – working hard, long hours and keeping the house running and my belly filled. I’m still working from 8 – 4:30 daily at uni where I have been hugely busy, then making my way home and starting working on the house by 5, finishing up at 10/11pm.

It’s been hard work, but progress has been good – and the thought of a clean, finished house where we can have friends and relax rather than thinking about the next stage is a strong motivator. We are on target for carpets to be laid in 3 weeks time. And that is with contingency – if we rushed it could be in 2 weeks, but as the New Radicals sang, ‘Rushing aint no fun’.

I will now try to recall what has happened over the last 4/5 weeks. It has been a lot so will try to avoid too much detail. After all the most important thing you need to know is that Newcastle United are still the greatest. I’m thinking the best investment for our house once it is finished is to bet it on Newcastle for the Premier league next year. Dead cert – pay the mortgage off – sorted. It’ll be a nice surprise for Hannah.

The living room project got off to a flying start as I took 2 weeks off over easter – and thankfully my bad back held out and caused no significant problems meaning it was as productive as one hoped. I also had a Ben Ward in tow for 4 days to help out.

So, week 1. Monday.

Monday was spent doing prep work in the living room. Finishing off sockets and covering cables. Moving rubbish, doing a tip trip and a trip to Womersleys for supplies for the stipple coat. Ben W was set on with the task of scoring the outside render on the garden side of the house ready for redoing the top coat. The render I did last summer had developed a crack due to drying out too quickly, and I felt I could do a much better finish now. Unfortunately, the render had most certainly cured well! It was rock solid – literally when you consider the chemical makeup of the plaster. Hammers, chisels, grenades, C4, the lot – nothing was going to create a key on that render.

This was a bummer. So I asked at womersleys where they suggested a slurry coat - a wet mix of lime and course sand applied by brush would bind to the render already there and create both a mechanical and chemical key. Sounded like a good idea.

Tuesday Ben and I put the stipple coat on the living room walls. This was quick – took about 4 hours beginning to end including tidy up so the afternoon was spent applying the slurry coat to the outside. My chum the electrician also came around to check the wiring in the living room before I plastered the ceiling. He seemed happy and gave the ok.

Wednesday and Thursday I can’t really remember much about. Oh yes, I put prependuit on the landing walls and ceiling – this took quite a while. While I did that, Ben was given the task of cleaning the splattered stipple coat off the stone wall. Ah yes, I ran the cables around the room for the 5.1 speakers. This was a little tricky as they can't run parallel to the power cables and only cross at 90 degrees. Managed it though.

Various other bits of preparation was done during these days – things like moving radiator pipes and ‘stuff’. I think I picked up the wood burning stove on the Wednesday too. However, a poor piece of driving and a late braking incident later and I had managed to cause the stove to fall over in the car. Doh. It survived though.

Thursday I noted that the slurry coat hadn’t really bounded to the render. I sent Hannah to Womersleys to get supplies and she inquired about it. The chaps in the know said it would be worked in to the render more using a stiffer brush. Basically I had done it incorrectly. Bummer. So that’s a job that needed doing again later.

Friday I got up nice and early and got plastering early doors. I had in mind to spread the second coat of plaster over 2 days, but fancied squeezing it in to 1. It was a long hard day, using 14 mixes in total, but I managed to get the living room plastered in the 1 day. Whoop! I was pleased with that. I love saving time. Finished up at about 11:30pm but it was satisfying.

The Ward clan dropped by on Friday afternoon to pick up Ben on the way to the farm and brought with them a jolly good tea. Yum yum.

Stairs

I had a lie in on Saturday, got up about 10 ish and made beans on toast for breakfast with a hot cross bun for second course and coffee to finish. We really really enjoyed just relaxing eating breakfast together! We then spent the rest of the day shopping around for stairs. Our stairs were a bit knackered and had seen better days – but having looked at the cost of new stairs, decided I could do a decent job of fixing them up and save the pennies. We always liked the idea of making a feature of the stairs – but ultimately it would cost too much. We have since decided to paint the stairs – what colour? We’re still not sure. We want a kind of classic, rich pastel, cottage type colour. We thought we had found one we liked. But now the walls have a coat of lime wash on… we’re not sure anymore! Suggestions on a postcard (I never really got why you would send a postcard?? “Dear Blue Peter, having a great time here at home, weather good but a little cold, and the answer is c - Paul Daniels”).

Can't really see, but each spindle is a different colour...

I think we bought some lights on the Saturday too, which was good. Lights are always difficult to fit in our house due to low ceilings and small cavities. Decided on some snazzy bar spotlights. Look nice and shouldn’t bash off peoples heads too much.

Sunday was Easter Day and we went to the farm to join the Wards for an Easter tea. A splendid time is guaranteed for all (“And tonight Mr. Kite is topping the bill”)

Bank Holiday Monday was spent fixing stairs and putting a door frame underneath the stairs to make a cupboard for storing our junk. I’m pretty sure I did other stuff but I can’t remember. Oh yeah, I remember, I cleaned the beams up – stripping them of their dark varnish. Cool.

Plasterboarding ceiling

Tuesday morning I did bits and bobs I seem to remember while anticipating the arrival of the Wards on the way home from the Farm. They arrived and Jon Ward helped me plasterboard the ceiling in the living room. Great! I don’t enjoy plasterboarding, particularly ceilings. So having a chum and an extra pair of hands was really really good! Very thankful. We got the living room pretty much done during the afternoon, leaving a patch at the end of the living room where the joist needed strengthening. We messed about discussing ideas of bolting extra wood to the joist, but due to space and curves we gave up and decided a metal strip would do it. Wednesday I went out and bought a metal strip for the job and fixed it. Sorted.


I think if I had know that I might have put it on a few other joists – non were as bad as that and I’m sure they will be fine anyway – but the opportunity is gone until the next person pulls the ceilings down!

While Jon and I plaster boarded, Liz did a sterling job of cleaning the kitchen and providing food, while Ben and Will ensured my Xbox 360 still worked. Cheers lads.

In the evening we all ate takeaway curry. Jolly nice. I think Will was left at our house (on purpose) and everyone else headed back to Gateshead.

Wednesday – I re applied a slurry coat to the back of the house and Steve the fireplace man came to finish off installing the stove. Sweet. It looks ace.

Somewhere along the line I remembered I hadn’t run the cables in for our projector – oh yes, we’ve decided to get a projector rather than a TV and have a little home cinema type set up. A bit of indulgence I know, but you have to enjoy life a little! That and we didn’t want to put a TV on the wall. And the Projector was cheaper than a TV anyway so all in all good choice.


Anyway. Yes, I took a spur off another socket and channelled out a bit of the wall and ran power and video cables up to the ceiling where the projector will be mounted – so cabling should be quite discrete.

5.1 speaker cables, sockets, and network points - all mod cons

I also took some plasterboard down and put a plywood panel in the ceiling to screw the projector mount to. Due to our low ceiling and beams etc a standard ‘off the shelf’ ceiling mount won’t work in our house, so I’m getting one made up at work. Sweet.

Projector cables in the ceiling

TO repair the walls I mixed up a bit more plaster and patched the place up a little. You would never know ;)

Top Coat

On the Friday Will went back to Liverpool to learn how to steal alloys and I got on with putting the top coat of plaster on to the walls. As it takes a while to finish the plaster I do the top coat in sections. I got the kitchen wall and up the stairs done and the right alcove done on the Friday.

Saturday came and as always quickly went. I put the prep coat on to ceiling in the living room and some other little tidy up bits. My parents came in the afternoon for a cuppa as they were passing on the way home from a holiday in Wales. Very nice.

Sunday, if I remember was a day of rest – which might have been spent browsing Audio Visual shops looking at 5.1 systems. Sweet. Beats buying sand – which is what I feel like I’ve done for the last 12 months.

Monday I was back at work. I came home and put on a top coat around the fireplace and window, and then Tuesday finished off the vestibule and under the stairs etc. Jolly Good.

However, come Wednesday the plaster around the window had cracked. Bummer. The prep coat on the mullions hadn’t taken so I had to spend some time stripping the mullions back scrubbing, scraping making a better key and then had to re-plaster. It’s a lot better now.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings were spend putting lime putty on the ceilings in the living room and landing. Oh and the walls on the landing. Thursday evening we also went to my chum Little Marcus’ Birthday meal. A really nice time to catch up with good friends!

Saturday was spent mostly in town doing tech for a church outreach event – which went very well! The afternoon was spent doing a quick bit of carpet shopping to get some prices etc. Turns out we need 33.8 meters. Things quickly add up for sure! We are still hunting for a bargain – but don’t want to compromise too much as the carpet is quite an important element in the room!

5.1 – Home Cinema

We also bought an

Onkyo 5.1 AV receiver and speaker set from Currys. Nice. It sounded sweet and was well reduced as it was ex display and had a missing remote. We thought that would be ok though, and we could get a spare from the manufacturer. Anyway. Got it home, very pleased only to notice that there were other items missing, such as the configuration microphone and some other little bits. The remote was also highly integral to it’s operation and setup and not so easy to replace. All this made us decide it wasn’t such a great buy as by the time we replaced the missing bits we would have paid RRP anyway.

So Sunday came and we said goodbye to the Onkyo setup. Shame.

Hannah had to leave on Sunday for a funeral in Newcastle on Monday, so I spent the evening doing a spot of painting, putting undercoat on the stairs which Hannah had previously sanded.

The Monday evening I don’t really remember. I finished off the stairs, I can’t remember what else. I remember working late though anyway!

Tuesday I started to build the cupboard in the alcove. I was clearly tired – given away by the number of mistakes I made. Measure 103 times, cut once, still get it wrong!

Wednesday we had Home group so didn’t do anything on the house.

Thursday and Friday I lime washed the ceiling with white limewash – lovingly collected from Womersleys by my wife.

Outside Top Coat

Saturday I took advantage of the weather and put the top coat on the outside of the house. This went very well. I used Eco Mortar which is a natural Lime product and it is very nice to use! It went on well and the day went very smoothly. It took about 5 hours to plaster (a huge improvement on the 10 hours last time – I’m much better now, even if I do say so myself!) and finish it including taking drain pipe off and fixing back up etc. I also got to eat bacon and egg sandwiches prepared by our chum Britta. Brill.

We were going to do the front of the house as well, but thought we would wait to see if this product worked and save the pennies before jumping in with both sides. So maybe at the end of the summer I will do the front side to tidy that up.

As I finished the outside ahead of schedule I put a 3^rd coat of lime wash on the ceilings before settling down to a very nice meal cooked by Hannah and we watched Transporter 3. Brilliant! Favourite quote? “No, I am not ‘The Gay’”.

Living the dream

Sunday came and after church we headed to Richer Sounds to listen to an amp and some speakers. What a fun afternoon. We ended up being a little rushed which was a shame so didn’t jump in with the speakers, but picked up the sweet Harmon Kardon AVR155 at a significantly reduced price. We have our eye on some great speakers too, but having to count the pennies a little.

Monday I cleaned the stone walls for almost the last time. I gave them another good going over with a wire brush and brushed them all down. Filthy, dirty nasty work, but hopefully it means less much will fall off them!

Tuesday (yesterday) I put the first coat of lime wash on the walls. We’ve gone with a very very slightly off white called Portland – the same colour as the kitchen. I’m a bit concerned it’s a ll a little too white, but we’ll see. Once the carpet is in and wood painted/stained and furniture in hopefully it will be ok.

Phew. That brings us up to date. If you made it this far well done.

I’m bored now, so I’m guessing you are too, so won’t say much else for now. What does the future hold? More lime washing, plumbing the radiator, finishing the cupboard, painting stars, cleaning beams, sealing the floor, building stud wall on landing getting carpets laid, putting feet up. Something like that in that order I think.

Carpets in 3 weeks? Easy.

In the last 4 weeks:

Most Listened to Radio Station – Radio 2

Most Listened to Band – Kings of Leon

Favourite tool – SDS Drill

Most common type of food eaten – biscuits.

Most used word – bummer/chuff