With a hey and a ho and away we go...

La de da de da

Happy 2011.

Well, what will this new year bring?!? Who knows, but hopefully a finished house!

Looking over the blog I realise we have done a fair bit since the major work culminated with the carpets going into the living room in the summer of 2010. Last time I blogged anything vaguely informative I was talking about the garden and our desire to get that tidied.

Well we got it cleared and laid some turf which we bought from a farm in the hills above Holmfirth. Highly recommended. An odd lady sold it to us, but nice all the same, and much cheaper and better quality than B&Q.

That went down one Saturday in early July I think.

I don’t really remember what happened over summer regarding DIY after we sorted the garden, but the highlight certainly was a 10 day holiday in the north east starting by celebrating ma and pa in law’s joint birthday shindig then on to a friends cottage near coldstream.



We love Northumberland and particularly enjoyed a night camping on the beach just south of Berwick. Brill.

Not a bad spot to bed down

My birthday came and went. Got a strimmer to cut the grass. Handy.

Through the autumn term we pottered about trying to do the bits you don’t really think about – like buying curtain rails and curtains for the living room and bedroom.

Hannah has made the living room curtains by combining a cheap ass curtain and another bit of material to make something quite nice! She’s done a good job and saved us a packet. Want to make money? Sell curtains – outrageously priced.

The bedroom ones still need adjusting as they are about 3 feet too long!

The run up to Christmas was outrageously busy with work and church commitments so we made the most of a great break with family over Christmas, spending 10 days in Gateshead and shildon. Brilliant. We’ll make it home one day for good hopefully, but for now we are rooted in Huddersfield, so let’s get on…

I should mention that 2 weeks before Christmas we did have an issue with our plumbing. The toilet was flushed one Monday night in December, and a lot of water came through the ceiling and down the walls. Nice, real nice. It turned out the seal around the pipe that fits on the back of the toilet had disintegrated (odd as it was only 3.5 years old – one too many asian style dopiazas?). To fix it though I needed to cut out some panelling and remove some tiling around the loo and bath. This was a shame to say the least. Sad to undo your own work!

It also unveiled a poorly thought through piece of plumbing which led to a joint in the waste pipe coming apart. Grim. Grim grim grim. Poop and pee running down the walls in the vestibule. Nasty.

It was a grim job, but the next morning I was at B&Q by 7am getting the parts and to replace all that went wrong, and thankfully got it fixed in a relatively short amount of time. Unfortunately it does mean the bathroom needs some TLC. It will probably be a good catalyst for us to get on and get it finished. We have tentatively talked about putting a new floor in there anyway so maybe once the pennies are back up we might do that!

Over Christmas we bought some photos for the house. We really wanted a picture of the Newcastle/Gateshead quayside for a wall in the living room, but we wanted something cool too, so found a deal on acrylic pictures – 2 for 1. Sweet. Using the 2 for 1 we took the opportunity to do something with one of our favourite wedding photos as we have failed to do anything at all with them yet!

Unfortunately, we forgot to measure the wall before we left for the north east, so took a punt on the measurements when we parted with our cash. We were a little concerned we may have made a boo boo, but having found an online version of our previous planning app we could sleep easy for the rest of the holiday knowing that the wall was big enough! For once, something in the house was bigger than we remembered!

Just over 2 weeks later the pictures were delivered and we put them up as best as we could. I say ‘the best we could’ as it wasn’t as easy as you might think. How do you get a picture to look straight when both walls, shelf and ceiling are all wonky at different angles?!?! We ignored the spirit level and took a guess, I think we got away with it!

We like them and they certainly add something to the house.

The first Saturday back after our holiday we got on with doing a few jobs to get a good start to the year. These tasks were to sort out the lighting on the stairs/landing and to do something with the floor in the vestibule so we could actually start to use that space! We hit the sales on the bank holiday and picked up a couple of lights for a wee bit cheaper than retail, and some tiles which had a little bit off too (some of them physically as well as monetary!).

The tiles went down easily enough and look good. They still need grouting (a job for Saturday) but we’re pleased. There was some debate about whether it was worth spending £50 to tile such an inconsequential space, but it is a nice touch of quality…probably.

That was the Saturday morning. The afternoon was spent fitting/wiring the lights. A fiddly task with them being over the stairs and having to run new cables in the roof. A good bit of team work though and me and Hannah got it sorted. We decided a few nice spots going down the stone wall would look effective while a more general light on the landing would suffice. We used the same style bar of spots as in the living room. They’re great. Janny lights from Homebase. Buy them.

It's always tricky buying and placing lights in our house due to the low ceilings, but i think we have got away with it so far!

We also put the Christmas decorations away that day for another year. I miss Christmas.

I miss Christmas...Even if the tree wasn't as good as last year... (Loads of logs from Pops Evans)

We set ourselves a budget of £30 for each other this Christmas – well, I did, Hannah however was extremely naughty and spent the money she had saved from teaching her music lessons and bought a Kinect sensor for the xbox for me! Naughty, but brill! It’s great fun. I was a little apprehensive of how it would work with our projector setup and low ceilings, but it is actually very very good! I even came up with a great solution for a stand to mount the sensor on – a piece of old plywood from the shed and a broken mic stand from work. Tip top.

Broken mic stand and a piece of wood - saved me £40+

I think that brings us pretty much up to date.

I’m sure I’ve missed lots out, but I don’t suppose you care that much!

What’s next then? Well, we will continue doing the snag list – like outside light, cleaning paint from beams, painting windows, finishing vestibule, but the major work will be over the Easter break when we plan to strip out the spare room and get that turned around pretty sharp. I’m hoping within 3 weeks start to finish – but we’ll see.

It’s a tricky room to plan due to the huge beam and sloping roof so we’re spending plenty of time thinking and planning to make sure we get the best room possible.

During the same period we also plan to re do the top cout on the front elevation of the house. This was my first piece of plastering ever – and it shows. It looks pretty messy, so I’m keen to make it look good!

That’s all for now I think. I’ll keep you posted on a more regular basis as we plug away making things nicer and better.

Until next time….