New House Update - 2

One of the reasons that our house renovations have taken so long is that although when we viewed the property everything looked good, on closer inspection once it was empty this was not the case with the main house.  A lot of the walls and the bathroom ceiling needed the old plaster taking off.  Once the wallpaper and ceiling paper had been removed there were a lot of cracks and damage underneath that we really hadn't expected, so they had to be re-plastered before painting.

Luckily the warmer weather over the last two weeks has meant that the plaster dried out nicely and now everywhere is painted.

 As in the top photo this is the front bedroom ... now known as the red room ... with the fitted wardrobes removed and completely re-plastered.

At the back of the house is Alan's soon-to-be office - henceforth known as 'the purple room'

The little box room or 'the blue room'.

Each room has one wall painted in Alan's choice of colour and a matching lampshade.  The 'blue room' also has plain blue curtains.  The lampshades were bought from Dunelm and then the paint colours mixed to match them exactly.

The living room ... the paint cans were removed the day after I took this photo.   All the radiators were put back on the walls at the start of this week and the central heating boiler in both properties re-checked by a qualified gas engineer.  The carpets will be fitted in the whole house on Friday of this week.

Last week new windows were installed over most of the house and all the locks changed, today the snagging work was done and a cat flap for Ginger was installed in the bottom half of the back door.

I ordered my Smeg weeks ago and have had to wait for it until Monday of this week.  Alan loved the photos of mine so much he ordered himself the black version ... and it was delivered almost immediately.  He is very smitten with it, and as you can see it fits in with his snazzy light fittings very well 😀

A little doggy update too.

They both went for a good grooming session last week and Mavis has had her two-yearly clipping to turn her into a sleek version of the scruffy Jack Russell she usually is.  I think it makes her little tail look very strange, luckily they left her distinctive eyebrows intact.

Sue xx

Time for Some Updates - 1

For my own records and to keep you updated I will try over the course of the next couple of days to upload some photos of the progress we have made over the past couple of weeks.  Things have really ramped up now and although I am out of action Alan, along with all the tradespeople we have employed have been working hard on the house and garden.

Alan and Dave first levelled the area that the paving stones had been lifted from at the back of the house and next to the annexe, poured a layer of small gravel to smooth things out, then laid a sheet of water permeable membrane and then two tons of Berkshire Stone was wheelbarrowed along next doors driveway and brought into our back garden. 

The stone is on around three quarters of the sleeper edged area and the final quarter had a ton of top soil barrowed round and tipped into it, also on top of the membrane, along with six bags of multi-purpose compost.  The blue plastic is just laid at the edge to protect the bottom of the fence from watering that will be done in that area.

Once the groundworks had all been done I came to the house with Alan, perched on a stool made of sleeper offcuts and supervised the planting of the garden area.  With Alan following my instructions ... 'no, turn it clockwise, not here, there, no to the left'  etc etc ... within in an hour we had the start of a new garden and at last some life in what had been a yard of concrete and paving.

For now there is just a small selection of plants to start us off, with the plants that are currently outside the flat about to be added to the bed once we have time.  The tree in the corner is an Apple Tree to supplement the food I will be growing in a small raised bed that will be built once the shed is made and in place.  To accommodate more growing room for the tree roots I came up with the idea of buying a half barrel and removing the centre section of the bottom, hopefully this will give the trees roots some extra space to grow downwards and outwards.

The square metal thing is the small kitchen sink that was taken out of the annexe.  I thought it would make a perfect little pond to encourage wildlife and insects to the garden so I rescued it from the skip.  I will let it naturally fill with rainwater and will place a couple of large rocks inside and around the edges for small creatures and insects to be able to climb on safely to access the water.  It also gives you a sense of scale for the area as it is exactly one foot square (30cm x 30cm).

To break up the expanse of gravel we have a couple of the paving stones on top which will have large plants pots on, which will eventually be planted up.  The second layer of sleeper on the left-hand side in this photo was cut to size and then added to the end nearest the house, so that it can be used as a bench if we have a few people round.  You can see this in the next photo.

A photo taken from Alans office window ... which is now known as 'the purple room',  there will be more about that in the next update  😃

Sue xx

 

Back Soon

 

Just popping on extremely briefly as I am about to run out of charge in my laptop, mostly to thank those of you who have, for the comments and emails enquiring about my back.  OUCH is all I have to say about my back ... or words slightly more offensive along with some deep groans.

I am really out of action at the moment and trying desperately to 'get back to normal' in any way that I can.  With this in mind we called to the house this morning to take some measurements for curtains and then went onto Dunelm to get Alan some curtains.  His choice of colours are his and his alone ... and that is all I am saying on the matter.  Although I did after some slight persuasion encourage him to buy some really beautifully patterned curtains with touches of green and purple in them instead of the plain purple ones he was going to buy to go in his purple and white room. 

I can cope with being in the car on the motorway, it's mostly lovely and smooth even with Alan driving (!!)  but the potholes in the roads of this bloody town are to be felt to be believed, ironically it was the subject of discussion on the local Facebook page yesterday with the road we have to use to get to the new house being cited as one of the worst in the area .... trust my luck.

I'm just off to do this while my laptop re-charges .... yeah right!!

😄😂😆😳😰

Sue xx

Confusing Photo

 

This photo caused a lot of confusion when I shared it on my Facebook page last week.

Some people saw the mirrored bathroom cabinet for what it is, and understood the reflection of the heated towel rail on the wall over the end of the bath that you can see in it.

Others saw it as a teeny tiny towel rail stuck on the mirror ... and now that they've pointed it out that's exactly what I see every time I look at it  😃🤣

I'm off for my second Covid jab this morning, as it's a 30 minute car ride away it will be a good judge of how my back copes with a longer car journey.   It was excruciatingly sore last night after my lunchtime visit with the physiotherapist.  I have another appointment next Friday so he can inflict some more torture  😳

Sue xx

A Quick Walk Through

 

My new wardrobe arrived the other day.  

I had ticked the box for 'All Day Delivery' which meant delivery was free of charge ... how was I to know that I would be first on the list and it would arrive in two huge boxes at 6.35am!!

I got a text the day before to tell me my delivery slot was 6.30am - 8.30am, which usually would not have been a problem but obviously as I don't live in the annexe yet, it meant setting my alarm for 5am to give myself enough time for me to drink two cups of coffee and let my painkilling tablets kick in before I took a slow drive on deserted streets to get to the new place.

The next day Alan assembled it for me, and he was so pleased with it he's ordering the same one for his house as it matches the king-sized bed and bedside tables that we already have.  With this one the drawer section was already put together in one large box and the upper section was in five parts ... top, sides, back and doors already fitted into their frame with the hinges already on, all very carefully packed for a safe delivery.  It made for a relatively easy assembly job, which would have been even easier if I had been able to help, but the early start and travelling the day before had finished me off for the weekend 😓

Anyway I love it, and it matches the doors and the curtain poles perfectly so I have a very co-ordinated bedroom developing.

I've been asked a couple of times for a walk-through film when the annexe is all finished and I will do that I promise, but yesterday while we were there checking out Alan's decorating progress I decided to do a quick video tour of the annexe while I waited for him.

For those of you who need it - 

(195) Annexe Walk Through 1st June - YouTube

It's a bit rushed as Alan burst in at the end to ask me a question and I instinctively stopped filming but it does give you a little glimpse of things as they are now.

Sue xx

The Fence is Finished - Tick

 

The fence between us and next door is finished, and it's looking really good too as this photo taken from the first floor window shows.

This is it from our side ...

... and this is it from theirs.

It felt a bit strange going down their driveway to have a look into their back garden, but as they were away I wanted to check what they would find when they got back home.  I thought they would be pleased, and they really were.  They rang us to let us know as soon as they saw it.

Good fences make good neighbours.  

Over the weekend we went to Daisy Clough garden centre to pick up some bags of compost, some plants and an apple tree.  We might also have partaken of a cup of coffee and a sausage bun while we were there, it did seem strange to be out and about and eating out again, strange but very nice.

Although I love the neatness of the neighbours garden I need colour and greenery in mine and I am itching to get things planted in the ground.  But first I just have to wait for a ton of top soil to be delivered, while I wait I will sow a couple of the Courgette seeds that I also picked up from the garden centre into a plant pot here at the flat, I know it's late but they should romp away and maybe give me a little taste of homegrown by the end of Summer.

Sue xx

My 50p Marks and Spencers Jeans

We got this £10 gift card the other week from the company that were our former solar power installers in Wales, they had sent us a brochure and accidentally put unknown to them forged stamps on the envelope.  This meant that all we had received via the redirection service was a card from the Royal Mail asking us to pay postage on an unknown large letter item.

We weren't going to bother sending back the stamps to retrieve this mystery item anyway but then the next day we got a letter from the solar company apologising and explaining what had happened ... and sending us a £10 gift card as an apology, which they had had to send out to everyone who should have got the mailings.  Their buying cheap stamps had backfired big style!!

Then my quarterly M&S vouchers arrived.

 With £19 in the form of a gift card and vouchers for £9 and some extra points for ordering online, it made sense to order something that I really needed.  So with one of my last two pairs of jeans giving up the ghost only the week before I decided I would buy a new pair of jeans for just 50p ... so I bought myself a t-shirt as well  😁

Sue xx