I've been making jam and chutney with things I've grown :) - 18th August

I've got so much growing in my garden currently I thought I'd have a go at making jam and chutney! I don't want anything to go to waste!

I've got lots of blackberries so made blackberry jam..



I can confirm it's good and have swapped the neighbours a jar for a marrow, 6 chicken and 2 duck eggs! Good deal I think!

I've also made rhubarb, ginger and chutney...


And tomorrow's task is to make spicy beetroot and orange chutney!

Guess what everyones getting for Christmas :)

I finally made the kitchen blind! 7th August 2011

Hi Peeps,

I finally got round to making a blind for the kitchen window! I'd managed to get a free material sample from Debenhams and a cheap roller blind kit from eBay! Very MSE :)

Took most of an afternoon and made me throw my toys out of the pram a couple of times but it was worth it....




Just need to make a matching one for the pantry now!

Helllllooooooo! Long time no blog!

I failed miserably at doing anything constructive DIY wise!  I did manage to have a BBQ and visited the home and gift show in Harrogate.  I went with a friend who runs a gift shop and pretended to be an assistant buyer for the day, it was a lot of fun spending someone Else's money!  The trade prices were generally 250% cheaper than retail, wish I could have bought stuff for myself!

Yesterday the wood surrounds for my windows got undercoated and hopefully glossed today.  The house will look a lot more finished once they are up.  Didn't manage to get my bedroom curtain rail up or make the blinds for the kitchen and I'm working Saturday so I cant see much getting done this weekend either.

Picked the first bounty from my garden at the weekend, I was pretty pleased...

The eggs were courtesy of the neighbours so I cant take credit for them!

I hope to get my curtain rail up some time this week and perhaps make some blinds on Sunday!  Still need to take after pictures too.  So little time and so much to do!

Bathroom Piccys - 4th Feb 2010

Hello,

Thought it was about time for a few more piccys.

The bathroom is all but finished! Just needs a good clean and a blind putting up... oh and the door putting back on! We currently have a sheet hung as a door!

Heres some pictures:



Im really pleased with it, especially as its so tiny!

Temp Piccy

We're in - 29th Dec 2009

Well we made our Christmas deadline and I even managed to cook Christmas dinner. Never done it before and it was also a bit daunting in a new kitchen using an oven I'd never used before!

It all turned out really well and Stuart said it was the best Christmas dinner he'd ever had :-) I even made my own cranberry sauce!



We haven't totally moved all our stuff but almost, just a few things left at the flat and it needs a good clean. Handing the keys back on the 3rd so had better get on with it.

Today we have been trying to finish the bathroom. We needed to attach the shower and shower screen and fit the loo seat then seal everything. We managed to get the screen fitted but the drill bits we bought were rubbish and just snapped. Porcelain tiles are a pain!!! Tomorrows job is to finish the bathroom!

We have basicaly just dumped all our stuff into the back bedroom and its going to take us forever to sort it all out ha ha!

Once we are a bit more sorted and the bathroom is finished I will take lots of piccys!

Another quick update - 14th Dec 2009

Well another flying update, no time to do proper ones as we're on a Christmas deadline!

The carpets are now finished, the stair runner was fitted last Friday and it looks fab! Im very pleased with it! Heres a couple of piccys:



The floor downstairs is finished and all the skirting is on, just a few touch ups to do.

All weekend we were tiling the bathroom, its going ok so far and we're ahead of schedule :-)



We should have it finished this week then we will have all weekend to decorate and finish any little jobs left to do!

We will be in for Christmas so have started taking a car full of stuff each day! Its much less stressful this way!

The fridge freezer was delivered today and the turkey is on order :-)

The flooring is almost finished! 2nd December 2009

Just a quick update.



Have almost finished the flooring downstairs apart from 6 boards under the stairs! We have run out and the place we got it from doesnt stock it any more eek! They have said they are going to have a look in the warehouse and see if they have any spare! I really hope so otherwise I have no idea what we will do!



Anyway here is a quick piccy taken on my phone:



I will upload some more when I remember to take my actual camera!

Upstairs decorated and carpeted whoo! - 10th Nov 09

So much has happened since my last post. We have been working very very hard to get the upstairs ready for carpeting!

We have cleaned, tidied, painted, stuck on skirting board, caulked and then painted all the woodwork! Oh and also started to stain the stairs!

Its been a really hard past few days working most nights till half 10 at night. The carpet deadline was today (10th Nov). Should have been 2 weeks ago but we were no way ready and had to postpone.

Well here are the piccys, I think it looks fab and was worth the pain & the wait!

Box Room



We used Crown paint in snowdrop.

Front Bedroom



In our room we used Crown 'wheatgrass' on 3 walls and 'on the rocks' on the wall where the bed will go.

Back Bedroom



The back bedroom was painted again in snowdrop apart from the feature wall which is scarlet ribbon. Its such a lovely dark raspberry colour!

Hallway



The hallway and landing has been painted in Crowns soft ocre.

We still have a stair runner to be fitted but the carpet man suggested we do that after the wooden flooring is installed downstairs, that way we will get a neater finish and also wont be dragging dirt onto our lovely new carpet!

Were going to be in by Christmas but still a lot to do before then!

New Doors and almost finished staircase - 11 Oct 2009

Well its been another couple of months!

We now have 6 hung and fully working doors and doorways and an almost finished staircase.

As all the walls had been boarded the door frames were too narrow and not a single one square. We could have done this ourselves but just did not have the time. We used the joiner who fitted the kitchen as he'd done such a good job. He estimated it would take 3 days but actually took 7, luckily we had a quote for the job!



The door furniture was from screwfix and was so much cheaper and better quality then the likes of wickes & B&Q! The ones we got were half price at £11/pair.

The stripping and sanding of the stairs has taken months of really hard work but now its finished it was worth it! Here's a before and after:



The stairs are probably as old as the house (71) and had many many coats of varnish and paint suffocating them! I think you'll agree they look much better now! I have no idea how much solid wood stairs like these would cost to buy now!

We are going to stain them a little bit darker then varnish them! I hope we don't ruin them after all that hard work ha ha! Eventually we would like to glaze the holes in the bannister but this will have to wait until we have moved in and saved a few more pennies!

Next update will be of the skirting board then the carpets :-)

We have a fully working kitchen :-) 27th July 2009

Its been a while again but we have achieved lots!

The flooring is finished in the kitchen/diner and the kitchen is fitted! It took 5 days and the carpenter has done a wonderful job! I'm so glad we decided to pay someone to do it!

Here's the piccys:



Think I need to clean my camera lens as the pictures are a bit fuzzy!

We've also boarded out the loft - well Stuart has, I just passed him things. We also insulated it all up there! What a horrible job!

Next on the list was the stairs. We have almost finished stripping and sanding them. Ive never seen so much dust in my life! They do look lovely! We've decided to have a runner up the stairs now as they are too nice to cover up! Ill have to take some pictures when we've finished.

We are also getting the joiner back to sort out all the doorways and hang the new doors! Got some real bargains from b&q:

Upstairs Doors £89 online but only £24.99 instore!
Downstairs Doors £99 online but only £49.99 instore!

Just got to decide on door handles now. Think these will come from Screwfix as they are quite cheap!

Also went carpet shopping at the weekend! Allied carpets wanted £1600 for 3 bedrooms and landing/stairs (not including underlay). I thought this seemed a lot so we went to a local shop to see what they could offer. £900 including everything! The service was a million times better too!

List of things still left to do:

Fit skirting
Finish floor in lounge and hall
Fit carpets upstairs
Finish tiling bathroom & fit extractor
Pack
Move in!

Its definitely smaller! :-)

Kitchen Flooring - 8th July 2009

We have finally started laying the kitchen flooring! Yey!

It took all last weekend to get the underfloor heating laid, its very fiddly trying to get all that cabling into the socket!



We laid underlay then the carbon UF heating then the barrier!

We've been laying the flooring after work and I'm soooo tired! Almost finished it now! We had to go for engineered wood because of the UF heating, it is lovely though, dark antique gold oak! We're having to get a move on because the kitchen is being fitted on Tuesday (14th) hoorah! It should be finished by Friday!

The flooring has taken a little bit longer than we thought because the floor is a little uneven. Managed to sort it out by laying double insulation in places! We thought about using a self levelling compound but because the solid floor meets suspended floor in the living room it would cause more of a difference in level!

Here's a piccy of it almost finished:



Dad also put up the new light in the kitchen, I'm hoping its big enough to light where we need it to, need to play around with the spots. If not we'll just have to get a bigger one!



I cant tell you how exciting it is to almost have a room finished! I was beginning to think this day would never come!

Understairs finished and kitchen started - 29th June 09

Well its been a while again...sorry!

We have sorted the underfloor problem and the floorboards are down. It looks so much better now and the musty damp smell has gone! Here's a piccy of Stuart's masterpiece!



We have also had delivery of the kitchen. Bought it in Ikea so it arrived flat packed. Doesn't look much as it is:



We have also decorated the kitchen and started to lay the underfloor heating this weekend!
Its a bit tedious because you have to lay underlay then the UF heating strips then cut out tracks in the underlay for the cables then cover it with a vapour barrier! Phew its wearing me out just typing about it ha ha! Now we have got all that done we can start laying the wood flooring.

Once this is done we can get a kitchen fitter in then we will have a room finished! So far we've had 2 quotes for £600 and waiting for a 3rd. Once weve got them all we can get the kitchen in!

Here's a couple of piccys of the almost finished kitchen decor:



This week we will hopefully get the floor finished then Ill take some more pictures!

Hooray finally an update!

Right what has happened in the last 3 months....

We have finally finished all the wiring, just got the sockets to put on downstairs and fit the underfloor heating.

We had a slight drama with the underfloor heating in the bathroom with the sensor probe not working. It had been tested and ok'd but after we had tiled (typical) it decided it didn't want to work anymore. We had thought it could have been the heating wire itself but thank god it wasn't otherwise we would have had to take up all the tiles! As it was only the probe we just had to lift one tile. This itself was a total pain as it wouldn't lift as a whole and so we had to chip it away bit by bit to avoid damaging the cable underneath! We have now replaced the probe and its all working fine! Just got to lay a new tile.

The plastering is all finished and we have started decorating. All downstairs has been mist coated and the living room and pantry finished:




Its a bit difficult to see the colours but the chimney breast in the livingroom is a whitish cream (Crown - Winterbloom) and the walls are a mushroom colour (Crown - Wheatgrass).

We also painted the pantry winterbloom to keep it light as its a small space!

We have also dug out under the stairs as once we had taken the wall down we realised it was damp. So we have put in a new damp proof membrane and put in brick supports for the new joists. We are also having to replace part of a joist and a lot of the floorboards due to dry rot!



I was expecting loads of rubbish to be under the floorboards but it wasn't too bad just needed a bit of clearing and a good hoover. (The dodgy pipework is no longer connected and we are going to remove it).

Once we have put floorboards back down and under the stairs we can lay the underfloor heating and get the wooden floor down! I cant wait for this as it will make a huge difference!

Next few jobs are to get the plumber back to service the boiler so we can have hot water, lay the flooring downstairs, fix the skirting and architrave, carpet upstairs, fit kitchen and finish bathroom...move in!

Bathroom Floor Tiled - 3rd March 2009

Stuart has laid and grouted the tiles on the bathroom floor! They look so lovely, a prett good job for a first timer!

The wall tiles will hopefully be done this weekend coming!