Beanbapsin' it up

What a difference 5 days makes

2009-10-30T20:12:00.005Z

This week, Graham came round to do our floors. He was an absolutely lovely man with an obvious passion for his work, and I can't recommend him highly enough

Having said that, I have found the whole process a bit stressful. I am not great with dealing with setbacks, and this project was full of setbacks. Day 1, Gray's car broke down, so he couldn't bring the sanding equipment. He brought all the filler he could carry, but it only covered 3/4 of the living room. Day 2 was all fine but day 3 brought a complaint from the downstairs neighbour and day 4 I learned that downstairs neighbour works shifts and sleeps during the day, so sanding upstairs was not ideal. He was pretty angry. I grovelled. Then I paid for him to go to a hotel for the day which thankfully seemed to keep him happy.

Because I thought G would only be working a maximum of 4 days, I only got a permit until Thursday, so yesterday frantically called the council to get it extended. They agreed, but didn't deliver it. G had to go round first thing this morning to pick it up. I was so so nervous that everything wasn't going to be finished by the weekend. We have been living in a building site this week, with most of our possessions piled up either in the hallway or the kitchen. Accessing the fridge and stove (and washing machine and sink) was pretty much impossible. Even making a cup of tea was a bit of a palava.

But now it is done. And how! It looks amazing. I can't believe this is the same floor. I can't believe this is the same flat! The colour on the floor is light and bright and it makes the whole flat feel brighter. We had planned to carpet the hallway, but after seeing what a difference the sanding can make, we might have to get the wood just treated in there as well. It'll be a heck of a lot easier without having to shift all the furniture around...

Painting

2009-10-16T20:35:00.002+01:00

Because we are generally crap, I realised that the painting in our flat was Never Going to Finish. So I hired the cousin of a friend who is temporarily out of work to come and paint. Hoorah! And it looks great. He did the final coats in the bedroom (it needed TWO MORE. That means it needed FIVE COATS OF PAINT to cover up the faux Roman stucco effect lovely Nige had left us), painted the skirting boards and sanded/painted the door frames. Yay! Lovin' it.

Two weeks until the floor man comes.

Update

2009-10-03T13:00:00.002+01:00

So, a lack of updating shows that we are clearly not doing a damn thing on the flat. Which is a shame because there is still a lot that needs doing. SO I am making a bold statement here, but I think I would like to be finished by the end of the year. Our fixed rate mortgage comes to an end, and we'll be on a lower interest rate from January, so if we finish it, then we are free to either sell it and move on, or rent it out on the lower interest rates, or stay and enjoy it. Either way, it has to move on.

So, today I have had someone round to give us a quote on doing up the floorboards. The price was pretty reasonable, so I think I'm going to get him in. I have hired a friend's cousin to come round and finish off all the sanding and painting of skirting boards and the last bits of painting on the walls, and once that's done, I can get someone in to do the carpet in the hallway. There is then work to be done in the kitchen and bathroom, but although we had grand plans for amazing shower units and a new kitchen, realistically I think for now we will keep this work to a minimum.

There. I have posted it. If, in three months time, I post again and say that we still haven't done anything, then that will be very sad, but not that unlikely. SO much work, so little time, and so little motivation!

I see you!

2009-06-28T17:29:00.005+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I bought a big mirror from the salvage yard in Vauxhall. It was reclaimed from Selfridges when they did the place up a while back, and while it was lovely and large and (fairly) cheap, the colours are pretty garish. SO today I had some fun painting it black. It needs one more coat, but looks pretty good already! If only the boyfriend would allow me to operate a drill, I could put it up on the wall this week...

An update

2009-05-10T12:09:00.004+01:00

We haven't posted a lot lately, and yes, we are still incredibly lazy and taking our sweet time with everything. BUT! That's not to say that we haven't been doing things. We have, really.

We have had the carpet man round for measuring and quoting.
Sisal (left) vs. Seagrass (right). We're leaning towards Seagrass at the minute, but can't do anything until we've painted the skirting boards.

We have started composting as part of our drive to only have one Tesco bin bag worth of rubbish each week:

I wanted to try my hand at composting, and the Bokashi bin system has been highly recommended. Once the compost is ready (it takes around 2 weeks), I'll be transporting it to the work balcony gardens. The bins also produce a liquid apparently, which is good for feeding plants, so I'll be using that instead of baby bio.
Our first round of vegetable peelings goes in the new composting bin.

We've been deep-cleaning:

We finally bought a proper hoover (instead of the crappy dustbuster that hasn't worked well for years). Yesterday we started on the disgusting, but necessary, project of digging all the dust out from between the floorboards. We did 1/3 of the living room yesterday evening, which produced around 1/3 of a Tesco bag full of dust. YUCK!

I've been growing plants:

And framing some Chinese art:

I picked this up in Guangzhou as a slightly less touristy than usual gift for Steph.

Ridiculously, this frame came in this box:

Painting

2009-03-08T17:48:00.004Z

The living room and hallway are so close to being finished I can taste it. In the living room, just a stubborn blue patch remains. We discovered a whole load more wallpaper that needed to come off before we could start on the final part, but now we are so almost there. In the hallway, the undercoat is finished, and we just have around 1/2 of the overcoat remaining. Next weekend we might actually be able to move on to the bedroom, which we painted when we first moved, but in a shade of white that we are no longer happy with.

Before:
After:

Organising

2009-03-07T17:21:00.003Z

I've spent quite a number of hours this morning on the Real Simple website and Lakeland. I am now £50 poorer and determined to get more organised. I'm getting a shelf to lift my cookbooks onto and a plate shelf so that I can stop almost breaking things whenever I try to get plates down. Also on the list: tongs, a moisture remover for the bathroom, a handheld shredder, a sink tidy, and a plastic bag dispenser, as the IKEA thing isn't working out so well.

But for today, I started simply by sorting through some plastic tubs and am now trying to get rid of a whole load more things on Freecycle. I'm getting rid of:

3x trainers
1x boots
1x wellies
2x shot glasses
3x wooden bowls
1x beach towel
1x large plastic tub

I also have one huge CD wallet full of CDs and a smaller wallet half full, but I think I'll try to sell that on Ebay, since the wallets on their own go for a tenner. I have some other Ebayable items, so I might have to get on that next.

But first! I finally hung up the hook that "Santa" got me from India. Yay! It looks great. I did try to hang a second hook in the kitchen, but I was up on a ladder, and I have no drill and I dropped the screw and it all went a bit wrong. So that might have to wait for another day...

Freecycle

2009-03-03T19:39:00.002Z

I can't tell you how much I love my local Freecycle group. I just got rid of all of the cardboard stuffing from the shower box. This means that I can fold the box into a size that the recycling team will actually agree to collect! Hooray. Plus the people are generally lovely and quite funny and have all sorts of interesting reasons for needing my miscellaneous crap. Just fantastic.

Shower: The update

2009-02-17T07:36:00.001Z

I had a hot shower this morning. As lovely as the bucket bath is, nothing beats a warm shower first thing in the day...

Triton t80si pumped

2009-02-16T22:10:00.003Z

So, last weekend, our shower died. Well, we think it died. We couldn't see anything too wrong with it, but there was no more hot water. Rather than spend £50 on a plumber and £100 on parts, we just decided fek it. Our shower is mank - who knows how many years it was in the bathroom before we moved in. So we decided to buy a new one.

And because apparently only a very small number of shower models do both the heating and the pumping of water, we were fairly limited in our selection. And because we are scared of drilling, we opted for the easiest choice: a brand new version of exactly the same shower. Genius.

The boyfriend ordered the shower from Plumbworld, and didn't want to open the box at work in case all sorts of miscellaneous bits spilled out. "But I'm not really sure how I'm going to get it home," he said this evening when he rang after work, "because it's almost as big as me." He did manage to navigate it home on the buses, and this is what we found inside:

The weight was split 50/50 between shower and shredded cardboard packaging. I guess Plumbworld are reeeeally worried about damage in the post.

Anyway, we read the instructions, we tested the old shower *just* to make sure that we weren't just being silly, and then we took the old one down and put the new one up. The holes were in the same place on the wall, we'd already taken one apart, so we knew how to put the new one together. It was super easy.

Too easy. As of tonight, the shower is working and is lovely and hot, but will it last!? I don't want to count my chickens just yet. It all seems to good to be true... only tomorrow's shower will tell...

Just because there hasn't been much updating lately...

2008-11-23T17:24:00.002Z

We had some friends round for lunch this afternoon. The place is starting to look quite nice from time to time.

More white walls

2008-10-12T17:03:00.002+01:00

Freecycle

2008-10-01T20:51:00.002+01:00

Freecycle is such a brilliant thing. Tonight, a lovely man came round and collected the massive piece of wood we've been keeping lying around since we moved in. It was once part of the "bunk bed". Who knows what they are going to use it for, but it was quite a good piece of wood, so glad it could go to a good home...

Ow

2008-09-20T19:47:00.003+01:00

Finally we had a day of DIY. Oh but the pain. My thumbs hurt, my back is aching, my wrists feel funny... I am going to sleep extremely well tonight. BUT we did get some stuff done. I built a non-children sized chest of drawers (OMG no more folding underwear to make it fit!) and Steph painted a couple of the walls in the "blue room". Then we moved all of the clothing-related things (cupboards, clothes, shoes, etc) into the bedroom. The living room now looks about 10 times bigger, hurrah! Still loads to sort out though... a task for later on (or maybe tomorrow)(or maybe next week). Pics below.

Upgrade!

2008-09-15T19:01:00.004+01:00

Prettier laundry basket!

Stronger magnets!

Better plastic bag management!

Oh the excitement as one afternoon's shopping on Ebay gradually makes its way to me in the post.

New things

2008-09-09T20:39:00.003+01:00

Some of the exciting new purchases for the flat include:

Picture hooks and bookends!

A new computer! Still a work in progress (especially its positioning...)

Lightbulbs!

Whilst in Sweden over the weekend we also purchased coat hooks! These will be on the wall once the wall is painted, so it may be some time before you see these. £55 for that Dwell coat stand was too much. But if you have already bought it, don't fret. It will still find a handsome spot in our living room.

A new IKEA chest of drawers should be arriving soon and the entire living room will change as a result. Pics soon to follow.

If you fancy buying us an early Xmas present

2008-08-31T22:05:00.003+01:00

I have my eye on this. I think I am going to get it. It's the best metal coat stand I've found aside from some from Heal's which cost 10x as much (literally - £445). If anyone fancies getting it for us as a very delayed house warming gift, we wouldn't say no...

Update...

2008-08-30T10:18:00.004+01:00

So, it's been QUITE a while since we last updated the blog. This is primarily because we have done ZERO DIY. Seriously. THe hallway is still only half painted... we are thinking of getting a decorator in to finish it. We'll see.

But anyway, there have been a few purchases/gifts that have added to the flat, so I took some snaps today, and here they are.

Last time we had the sofa, for ages we had sofa cushion covers but no cushions, now we have a sofa, sofa cushion covers AND sofa cushions. It is pretty spectacular.

We have had this lamp for ages, but I can't figure out for the life of me what kind of lightbulbs actually go into it. So for the minute it looks pretty, but doesn't actually work.

Got this little iPod player last weekend. It is brilliant. Not only does my iPod fit neatly into it, the player also charges the iPod. And there is a remote control for it. And it also has a radio. And it displays the temperature. And it is pretty loud. This is the best spontaneous purchase I have made in a very long time (apart, of course, from the iPod itself).

This is just to display how empty the top of the fridge now looks. Before it was all two terrible but huge speakers and cables and crap for me to plug some music into. Much improved.

Next up:
Steph has ordered a new computer which will be in the lounge, so we need to get some kind of table for that. I have just ordered a new (large) chest of drawers to replace our tiny child-sized ones from Argos. Once those are in place, the closets will move into the bedroom and the tiny chest of drawers will be come hallway drawers full of exciting things like gloves and electrical plugs. It's all go now!

SOFA SOFA SOFA

2008-07-06T08:55:00.004+01:00

That's exciting stuff. We have two rooms! The boyfriend is still sleeping so I am in the living room on the sofa so I don't wake him up. WOW!!! This is revolutionary stuff. And it has flag arms for resting things on, and it is firm and non-squishy, and it has a sofa bed, and it is the colour we wanted. And it was incredibly cheap. I think it might be perfect. Thanks to Rob for putting it together. And for knowing that the type of carpet we want is called "Seagrass". That will definitely come in handy.

Recycling my university degrees

2008-06-29T17:05:00.002+01:00

Yesterday and today I went through 4 years of folders of notes and put them all in the recycling bin. It was surprisingly emotional. But it needs to go. I never refer to them and I have all of my notes from my masters on my PC anyway. I was so organised - all of my notes are types up! But throwing it all away was still so sad... 8 A4 ring binders full of plastic folders and paper, all gone. 4 years and 2 degrees! Trashed because they are just cluttering up the flat. Sad days.

SO...

2008-06-28T13:54:00.002+01:00

Remember last week, when I said that we were going to finish the undercoat all in one weekend? Well, not so much. Sunday turned into a barbeque for me and Kew gardens for the boyfriend, and then this week I've been ill and the boyfriend has been out most every night so the painting kind of stalled a bit. BUT we are back on it. Almost done with the undercoat on the walls. Just a few little bits, the edges, and the ceiling to go. Oh, and we still have to strip 2 1/2 door frames and sand them all. But you know. Whatevs.

BBQ on a London high-rise balcony

Hackney at night

2008-06-22T13:51:00.002+01:00

The hallway

2008-06-21T17:37:00.002+01:00

Painting in knackering. Almost finished with two walls. Taking a break for the rest of today. Tomorrow we will complete Coat One. It would take us less time, but we also have to do the ceiling. How the F we are going to do that, I don't know.

Painting the hallway

2008-06-21T15:21:00.002+01:00

Stage one: painting the metal bits. I was all set to start stage two: painting the entire hallway, but we forgot to buy Turpentine and I don't want to paint if we can't clean the brushes (and ourselves). Soooo that's for tomorrow...

At our country retreat

2008-06-20T20:53:00.004+01:00

More new fish for the pond. Some of last summer's koi have doubled in size!!

PS I think this is one of my favourite pictures of all I have ever taken.

We have light shades!

2008-06-19T19:53:00.002+01:00

Pretty.

Next weekend (Saturday 28th), we get... A SOFA. This is very exciting. Pics soon to follow.

Before and middle

2008-05-24T18:25:00.008+01:00

After will come once we're back from hols and have painted the hallway...

Long way to go...

2008-05-24T18:23:00.002+01:00

There is a whole wall of this to get through... the fire helps make the... whatever he put on the wall... go softer and therefore come off easier, but it is pretty hard-going!!

I bring you...

2008-05-18T15:37:00.002+01:00

FIRE! This is fun. Melt the paint and reveal the fresh wood underneath. But it makes the fire alarm go off every 5 minutes. The neighbours must think we're burning the place down.

Smoooooth

2008-05-17T17:35:00.003+01:00

The walls are sooo smooth. Can't wait until they dry so that I can do some painting...

The builders

2008-05-17T14:25:00.002+01:00

I am pretty impressed so far. They have been working non-stop since they got here at 9:30.

"Are you sure you don't want to go and have some lunch?" I asked, mostly because I kind of need a wee and don't want to use the loo when they're in the hallway.

"No, no, no." One of them said. "We work now. Eat later."

Plaster!

2008-05-17T12:05:00.003+01:00

Right now, right at this very moment, two lovely Polish men are in our hallway filling in holes and plastering. Pics coming later. It is all v. v. exciting. To have a hallway that isn't grey and concrete! What joys.

Still loving the oven...

2008-04-05T17:42:00.003+01:00

God these brownies are good.

Mmm having an oven is delicious

2008-03-31T20:44:00.003+01:00

Roast duck with tomato, mushroom and onion gravy. Garlic mashed potatoes. YUUUUMMMM.

I'd forgotten how nice it was...

2008-03-30T20:03:00.003+01:00

Oh, to cook with gas! T0 have an oven! To have things that are crispy and roasted! We have been living with just the steamer since we moved in, and although it was lovely (and healthy) nothing beats a nice roast potato. So, for our first meal in the new oven, we had roast potatoes, salmon and asparagus. YUM. The joy of food porn is back! I think I might bake some bread this week. I can make soup! I can make pizza! Lasagna! Roast chicken! Ohhhh, these delights have been missing from my life for too long. Tonight's meal will be remembered for all my life.

We have an oven

2008-03-29T19:52:00.002Z

Oh my God. At last. Isn't it pretty? We just need to get it fitted now...

Repainting

2008-03-09T20:16:00.003Z

Now that the bedroom is (mostly) painted, we have, of course, decided we don't like the colour. It is too dark. So we got some samples last weekend and painted some squares on the wall. I like the bottom left one best. So, I think that's the next thing to do...

Deconstruction

2008-03-01T17:42:00.003Z

So, taking things down is a lot more fun (and way easier) than putting things up. Today was a LOT of fun. We took down the weird cupboard in the hallway and the uneven shelf in the corridor. The walls are completely fucked now, and we can no longer postpone the inevitable - we need a man to come and do some plastering. I guess that is the next step. Now how does one find a plasterer??

Radio silence

2008-02-27T07:09:00.002Z

So, February has been kind of a quiet month. Since we put together the furniture, I don't think we have done anything... BUT hopefully this Saturday we will finally be getting an oven/stove so that will be a massive achievement. Watch this space.

Furniture

2008-02-09T11:23:00.000Z

So, I may have gotten over-excited. The furniture arrived yesterday morning and I put together a bedside table and one of the chest of drawers. The bedside table is brilliant BUT the chest of drawers is a little... well... little! I think we might need to order a bigger one - I didn't realise just how dinky it is! It will still probably come in handy, but the unpacking probably isn't going to happen quite yet... Tomorrow I will be putting together the cupboards, so hopefully those won't be quite so small... That's what you get when you go super-budget at Argos!

OMG!

2008-02-05T11:50:00.000Z

Cupboards and drawers and bedside tables are ARRIVING ON FRIDAY.

Destroying the beast

2008-02-03T16:50:00.000Z

Our living room/bedroom is now about 25% bigger.

Curtains!!!

2008-01-28T20:58:00.000Z

We picked up some curtains over the weekend. They are temporary, until we have some made, and they are a little bit short, BUT they make the room feel so much cozier. The sarong was good at keeping prying eyes out, but it really wasn't up to scratch! This is so much better... Meanwhile, the painting still is not finished, but I will be heading out to the DIY shops on BGR tomorrow to see whether they have any Dulux Nutmeg White...

Stalled

2008-01-27T23:18:00.000Z

There has been a lack of posting. There has been a lack of DIY. Mostly to do with the lack of paint, but also largely down to lack of motivation. However! We still don't have any paint, but we do have some temporary curtains. They are peach. Or maybe salmon. Not really an ideal colour, but it will serve better than the sarong we currently have hanging there (see below post) and will be better at stopping the neighbours peering in. Of course, we have no curtain hooks with which to hang said curtains, but hopefully that should be fairly easily resolved...

Uh oh...

2008-01-21T18:55:00.001Z

BUT

Something to brighten up the white

2008-01-14T15:25:00.000Z

I am home without a voice today, but boredom drove me to start on another area in the flat. I need some painter's tape before I can start on all of the skirting boards, but I think this blue will look great with the white walls.

Ta da

2008-01-13T15:22:00.001Z

WTF

2008-01-13T12:14:00.001Z

The bookshelves might take longer than expected. This is the state of one of the walls. To be fair, it is the wall you can't really see, but still, I don't just want to paint over it so am painstakingly wetting and scraping it off.

One thing about all this DIY is it does make me feel better about not doing any exercise lately... scraping and painting are damn strenuous!

I'm a Googlewhack!

2008-01-06T17:12:00.001Z

Searching for 'beanbaps' on the Internet only brings up one site - mine! Kind of excited by that...

2008-01-06T13:23:00.000Z

Note the dodgy plastering on the bottom right of the wall. I think we will need to replaster it at some point, but for now having it white has made this room a lot lighter!

The next step will be the bookshelves. I am thinking of painting the back wall behind the books blue. I have some very pretty paint to use, so will post pics in the next few days (or whenever it gets done!)

One day....

2008-01-03T21:47:00.001Z

Surfing the design porn on Desire to Inspire and Design*Sponge...

Okay, so my flat is unlikely to ever be on a design porn website, but it doesn't hurt to look!

Wallpaper hell

2008-01-02T20:42:00.002Z

So, I might have mentioned that the guy who lived here before had 'interesting' taste, but I don't think I can have properly conveyed my annoyance with the levels of wallpaper that plague the walls.

The patterns very conveniently cover it all up, but once painted white, you begin to see that the surface is flecked with bumps of wallpaper that he failed to properly remove. Not just near the ceiling, which is where the wallpaper is in the rest of the room, but all around the fireplace. How annoying...

There are also areas of totally uneven wall. How did they get this way? I did the undercoat on the wall by the fireplace today and now realise just how uneven it is. What should I do? I think all of the wallpaper is now off, but I'm really not sure what to do about the uneveness. I think it might require plastering. Is DIY plastering ever a good idea? Probably not... I think I might need to start investigating the builder situation...

Despite the bumpy wall, the room is starting to look a lot lighter now that that wall is white!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-20T22:16:00.000Z

Well, we didn't get very far with the decoration, but we have one white wall and a bed, which is better than nothing. By this time next year, who knows, we might even have all four walls painted! Merry Christmas!

We have a bed!

2007-12-17T16:51:00.000Z

Our bed arrived on Friday and I put it all together today. I was not feeling very well this morning, but struggling with screws and heavy pieces of wood seems to have made me feel a bit better (although I still don't think I will be eating much tonight). There were a few pieces missing from the pack, which is a bit worrying, and there was an issue with the screws, but now the bed is all together and hooray, it is comfy. I will have to ring them tomorrow about the missing pieces. They are just to secure the slats on the bed base, so I have put 4 out of 24 down unsecured. I don't think it will make a huge amount of difference, but would be good to make sure! I am going to be having visions of the bed falling apart all night...

One White Wall

2007-12-10T21:02:00.000Z

That feels good.

Only about 20 million to go...

Tackling wall 1

2007-12-09T21:03:00.000Z

The walls in this place are pretty impossible. Not only are they uneven and painting in a very heavy pattern, the previous owner also neglected to take off any of the wallpaper above head height, leaving us to stand on our one piece of furniture with a scraper to try to get it all off. This is probably the least fun thing ever. Because it is pretty stuck on. I can see why he couldn't be arsed. But we have to get it off.

Check out the faux-stucco event wall he has painted over. Top tip from previous owner... if you have a crack in your plaster, don't fill it, paint it and make it a feature!

Painting the wall. We have now finished the undercoat completely. The bottom area took three coats, and you can still almost see the lines showing through. I think this guy watched Changing Rooms one too many times...

The question of the century

2007-12-09T16:00:00.000Z

Where the hell is all this stuff going to go?

The Before

2007-12-09T15:13:00.000Z

It's a big project. We have no DIY skills. We have no furniture apart from one very heavy coffee table. But we are going to turn this lovely but unloved one bedroom apartment in east London into somewhere cozy and comfy. We have started to paint one of the walls and will post the 'after' photos soon, but for now, here are the pictures taken before we moved our stuff in.

The guy who lived here before had some 'interesting' taste, that's for sure.