Painting

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

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!

Painting

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

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...

Ow

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!

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.

Update...

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!

Hackney at night

The hallway

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.

Before and middle

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

Long way to go...

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...

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

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

Plaster!

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...

God these brownies are good.

Mmm having an oven is delicious

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

I'd forgotten how nice it was...

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

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

Repainting

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

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??