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:

Triton t80si pumped

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...

More white walls

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.

SOFA SOFA SOFA

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.

SO...

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

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.

Painting the hallway

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...

We have light shades!

Pretty.

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

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...

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??

Destroying the beast

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

Curtains!!!

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...