Category: The archive (Bradford house)

Kitchen table, ahoy!

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Sorry, sorry, I’ve been a dreadful blogger.  The sun comes out and I just abandon it.  I’m a bad, bad person.

It doesn’t help that I’ve just started a thing with work called GCC, where people from companies all over the world take part in a walking challenge.  The idea is that it makes you walk further than you normally would (healthy employees = happy employees), and you’re aiming for at least 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles).





We’re all getting quite competitive (which is the idea), and to give you some perspective, I did over 26,000 on Sunday, along with Barry, Charlie and Jaime (and Fin was in the buggy, but he technically didn’t do the steps.  He did about 5 when we got back).

Anyway, on Saturday morning, before the walking madness, our kitchen table arrived.  I’m really pleased with it, and it fits neatly into the little bay window we have in the kitchen, although Barry apparently needs a bit more convincing.



We had lunch there on Saturday, and it was almost like eating outside!  I love it!  As a side note, Barry also does not like eating outside, which may be where the problem’s coming in.

Beading… check!

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Barry’s got the beading fitted in the living room.  We think we’re going to just paint the skirting boards in the kitchen, and then maybe seal them, rather than fitting beading, as we’ve put the skirts back on over the flooring (whereas in the living room, they’ve had to go up to the edges).

 

He started by trying to stick them with adhesive, but our walls fool you into thinking that they’re straight.  They’re not.  He’s hammered little tacks in now so that they’re more snug against the skirting boards.

We’ve also brought all of our DVDs and CDs back into the living room.  After having the units empty for so long (since January!), it’s a shock to the eyeballs, and I’m not sure I like it!

We do still need to buy the bits (cupboards/drawers/baskets) for the unit, so that may help the eyeball issue.

Wardrobes

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After all I said I was going to get from my mum’s, we’ve decided not to have the wardrobes in the end.  I think it’s overfacing Barry, who seems to have reached his limit on DIY for the year and is staging some kind of protest.

We really need to get cracking again – at least to finish off the last bits of the kitchen and living room, but going on holiday and eating out (almost) every night isn’t really conducive to pockets full of money to spend on picture frames.

Of our kitchen jobs still to do, we have the following left…

1. Sand and repaint the ceiling

2. Cut skirting boards to size and repaint

3. Fit skirting boards

4. Finish painting the kitchen walls

5. Finish sanding and fit the peninsula

6. Tile the kitchen walls

7. Paint the stairs wall, handrail and ceiling

8. Replace all of the switches with brushed silver ones

9. Get a condenser tumble dryer

The living room list’s not much better…

1. Sand and repaint wall and paint skirting boards

2. Paint the skirting boards and cut and fit the beading

3. Paint the kitchen/living room door (both sides) and the doorframe on the other side

4. Paint a radiator

5. And another one

6. Fit the strip thing between the kitchen and living room

7. Create the photo wall – finalise photos and buy frames and prints

8. Buy white drawers and baskets for the units

 

I need a lie down.

Bedside tables, curtains, and a food processor

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A random list, I know, but that’s what we’ve come back with from my mum’s.  We went to measure the wardrobes she’s offered us to see if they’ll fit in Barry’s car (he thinks they will), rather than hiring a van.

In the meantime, we fit everything we could into the car to save us going back more times than necessary, so on Saturday, we drove back with two bedside tables, two purple lamps to go on them, a long pair of purple curtains and tie-backs, and a food processor which has more parts to it than anything else in our house combined.  I can’t find the instructions online anywhere, so we’ll see how that goes!

We still need to go back for a chest of drawers, the curtain pole (which we forgot), and a double and triple wardrobe.  Not sure where we’re putting everything yet, but the bedside tables and curtains will probably be going in our second spare room.

A special congratulations to my fellow blogger, Karen, who got engaged this weekend!

Going on a mini-holiday until Friday now, so see you all when we get back!

Procrastination

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As you may have suspected from my recent posts, not much DIY/decorating’s being done at the homestead at the moment.  We’re obviously very busy people, and now the bulk of it’s been done, it’s so easy to take our foot off the accelerator and be a little bit lazy.

I’m going to make a concerted effort to keep going this weekend and get a bit more done in the kitchen, like painting the skirting boards.  If we can do some sanding of the kitchen ceiling and get the beading done in the living room, all the better.

I’ve noticed that the living room looks really quite empty with nothing on the walls, so come payday, we’ll hopefully be able to sort that out.  Given time, I’ve completely changed my mind about having the plain frames, and am now looking at mixing them up, like these from Ikea, which is where we’ll probably end up.

I had a look at the cheapie ones from Wilkinson’s and they were all imperfect and the joins had big gaps in them, so if we’re spending so much, and putting so much time into sorting the photos, it’s worth spending a bit more to get it right.  We will have to go to Ikea and see them before we buy them though.  These are from Ikea’s website…

Skirting boards fitted

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Barry’s done a bit more in the kitchen – only took a couple of hours but it makes a real difference.  He’s fitted the skirting boards back and they look really great!  They still need repainting.  He’s also run silicone around the bottom of the units and added the strip that joins the living room floor to the kitchen floor.  That’s 2.5/8 of the kitchen tasks done and 3.5/8 of the living room ones!

Second hand

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My mum is going to move out of her house, and has asked us if we would like some of her furniture because she doesn’t need it any more.  She’s got a large chest of drawers, two bedside tables, three double wardrobes and a bucket chair.  We’ve said yes please to all of them and when can we hire the van?

She’s happy for us to paint or stain any and all of the items, and we’ve said we’d like to chop the wardrobes up as Barry feels like he could have a good crack at built-in wardrobes for our room, and she’s happy for us to do that as well!  Score!

There’s a couple of places in our bedroom where we could have built-in wardrobes, but they’re in the eaves so they’re expensive to buy and get fitted.  Better Barry has a go at it first!

Happy birthday to Barry!  Katheryn’s boots didn’t fit, so cross your fingers my Supergirl boots hold tonight…

Peninsula

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Barry’s started the peninsula. He had to carve a hole in one of the walls he’s carefully built up with plaster, and put a pole into the spare bit of worktop (actually, he accidentally attached the pole to the top side, but never mind!).

At the moment, it’s balanced in the hole, but he needs to attach it and cut a bit of upstand, then stain it all so it matches the rest of the worktops.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on my boot tops for my Supergirl outfit. More on that tomorrow!

Photos of the balanced peninsula below.

Check! Check!

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Although we didn’t do much this weekend, I did cross off a few tasks from the Depressing visual representation of all the jobs left to do: the living room, namely task 1, half of task 2 and task 3.

1. Sand and repaint wall and paint skirting boards
Barry was making a stand about not doing any DIY last weekend, so I did all this with my own fair hands. In the beginning, he wasn’t even willing to instruct me on how to do it, but he gave in in the end and gave me a bit of idea!

I had to cut away the cracked parts of the wall before I could sand. Very nervous with Stanley knives as in very clumsy! Then I had to caulk the wall (cue lots of jokes about loving caulk). I ended up caulking half the wall that was left to paint as it was so cracked from the flooring being put in.

2. Paint these skirting boards and cut and fit the beading
I painted all of the remaining skirts, but the beading still needs to be done.








3. Paint this door (both sides) and the doorframe on the other side
I did all of this, which took a few hours. I may have mentioned that we are going on a fancy dress pub crawl this weekend. On Sunday, I watched Supergirl (to get into character), and we watched the first three Indiana Jones films. I say watched, I was just listening because you can’t see the TV from the door/floor behind the sofa.

We were also prepared to have a good crack at tasks 7 and 8 (getting white frames, drawers and baskets), but who knew Ikea was closed on Easter Sunday?

Probably won’t get anything done this coming weekend – it’s Barry’s birthday and we have people staying over again, so may not have much to report.

Depressing visual representation of all the jobs left to do: the living room

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In the second of this two-part mini-series, I take a closer look at the living room, and all the things we still need to do.  Click here for yesterday’s gripping instalment.

1. Sand and repaint wall and paint skirting boards

2. Paint these skirting boards and cut and fit the beading

3. Paint this door (both sides) and the doorframe on the other side

4. Paint this radiator

5. And this one

6. Fit the strip thing between the kitchen and living room

7. Create the photo wall – finalise photos and buy frames and prints

8. Buy white drawers and baskets for the units