Sorry for the long, long, delay in writing, but we’ve made absolutely no progress! We are both feeling under the weather at the moment, so got nothing done last weekend, and our hands are basically tied until payday (tomorrow!).
I’m planning on baking Sonny’s birthday cake tomorrow and icing it Friday or Saturday (it’s his birthday today – happy birthday! – and his party on Saturday), so I’ll post the results when it’s done. Fingers crossed it looks remotely like the picture!
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…
Nothing like sticking with a theme, but superheroes seem to be in at our house. I’ve promised my brother that I’ll have a go at making a Spiderman cake for my nephew Sonny’s 5th birthday in a couple of weeks’ time. Sonny absolutely loves Spiderman and dresses in his little Spiderman outfit whenever he can.
I had a search online and found a few different Spiderman cakes with various designs. I found one I liked, and even though I’ll be seriously stretching my icing skills, if I can pull it off, it will look brilliant! I think I’ve been bolstered by the boot tops – I’ve somehow got the impression that enthusiasm and will can overcome lack of skill or knowledge.
At least this one has a step-by-step on YouTube. I’ve already bought the icing and the food colouring, just need to get a paintbrush and some toothpicks (seriously).
His birthday’s in a couple of weeks, so I’ll put up a photo of the result, whether it’s worthy or not.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baxoe8KYwcw]
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!
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…
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.
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.
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
This is part one of a two-part mini-series whereby I put all the work we’ve already done into perspective and think about just how much more time and money we still need to dedicate to these two rooms of the house that are taking over all of our free time and finances. This is part one: the kitchen. Tune in tomorrow for an exciting look at the long list of tasks still to do in the living room.
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
Ahem. Ladies and gentlemen. I have an announcement to make. The kitchen floor is in. No more concrete crap on everything!
I’ve included photos from before (we had bits of living room carpet down to stop us walking the dust about) as well as after, and we obviously have several bits still to do (like beading), but the bulk of it is done! I came home from work and think I caught Barry seriously considering another way out, but he got there in the end.
In the meantime, I’ve continued the thankless task of painting white gloss over white gloss. No photos there then.
After this, I’m going back to trying to find superhero-themed songs for our superhero-themed night out next week. We all know we’ll end up at karaoke.
