Tag: DIY

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings

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photoI was recently a bridesmaid for my beautiful friend Charlie, and what a wedding!

I (among many people) made various bits for the wedding, including baking this collection of buns to look like a wedding dress for the hen do (it received good reviews from Charlie’s auntie) and sewing the tie for Charlie’s two-year old son for the big day.

I also made a couple of bits towards their wedding present, including a Mr and Mrs framed photographic print and Mr and Mrs bunting (notice a theme?).  We gave them those (along with a picnic basket that I really wanted to photo (2)keep!) the week before the wedding, but I didn’t realise they’d feature on the big day too!

Neil, the talented photographer from our own big day (who is also a friend) was also the photographer for our friends’ wedding (he’s the groom’s brother).  His wife, Amy, helps him with the photography business and is aspiring to become a wedding planner – my bunting got a nod in her recent blog post!  Click here if you would like to have a gander, and that beautiful cake at the end?  My friend Lenka made that.  What a lovely wedding!

 

Polka bag

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polka bagI’m enjoying sewing so much at the minute!  I love that you can turn a pile of fabric, ribbon and lace into something you can be pretty proud of, in not much time (a naptime for me!).

When I pick Scarlett up from nursery, I seem to be gathering little items up and balancing them, or stuffing them into various pockets, so I thought it may be handy to have a drawstring bag to hold her change of clothes, comforter, note, bib, etc., at the end of the day.

polka bag 1

I bought this fabric this week, I thought this red ribbon would really pop against the blue, and I still have some of the broderie anglaise lace left from when I made her party dress.

Et voilà!  I’m really proud of this – so proud, I think I might add this to my repertoire for Baby Brain.  Speaking of which, I’ve just opened a Facebook Store, please nip over and check it out!

www.facebook.com/BabyBrainBoutique

Plasterific

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all filled in 1

Thanks to Barry, the holes in the ceiling in the living room and kitchen are now filled in and the living room lights are once again a-go-go.  It’s nice to see his lovely face again.  Whilst it added ambience, the light from the one standing lamp dragged from upstairs wasn’t excellent for eating tea by.

all filled in 2

We now have many huge grey patches of plaster that need to be sanded and repainted, but that’s going to wait until after Scarlett’s tea party when we are permitted to have a dusty house!

Sorry for the awful cameraphone shots!  If you looked down, you would see a hungry baby sat on my foot in this one.

There’s a hole in my ceiling

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holey moley

Dear Liza, dear Liza.  Our living room lights decided to stop working last week.  If you’re a regular reader, you may already be in possession of the very useful fact that we have 13 lights in our living room.

These are the holes that poor Barry has had to saw into the ceiling that he painstakingly plastered after putting the lights in.

holey moley 2

He’s decided to forgo sourcing the problem after we lost count of the holes, and has instead run another wire from the kitchen into the living room, bypassing the problem area before the ceiling fell in on our heads.

Barry’s mum and dad are visiting at the end of next week (for Scarlett’s first birthday, already!), so the pressure’s on to make it right!

House valuation

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Barry’s bedtime reading at the moment is looking at houses online.  We’re not planning on moving any time soon (if any of my colleagues are reading this, don’t jump to conclusions!), but it’s nice to look.  He went as far (too far, in my opinion!) as sending an email asking for more information on one particular house, which is quite near to where my mum lives.

The estate agent called and left a voicemail the next morning to say that they’d arranged for an agent from our local office to come and value our house on Saturday at 9.45am.  Very proactive.  A bit too pushy.  But Barry thought, hey, why not?  We were interested in seeing whether the work on the kitchen (in which we sacrificed a downstairs bathroom and hallway for twice the kitchen) would have affected the value.

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Adult proofing

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Stair gate

Our house is now stair-safe for Scarlett, but a hotbed of tripping danger for me and Barry.  She won’t be able to get up or down the stairs until she grows about three feet and gets some serious manual dexterity going, which is excellent.

However, whoever designed the bloody gates with the bar at the bottom (and pressure gates STILL NEED SCREWING IN, don’t be fooled) had a real sense of humour.  Scarlett’s in more danger from me falling flat onto her because I can’t pick my feet up that extra inch.  I think Barry might have shed a little tear screwing gates into the house, especially into the black wall and the wooden bannister.  I could tell he was wondering whether we could move house before fixing the holes.

Socket covers

We’ve also got these things that go in the electricity sockets so she doesn’t electrocute herself.  Good job I’ve got nails for leverage, otherwise there’d be no getting those bad boys out.  And then I would never be able to iron.  Now, where are those nail clippers…

Birdies

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We’ve finally got the polka dot birdie hooks up on the nursery wall, which means we can hang Scarlett’s hearts on there.  The birds were really cheap from eBay, but I think they look effective and go with the theme of the room and the wall stickers that are on the other side.

About time too, everything was just gathering dust on her windowsill.  We’ve got even more frames that we need to put photos in, but think I’ll wait a bit because we’ve just had quite a few printed.

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Decking day deux

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Decking 6We’re pretty much done with the decking already!  The men started early, about 7.30, and started putting the decking boards onto the frame they’d built the day before.  They also built the path back up so we didn’t fall into a deep, dark hole taking the bin out.  That would have been inconvenient.

The skip that was supposed to arrive between 10am and 12pm came at around 5pm after the gents had already gone home, so they’re coming back on Saturday morning to get rid of the mound of dirt in the back garden.  I did try to shame the man delivering the skip but he just asked us for money.  We didn’t give him it.

Decking 7The landscape guys also built a raised flowerbed at the bottom of the garden, as per Barry’s masterplan, which looks great; we just need to decide what to put in it.

After the mud has been cleared away, we need to get some grass seed stat and dig up those nasty weeds that blight our grass.

Decking 8

We’re also planning on getting a new shed, putting a step in between the two levels for Scarlett’s tiny legs and covering the manhole cover in some way.  Then we would like to put up higher fence panels next to the decking, as we can currently see right over into next door’s garden now, and that’s just not polite.  Then we’re going to stain the decking and fence so everything matches.  I quite like the idea of it being a dark stain, but we’ll have to go shopping and see.

Then we need some nice garden furniture and Barry’s loving the idea of a fire pit.

After that (but way in the future), I’d like to change the paving slabs we have for nice ones instead of the utilitarian grey concrete ones that the house builders put in.  We’ll need almost 40, so it won’t be cheap!

I’ll put up some more photos once the mud mound has disappeared, but I’m really happy with this result!  Just hope we get a summer to go with it…

So, what do you think?  Quick poll: have you ever painted one side of your fence (and not the neighbour’s side)?

A deck above

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Decking 1Day one of the decking – the frame is in, hurray!  I wasn’t sure the poor men would come this morning because it was raining so hard, but turn up they did, and worked through until the sun shone later this afternoon.

I took a couple of surreptitious photos when they nipped back to the van (I thought they might feel judged if I did it while they were working!), hence the photos through the door.

They dug out a lot of mud and rubble, much more than they’d thought initially (a skip is winging its way to us tomorrow).

Decking 2Then they started on the two-level frame.  Because it was raining so hard, the grass section of our garden is now a muddy mess, but never mind!  It wasn’t exactly manicured beforehand, but hopefully we can sort it out for summer.  If it ever comes.

One of the paving slabs next to the decking is now about to collapse, so it needs building back up underneath, which apparently they’ll do tomorrow, along with putting the boards on presumably, but don’t know how long that takes.

 

Decking 3Decking 4

Decking 5

 

 

Deck ahoy!

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I’m a terrible blogger at the moment, my little baby is taking all my time, but I don’t mind!  We’ve added a couple of bits to the nursery which I need to photograph, and in the meantime, Barry’s organised someone to do the decking!  Finally!

I mentioned the decking plans back in June, and the same plans apply, only instead of Barry doing it, we have a man who can.  It turns out that he was £100 more than if we just bought the bits ourselves, and that is £100 well spent.  The gentleman is coming for two days this week, and then we can laze in the summer mizzle.

photo(1)This is the view from our back door at the moment, kind of uninspiring.  The dandelions are the only flash of colour.  Barry tore the shed down this weekend – the bits are being collected for firewood and the paving slabs keeping it straight have gone on (what else?) eBay!

We’re having decking down the right hand side, extending the patio to the left, and keeping some grass.  I want to change the drab paving slabs for something nicer, but that may have to wait.  The fence also needs to be a bit higher on the right hand side, otherwise we’d be sunbathing looking over at our neighbours below us, a little intrusive!  We’re also going to stain everything dark.

I think – I hope – everything is going to look fabulous!