Check! Check!

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

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

Weekend

Phew, we have had a busy weekend of running around! I would say it’s nice to get back to work, but I would really rather be at home, plus Barry’s away in London working all this week. Sad face.

On Saturday, I received a call from my brother, who wanted to talk about work for an hour. Grabbing breakfast in between, we then drove to Next in Bradford to pick up the new living room curtains (very exciting, they look great!), and then on to Wakefield to pick up a coffee machine Barry had proudly won on eBay. It turned out to be an espresso machine and the pot was meant for four cups of espresso, not coffee. Cute, but not what we’re looking for. That will need to be relisted.

We then got home to start listing the old kitchen units, oven and hob on eBay, zapped some leftovers in the microwave for lunch, and got a call from my best friend Charlie, almost on the verge of tears. To set the scene, she, her boyfriend, and baby, were moving on Saturday, and would not accept any offers of help (the baby may have but he can’t talk yet). Anyway, they were moving back to their old house, which they’d been renting out, and it appears the tenants changed the locks. We drove to Otley to pick up the keys from the agency and took them over so they could actually get into the house. Not before a friendly locksmith had charged them £60 callout! We were supposed to go back later for a celebratory curry, but that, unsurprisingly, didn’t happen.

Got back home, I finished listing the stuff on eBay (there’s a big gap between the finishing times!) while Barry got cracking with the kitchen. As he’s away this week, he didn’t want to leave me with a completely non-functioning kitchen, so he was trying to get all the wall units up.

We were supposed to be having takeaway at Charlie’s, and I sadly can’t deal with the unfulfilled promise of curry, so we had takeaway for tea anyway. Couldn’t have cooked, the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it.

There was less running around on Sunday. Barry got cracking putting up doors on all units, putting the drawers together, the handles on the top units, and the cooker hood. It’s made a huge difference – it almost looks finished now! He only had until 4pm yesterday as he had to set off for London, and there’ll be no progress until next weekend now. I’ll get some photos up tomorrow.