Tag: house

Still no decorator

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Trying to find a decorator is proving to be more difficult than we first thought.  We gave up on the one that never got back to us, and have moved onto another one.  Unfortunately, as we’re in London this weekend, and then on holiday the week after, the next one we rang is only available on weekends.  Normally perfect, but it means it’s going to be another month before we can get him in to even quote!

In baby news, we’ve ordered the pram now we’ve found out we’re having a girl and bought these beautiful shoes out of crazed excitement.  Got a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in H&M for babies!

Baby news

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Well, we left a message with the decorator, but we’ve had no response yet, so we’re going to have to find another one!  I think three weeks is long enough to wait.  Just need to get Barry geared up for ringing another decorator now…

On the baby front, we’ve discovered we’re having a girl!  Not sure what we’ll do with her room yet, but we’re ordering the pram this weekend which is making me a bit giddy!  We’ve chosen the iCandy Peach 2 in Berry Bon Bon and my mum’s kindly offered to buy the stroller and we’re getting the other bits.  There’s more to it than you think!  Not the cheapest, but we’ve tried so many different prams that we were going cross eyed – I’ll be relieved to have it ticked off the list!

 

She’s like the wind

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In our endeavour to sort stuff (read: everything) before the baby comes in February, we’ve started by completing the appliances in the kitchen with this beauty…

It’s a condenser dryer, bought just as the sun seems to be coming out again.  As Barry had the foresight to drill a hole for a plug through the cupboard, but not the end panel, we haven’t tried it out yet but we should have it on at some point this weekend.  I’d better buy some Bounce!

Many thanks to Barry’s Mum for the dryer!

Barry did mention that the dryer delivery men had the audacity to ask how long the wall had been like that (i.e. not painted up the stairs).  Think we need to give that decorator a call soon…

Photo wall… tick!

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Hallelujah, the photo wall is done!  I think it was one of those jobs where the thought of actually doing it was more taxing than the actual action of doing it.  As I mentioned, I have some family coming over today for the bank holiday weekend, so we’ve bitten the bullet and just done it.    I keep walking into the living room and they take me by surprise, as I’m so used to that wall being empty now!

In my humble opinion, I think it looks great!  I sat down on Friday and updated the mock up I’d done in Illustrator, and we used that as a rough guide.  There’s still a few spaces for more photos, so we can add to it if we want to.

So… here it is!  All 24 photos (for now).

Procrastination with good reason

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Oh dear, oh dear.  I haven’t posted in almost a month, and literally nothing’s changed, house-wise.  A lot’s been changing with me, but house-wise it’s exactly the same.

The prints are all safely nestled in their frames, and are waiting patiently on the dining room table to be put up on the wall.  According to Barry, I’m in charge of logistics of how we’re going to arrange them.  That should go well.  The pressure’s on to get them up this weekend, because my Aunty and cousins are coming on Monday for the first time and we want it to look great.

In kitchen news, the great black wall still lies unfinished, and we’re going to cave.  Next door have given us the number of a painter/decorator so we’re going to get a quote.  In the last month, Barry’s moved jobs as well as started his own company, and it’s just not going to happen, so we’d rather get it sorted.  The stairs are going to be a major issue anyway, best leave it to the professionals.

As well as the black wall, I think we’ll get a quote for our room to be painted so it no longer looks like a shooting’s taken place, and (wait for it), we’ll need our third bedroom painting as it looks like that will be the nursery.

Yes, I’m pregnant, up the duff, bun in the oven, knocked up.  14 weeks and 2 days to be precise.  I’ll try not to harp on about it, I know it’s not a baby blog, but my mind has been on other things lately and I’m poring over prams instead of paint like porn in my lunch hour.

We were dithering about which room to make the nursery.  To begin with, the baby can reside in our little nook off our main bedroom, but I think it would be nice to do up a bedroom for when it’s ready to move on and be a bit more independent.  At about 6 months.  Charlie’s giving us lots of good advice, and she thinks that would be good for the daytime anyway, and then the baby can get used to the room.

We initially thought the spare room with the yellow bed, as it’s the nearest to our bedroom. However, Barry’s made the excellent point that it’s nearer the road, and therefore noisier.  They’re both the same size, so I think we’re going to go with the one that’s further back.  We’ll have to get rid of the double bed that’s in there, but I think we’ll get a nice fold-out sofa bed in there for when Barry’s family comes over.

We won’t know what colour we’re going for until around October time (forget team yellow, we want to know!), which is also putting the brakes on which colour and design of pram we want.  For anyone who’s interested, we’re getting an iCandy.  Now I’m going to daydream…

Prints

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Prints for the living room wall have now been ordered, all 24 of them!  Got an excellent deal through Quidco for Photobox as well – 30% off + 5% cashback.  Ker-ching!

My brother’s moving house this weekend, so we’re moseying on over to see the new pad.  Don’t know about you, but if we have one thing to do on a weekend at the moment, it means that the rest of the weekend becomes null and void and we don’t want to plan anything else!  Think that means we’re getting old.

It’s also my Nanna and Grandad’s 50th wedding anniversary this weekend, and I’m very excited that I found them some gold dinnerware for a present (don’t worry, they’re not silver surfers!).  I also got a lovely card printed with their wedding photo from Moonpig.  We’re all going out for a meal a week on Saturday with the rest of the family to celebrate.

PS – the new Batman was very good, 4/5, I recommend it!

Pork!

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Barry mistakenly thought he was going to get a mini hog roast for the princely sum of £2.99 recently.  When the leg of a pig arrived (£2.99/kg), we were surprised.  Not as surprised as our fridge, which is usually just full of Diet Coke.

We thought this may be a tad too much eating for two, so Charlie and Jaime came over with Finley again (hint, hint, Charlie, it’s your turn to cook!), and we had the most amazing roast dinner!  I’m not usually one for pork, but this was gorgeous.  I can take no praise for this one – I was at the hairdresser all morning.

He roasted the pork in shallots, garlic, rosemary, thyme (those two from our garden), and put whole apples in to roast with it, which were so delicious (we ate them like apple sauce).

We also had pepper pot cake for pudding (not sure why it’s called that, it’s got apples in it).  I was so full you could have rolled me down a hill and I couldn’t have stopped myself.

We went to see Tenacious D in Manchester last night, they were absolutely fantastic!  Great show.

Also popped some stuff on eBay this week, including our red drawers.  Hopefully they’ll go to a good home (one that will give us lots of money for them, as they’re discontinued!).

To finish, Barry thinks the empty wine bottles in the kitchen look nice.  I think they look a bit like a recycling plant, but there you go.  Anyway, I tarted them up a bit with some sage from the garden.  How pretty!

Shotgun approach

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In response to Wednesday’s post, someone commented to ask if we’re working on our entire house at once.  Of course not! was my first reaction.  Then, as I started writing out the reply, it really did begin to look like we are, in fact, trying to take on the entire house at the same time.

This was my reply:

We started with the living room in January, which quickly spread to the kitchen, so we’re working on all of the ground floor at the same time. We’ve got a big splodge of tester paint in our bedroom, and we know what we want to do with that. We need to finish painting black up the stairs, and then do it on the top floor too, but we also want to put decking in the garden soon…

Damn.  Barry’s forever telling me that we can’t do everything at once, much as I’d like to.  Financially, we definitely can’t do everything at once (unless the lottery plan comes together), and it will probably go very quiet for the rest of this month once we have the flooring in.  I am, however, gearing up for some excellent before and after shots.

It’s easy to get carried away.  I know I’ve talked (or typed) before about DIY and decorating influencing your friends, but it also has a snowball effect on yourselves.  The more we do, the more we want to do, and now that a certain part of the house is almost done and looks great (well, we think so!), it makes you want to keep going.  Just need to rein it in a little bit!  We haven’t even got to photo wall month yet, and we’re already thinking about decking.  In the meantime, our bedroom still looks like a crime scene.  What will we tackle next?

Slowly but surely

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We had a busy weekend planned, so didn’t get much house stuff done. On the plus side, we got to play with Finley (Charlie and Jaime’s super-cute and ridiculously clever baby), saw The Hunger Games (the book’s better; knocked half a point off for shaky cam; 3/5), and had a delicious Sunday dinner at Charlie and Jaime’s. We even ate outside in the sunshine! Fly count: 1. It has been decreed, Barry can no longer use the fly excuse not to eat outside.

Anyway, between all that, Barry did a bit of painting. Not art. He painted the alcove (again, please watch In Bruges to find this funny!) and the windowsill is all glossy as well. A photo didn’t really do it justice, so I’ve scrapped the one just of the windowsill. Still got sanding and painting to do, but we are steadily getting there.



Very excited about the flooring coming on Saturday. We got it from a sale at www.infloor.co.uk, which was by far the cheapest we’ve seen it. No idea how long it’ll take to put in though.

As an aside, we also saw The Cabin In The Woods last night. Also 3/5. Would have given it more apart from the gaping plot holes, although it was funny and shocking at the same time.

Home is where…?

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According to the adage, home is where the heart is. But can your heart be in more than one place at once?

I was born in Aldershot, but only have hazy memories of the place. After moving around the area for a few years (my parents had various pubs), we moved to Howden for good when I was five. Howden’s a village in East Yorkshire where my mum grew up and my maternal grandparents still live. Although we moved to the neighbouring town of Goole on my tenth birthday, my heart stayed in Howden, and it’s always where I tell people I’m originally from.

Barry’s from Northern Ireland, and if we’re going back there, he says he’s going home (but then he also says we’re going home on the way back!).

Does it have something to do with the house in which you grew up? I was studying abroad when my parents sold the house in Goole, and felt untethered since then really: it’s no longer my home. I suppose when you have children, you truly make a home of your own and hope that they always regard it as such.

Now we live in a village in the suburbs of Bradford, but if we’re abroad we say “near Leeds”. Naughty, I know, but we’re between the two cities so I think we get away with it. I took this photo of Bradford city hall last week, and it actually looks great.

But is it where my heart is? I can’t imagine growing old here. If work wasn’t an issue (i.e., if we won the lottery), I’d move straight back to East Yorkshire – Howden if possible! Barry can come too, if he wants.