Tag: lights

Bits and bobs

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Did a few bits and bobs yesterday.  Barry put the new lights up while I cleaned the kitchen windows and then he sealed the boxed off boiler pipes with silicone and the cooker hood with liquid metal.  We also remeasured the kitchen and the living room and looked at flooring again – if we get the one we want, with cheap underlay, it looks like it will be about £750, so Barry’s investigating cheaper options!

In the meantime, I’m sewing material into some boot top covers – we’ve got fancy dress next month for Barry’s birthday, and I’m going to be (wait for it) Supergirl.  Can’t wait!

A retraction

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Following yesterday’s post, in which I explained how I was sorry for not picking up the phone to the eBay woman, I would now like to take that back.

Exhibit A is the texted conversation from yesterday morning:

The kitchen is incompatible with the plumbing, so I need to sell it.  could you offer it to the next highest bidder for me please.  many thanks

I’m sorry, but you will have to relist it.  I can’t see the next highest bidder now it’s been sold, and it was possibly different bidders for all 3 items.  Sorry unable to help.

OK.  I might just change tops and sink, so not a total disaster.

I really didn’t want to get involved in either the fact that plumbing matches the kitchen, not the other way around, or selling the kitchen to another person who could turn out to be just the same, and still be embroiled in this madness.  I’m emailing her the photos of the kitchen so she can relist it (when her computer’s back up and running), but that is it!  My part is done!

We were at a 105th birthday party yesterday (happy birthday Jaye and Carole!), so didn’t get much done, but we did nip to B&Q in the morning to buy some lights and get the right cooker hood filters (thanks once again to Jason K, who was brilliant.  Bet he loved seeing us again!).  We decided on some lights from B&Q, like the other ones I wanted, but in a circle instead of on a rod, and £10 cheaper.  They have disappeared from B&Q’s website though, we’ve got a habit of choosing lights that are about to be discontinued!

Barry’s also bought a coffee machine that lights up, very exciting!  And he oiled the main bit of the worktop so it’s really glossy and smells nice!  We also took the protective plastic off the stainless steel splashback, which is always very satisfying.

And the Lord said go forth and multiply your lights

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Or something like that.

My husband seems to have harboured a heretofore unrealised passion for lights.  Our living room previously had two ceiling lights – one over the living area, and one over the dining area.  We now have 13.  I’m not kidding.

As mentioned previously, I fell in love with the Argos lights which we’ve built our room around, and this involved changing a single chandelier-style light to two of those instead, leaving a giant hole gouged in our ceiling.

We replaced our huge red light over the living area with a Belize light from Argos, which is a lot more discreet, and will make guests feel a little less like they’re being questioned when it’s on.

Then the husband decided that he’d quite like spotlights across the back wall.  We went for these inoffensive ones from Wickes, and initially he only wanted to have five or six, but I convinced him he really meant all ten.  As it turned out, joists run across where he was drilling, and he ended up having to drill holes in between every light he put in just so he could carve a notch to hide the wiring.

We spent a weekend plastering these holes, and all of the other various dents in the walls that we hadn’t noticed until now, and I got a brief lesson in grit size of sandpaper.  That may or not have been when I took the Reader’s Digest DIY Manual to bed.

Anyway, we’ve now got the bulk of the painting done, just the edges to tidy up, and we’re pleased as punch with our choices so far.

While all this was going on, we decided to have a mosey on down to B&Q and see what the kitchen situation was.  Over Christmas, we were telling my mother-in-law how we can’t use the downstairs loo as it emits a terrible smell.  Actually, it does that whether we’ve used it or next-door-but-one uses it, I think the pipes haven’t got enough of an angle to clear the waste.  Our house is over three floors, and we currently have a toilet on each floor, but our guests are asked to use the one on the middle floor anyway, due to the building problem (yes, we complained, as have our neighbours; they cleared them once but it’s recurring and we’re wasting our breath).  She made a passing suggestion for us to knock down the walls around the loo, as well as one of the kitchen walls, to make a giant kitchen!

I’ll post separately about the kitchen situation, but the long and short of it is that we’ve bought one, but decided to fit flooring in the living room after we’ve fitted the kitchen so that it doesn’t get wrecked.  RIP to the cream living room carpet, by the way, which now looks like it’s been attacked by paint.

I’ve fallen in love with this first white flooring by Quickstep, called Elina Wenge Passionata.  I’ve seen varying prices between £11 odd and £30 per square metre, and at 24m2, plus all the extras, it’s quite expensive (to us).  Cheapest we saw it at was NCS Flooring.

Ever practical, my husband ordered samples of a similar (but not the same!) flooring, which is Quickstep Girona white chestnut.  It’s got more of a grey tinge, which doesn’t offend me as the walls are grey, but I think the white would have lifted the room more.  We’ll have to see, but I think we’ll have to go with this as it’s almost half the price!