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Almost there

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Barry’s been a busy boy (say that five times quickly after a few drinks). He’s made the box to cover the fuse box. Twice. I didn’t like the purple on white action, so he had to make another door in white.

He’s also been sawing away at the cornices and pelmets, so they’re done, and we’ve made the interesting discovery that Tipp-Ex ® is nigh on exactly the same white as our wall units. Good to know.

This means that the units are done!  The peninsula can’t be made until we’ve got the flooring in, so that’s it for now.

We’ve been comparing the flooring samples to the units; it’s definitely got to be white. For the quantity we’re wanting for the kitchen and living room, it’s of no benefit to us to get two rooms’ worth together, so we may split it into separate lots so we can at least have one room sorted. It will definitely be the kitchen first due to the concrete flooring!

We’ve also put the dining room table back up because it doesn’t look like flooring in there will be changed very soon and we’re both tired of eating off our knees in front of the TV.

You know the drill, photos below!

Ta-da!

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I spent quite a bit of time last night on my knees, doing something truly filthy. Yes, that’s right, I was cleaning the kitchen floor of wood dust.  RtJ has finished!

There are still some bits for us to finish off (cornice/pelmet), but he’s done everything we wanted him to, and he was very reasonably priced with it.

When I got home last night, we first of all had to drive to the “special” eBay woman (more on this tomorrow), which took a couple of hours out of our evening. Then, when we returned again just after 8pm, Barry spent the next two hours fitting the tap and doing the pipework under the sink.  I swept the floor and inhaled probably lethal amounts of wood dust.

Photos of the progress below…

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.

Decorator’s block

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Although this sounds like some kind of tool (let’s face it, it could be), by decorator’s block I mean the point at which you’ve had enough.

Barry’s been at it for over a month now, between the living room and the kitchen, and it looks like he’s close to having enough. It’s hard when you’re busy with a full-time job, to then come home and spend evenings and weekends doing DIY or decorating.

We’re so near the home straight now for the kitchen, we just need the joiner booking to give us a target for the few things that need doing before then.

Dressing up redux

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On the ongoing dressing table front, I’ve had a brainwave. I was firstly thinking that the black units we have in the lounge could go into our bedroom. We are already thinking of having black skirting boards, so it would pick up that theme.

I only have an old photo to hand, but what’s pictured is two units next to each other (with one stood up on its end). If you look at the unit under the TV, I was wondering if we could remove the four squares in the centre of the block of eight and make it into a dressing table with two holes at either side, holding up the top. I could then get drawers or cupboards for those – we’d need to get rid of the red drawers though, they wouldn’t go.

That would save us having to buy a dressing table, and I would have space to put all my stuff!

A brief history of abodes

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Today marks our fifth wedding anniversary – happy anniversary, honey!

We’ve actually been together more than ten years, since university, when our only source of decoration in the halls was books (his, sciences, mine, languages), posters (his, the tennis player with her bum out, mine, more embarrassingly, the Backstreet Boys) and interesting rugs (his, ratty strips of woven cloth, mine, a fluffy pink heart made of a wandering fibre that ended up on everything I owned).

We then moved to a shared house, where we had the whole top floor which had recently been renovated. Again, we had no power over what it looked like and function and utility reigned over beauty. The only painting Barry did was the bathroom ceiling, in a paint that just wouldn’t stick and turned out to have sand in it for some reason. It all peeled off.

In our third year, he worked in Peterborough while I lived in Spain and France. Spain was your typical apartment with tiled floors and airless rooms (pictured). My entire flat in France was smaller than our current bedroom. In the fourth year, we returned to (fancier) halls, in which I don’t think we even had posters or rugs.


At the end of that year, finally, we rented a house together just outside of the city which had a bit of character. The living room was on the third floor – very topsy turvy! The kitchen worktop had to be oiled regularly – I think Barry’s looking forward to doing that again. The bathroom was a horrendous aquamarine when we moved in, but we asked if we could paint it white and we were allowed.

The first house we bought was another magnolia kingdom. The couple we bought it from had lived in it for a few years and never done anything with it. Ha! we thought. Lazy buggers! We ended up painting this strip in the lounge a purply-chocolate colour, one wall in our bedroom green, a wall in our spare bedroom red, and the bathroom pink. Thus endeth our decorating of the first house.

Our current house is our second, and we nagged Barratt’s to death to get a cheaper price for it. It can be done! All of a sudden, the market will crash, and they won’t be able to give you it fast enough. That’s what happened to us, anyway. We ended up getting it for £25k less than next door, whose house is a mirror image of ours.

We fell in love immediately with the top floor when we saw the show home. It consists of our bedroom, a dressing room/nursery and ensuite. Light streams from opposite sides of the house and it feels huge and airy. The whole of the show home was very black and silver, but it did give us some excellent ideas, even if it’s taking until now to implement them (like black walls up the stairs).

As I’ve mentioned before, we’d love to have built in wardrobes, but they cost an arm and a leg. In fact, I’m not sure my arm and leg would cover the cost.

I was talking to Jules about house blindness (after the carpet discussion), and we’ve decided that once you’ve been in for a while, you just don’t see “it” any more. “It” can be the bland walls you see past, the nail pops you choose to ignore, the hideous (sorry, vintage) carpet you no longer look at. We’d been “planning” to decorate for some time before we actually started this January, but it took a shock this Christmas to actually make us get up and do something, because we needed a project to keep our minds off things.

As my friend Michelle says (and no, I’m not talking about myself in the third person), you always need a project.

Addict

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Hi, everyone. My names Michelle, and I’m addicted to eBay.

Specifically, selling our old kitchen on eBay. It doesn’t help that my iPhone alerts me every time I receive a bid – I can’t wait to see what items have shot up to. Barry’s been in London all week, and the only news I have to share is the current price of our three items and what the latest stupid questions I’ve been asked are.

I’ve been asked several times to stop the auctions and sell outside eBay, to which I respond with a polite, but firm, no. The worst one I’ve had so far was the gentleman (I use that word in the loosest sense) who insisted £40 for my oven was a good offer and I should just take it, two days after the listing started. At the time of writing, it’s already reached £112. I did have an enquiry from a lady who wanted all three items, which was unfortunate as bidding had already started, but all I could suggest was that she bid on them all.

I found myself writing strange clauses into the listings. “Please bring correct change” is one that springs to mind. The guy who came for the doors ended up owing something odd like £3.56, and brought a £20 note. We didn’t have any change, and Barry was about to just give him the doors. I suggested the man go to the shop for change and hissed at Barry that we were getting charged selling fees, so the buyer would definitely have to pay!

eBay also tells you off if you write the words “don’t bid unless…” because you’re not supposed to put people off bidding. Personally, I think “don’t bid unless you can put this kitchen back together from the photos shown as no instructions are provided” is an acceptable clause.

They all finish tomorrow, and we’ve had much more interest than we thought for the items – our main goal was to clear out the old so we could see the new, but at this rate it will pay off a hefty chunk of the joiner’s bill as well.

Bane of my life

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I don’t know what I’d do without lists – they add order to a project and allow me to better organise my actions and finances, but God, they are annoying. Sometimes, do you think it’s better to just not know everything you have to do and pay for?

Take the oven, for example. I know I’m being awkward. Barry, quite clearly, also knows I’m being awkward. It sounds simple, but I just want it in the middle of the space that’s left. I’ve included a photo, but you can’t really see, but at the moment, there’s a 9cm gap on one side, and a 5cm gap on the other. My symmetrical brain finds this aesthetically unacceptable. Because of this, Barry is going to have to replace the gas pipe (about £50 of copper piping), move the electricity switch, and all because I need it to look right. When I was about to cave, Barry refused, and said he didn’t want to hear about it for the next 20 years. The man’s right, I have the memory of an elephant.

This then has the knock-on effect of delaying when we can call the joiner to cut the worktop. We’re reaching a critical point, and I feel like I might actually scream if I go to our kitchen sink one more time before remembering that we have to wash up in the bath. Barry also needs to build the unit on the other side, sort all of the end panels and fill the (equal) gaps by the oven before we give the joiner a ring, and we expect it will be around £100-£150 for him to make the cuts and fit the worktop.

I’m sure we did have a life before the kitchen, but I can’t quite remember what we did with our time.

Weekend

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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.

Payday

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It’s felt a long time coming, but finally the best day of the month is here: payday! Can’t decide what we’re going to buy first – lights, worktop cutting, flooring. Tiles? Floorboards? Still can’t decide for the kitchen. The list goes on. Seriously, the list goes on so long we’re dedicating about three months of combined wages to it, just for what we want to do immediately!

I’m in a lottery syndicate at work and with the triple Euromillion rollover on Tuesday (which we sadly didn’t win), we were inevitably discussing what we would do with the (£4.85m each) winnings. Barry wouldn’t be finishing the kitchen himself, that’s for sure! In fact, we wouldn’t need this kitchen because I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t want to live in a semi-detached with that kind of dough. It’s another rollover tonight, and we’ll be playing again.

Imagine the house you could have with that kind of money. It blows your mind: you could actually have anything you wanted. I’m pretty happy with the kitchen choice though, so I may actually may buy it again with my imaginary winnings. We’d definitely be having an island…

I was all ready to write another ranting post about the tap situation last night. On our way to the cinema, we had a few minutes to kill, so we nipped into B&Q across the road to collect our cooker hood filters and ask about the tap. After spending more than a reasonable amount of time staring at the selection available, the only tap that matched the sink we have, other than the one we’d chosen, was just over twice the price. Our original tap was £89, and this one was £179.

We had a really nice member of staff helping us. He got a cherry picker to lift him and the new tap up, to check what it looked like next to our sink (which was inevitably 5m up, the furthest up). We all agreed it matched. Then came the hard part. As we’d already arranged finance for the rest of the kitchen, with the other outgoings we have this month, we weren’t happy to fork over the difference in cash for a supplier issue that wasn’t our fault. If we’d known when ordering that the tap we’d wanted was unavailable, we’d have picked the only other tap that matched and it would have been price matched. We offered Jason K (the lovely, patient member of staff) another option: get the tap we do want transferred from another store. I think Romford had the only remaining tap in the country. This was apparently impossible due to paperwork.

We did point out that, along with it being the only other mono brushed effect tap (I know all the lingo now), we are currently washing up in the bath, and we were the ones that had noticed the tap had been missing; we hadn’t been told before the delivery had arrived (or even with the delivery). I also pointed out several things were wrong with the order, they price-matched Wickes anyway, so if we knew the original one was out of stock we’d only have chosen this one anyway, and Barry made the observation that we’d spent quite a bit on a kitchen that we may have to return…

Jason called his manager a couple of times to explain the situation, but because she couldn’t (wouldn’t?) come down to speak to us, she couldn’t see that we weren’t just some grabbing couple who had decided to jump from a mid- to top-range tap with no reason. I felt a bit sorry for him at that point, because I know he would have just given us the tap (not just to get rid of us, he genuinely believed we had a good point).

Jason carefully wrote down our issues, and many reasons, and said he’d get back to us tomorrow. We went to the cinema (This Means War, quite funny), and when we came out, a voicemail from Jason was waiting.

He’d sorted it with the manager! Hooray for Jason! While we were in the area, we asked if we could come straight over to collect it, and so we did. It even comes with its own soft cover.

Chalk one for B&Q customer services; they should promote Jason.