First-time house renovation

latecomer

@stolt - just watch in case the gate valve doesn't shut off properly as you then get water coming through anyway albeit not at the same rate.
@Anbyb - although I'd be the first to say its rather hard work at times, nothing comes close to the whole experience.

Not a lot doing here - working too hard and not seeing enough of family. Got moved into new sitting room and OH thinks its great as she can be in kitchen with LLC in playpen in sitting room so they are still in sight of each other. Definitely one of the best decisions we made with the house.

Off on holidays for 2 weeks on friday - cant wait as we both desperately need a break. Hopefully LLC will be chilled out too

Right I suppose I'd better think about some sleep if I'm going to be work at my normal time of 8am ......

ukmaggie45

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

Maggie hasn't been around for a long time; I wonder if she is busy moving in? I think I'm almost getting there - six months, and I expected less than three.

Moving in? :eek: Not for a while yet I suspect! Things are happening in dribs and drabs and house is beginning to look more and more like a real house and less like a building site. But don't talk to me about doors and door handles! :eek: Meeting builder to discuss them this afternoon - wish us luck!

Blinds Man put up most of the blinds on Monday, but forgot the roller blind for the shower room, so is hoping to get back today to finish it off. It's a blind I got in the January sales, so it's really nice of him to agree to fix it for us. Got vertical blinds across all of the front windows, and the side window in the diner area, so house actually looks as if it's inhabited now. I'll try and get pics up later - they're on the desktop downstairs and I only woke up about half an hour ago so need breakfast before trying to upload them to Flickr.

Tiles are going down in the porch today. :j Once they're in I might start off my tomato seedlings... Frost last night here, so hope the tree peony we planted on Sunday is OK. Might head for Lidl to get some fleece for it later today.

Electrician was in yesterday, cooker hood is now connected, and we can get Kitchen Man in to commission the various stuff in the kitchen and tell us how to work the oven etc. I forgot to look if the extractor fan has been fitted in the kitchen, so will check that this afternoon. OH says the cooker hood looks like the Hubble Space Telescope.


Hubble space telescope cooker hood by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Here's the run of units in the diner.


Kitchen storage with lights by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

And here's the kitchen.


Kitchen by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Granite is installed in the Utility room now, Ubajuba, it's beautiful, especially when the sun shines on it.


Utility room by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Had a quote for the drive and patio last week. :eek: Hope, be prepared to be shocked when you start to look into that! We'll have to get it all done, but I think we'll leave it till we have the bill for the build in first as will need to raise more cash I think. DD2 and the twins are coming over around lunchtime today :j , then we've got builder meet and Lidl trip so it's going to be a bit busy. Might try and look at the money issues this evening if I'm not too shattered post twins visit.

LC, going anywhere nice for your holiday? Somewhere warm? Hope the three of you have a lovely restful time. Though having a babe around does tend to remove a lot of restful possibilities! The twins had a tummy bug that hung on for ages and ages, poor DD had to get used to the middle of the night comforting again. Oh, and they were teething too. I'm glad I'm a granny and not a mum these days - don't think I could cope with the nights!

OH's Mum went into hospital last week with a stroke. They discharged her on Sunday, and she seems to be doing OK, we're going over to see her tomorrow. Very little damage from what OH says - just residual weakness in one arm. She was at the physio when it happened, so physio got ambulance straight away. DD1 came up for the weekend at the last minute - originally OH was going to drive down with some of DD1s stuff and have a weekend with her, but that had to go on hold obviously.

TomsMum, do hope things are going as well as possible with TomsDad. I think of you both often. Your renovation was the one that really made me feel such things are possible, otherwise I don't think we'd have had the courage to go ahead with such a large building job! So thank you very much. :A

Eaten breakfast now, nice fry up - not very healthy, but very sustaining, if we don't get time for lunch with the twins being here we won't be desperate for food till this evening.

Diable, looking forward to pics of your sun tube - is it going in the bathroom? We've got 2 of them into the landing, it's amazing how much light they bring in.

Better quit this rambling and think about getting dressed!

andrew-b

Hopeful_5 wrote: »

Andy, just a couple of weeks! I'm getting excited myself. All the very, very best.

Argghhhhh a timely reminder (if there was a panic smiley it would be there!!)

latecomer wrote: »

@Anbyb - although I'd be the first to say its rather hard work at times, nothing comes close to the whole experience.

I'll pretend i didn't read the "hard work" bit and skip to the bit after comma for now!

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Though having a babe around does tend to remove a lot of restful possibilities!

:shhh: i didn't read that:rotfl:

Well i'm in a panic to try get as much done before baby arrives at possible...though i need to try preserve my energy too in case i don't have as long as we think! Mrs B just wants baby out now! Had another scan on monday (8th one!)...added it up and we've had 26 maternity related appointments so far! Nursery just needs a topcoat of paint on radiator and door painted now. Emulsioned the areas of plaster i'd repaired in nursery yesterday.

Going to start sorting out recesses around bedroom window this afternoon to eliminate mouldy paper. Got a can of zinsser perma white to use though i'm expecting when the paper comes off there's going to be filling to do...i'm sure the heavy blown vinyl is there for a reason!


Maggie, kitchen looks really great. If i were you i'd leave your paving for a while and concentrate on getting moved in first...then you can throw the money you'll save at having one less set of bills to save up for the paving!

latecomer

@andy - Was up to 4am in the end, although it was 3am by the time I finished work and just happened to clash with LLC not wanting to sleep.

@maggie - sorry to hear about MIL. Kitchen looks great.

We're off up north in a caravan for 10 days. Biggest concern is that there is no space to walk the floor when LLC decides not to sleep.......

ukmaggie45

latecomer wrote: »

@maggie - sorry to hear about MIL. Kitchen looks great.

We're off up north in a caravan for 10 days. Biggest concern is that there is no space to walk the floor when LLC decides not to sleep.......

Thanks - MIL is doing OK, she's got a handy man in this morning to fix some stuff, then this afternoon her chiropidist is calling. So we'll go over tomorrow, or she might come over to view the spring flowers in the garden. We'll see how she feels when the time comes.

LLC could always be shoved in his buggy and trundled round the site? Most caravans have enough space for baby walking, unless it's really tiny. We've got quite a length of corridor from back door to front room that would prob be pretty boring to walk up and down for any length of time, but hey, when you gotta do it, you gotta do it!

Finally managed to upload the pic of the house with its new blinds.


Blinds up in the house by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Blinds Man called round a bit earlier to return key and get his money, new blind is fitted in shower room, so will try and get photos when we go round later.

OH has taken the twins for a walk in the park so their poor Mum can have a little break and some lunch. They're all muffled up in snow suits, which they are delighting in chewing! :rotfl: So we'll all be off to the house when they've had their next feed. Must admit I'd forgotten how frequently babes need feeding when they're little!

latecomer

Its a small site and just has tracks for most of it so its not like a nice smooth tarcmac path for pushing the pram round. Still I'm sure we'll manage

Blinds (and in fact the house!) look great.

Talking of feeding we've started on solids (well mushed solids) and while its meant to improve sleeping, we're sure its got worse. Could be a coincidence but ........

stolt

evening everyone, managed to get a fair bit of stuff done today especially as i didnt start until about midday.

Had the window company in to fit a new back door, (excuse the blue electrical tape holding the burglar alarm contacts, waiting for some nice clean ones to turn up from ebay.

Changed the room stat in the hallway, nothing wrong with the old one but this one imo looks better. touch screen too, oh get me!!!

Changed the warm up wall thermostat as the company that fitted it i think overloaded the stat and it wasnt working automatically, just spent 30mins programming it so i hope that all works now.

Also changed the boiler programmer, gonna get the electrician to move all the spur switches in the utility room, inc the boiler programmer when he comes round.

tomorrow off to pick up the dowstairs loo that was in the sale, still got to get plumbing done in downstairs toilet and take the tiles off the wall, oh and floor tiles in old kitchen and downstairs toilet need to come up...

Needa plasterer to look at the walls to see if what ive done is caused more work might be easier just to reboard the room then plaster rather than try reboard the gaps an plaster.

andrew-b

Slipped to page 9 ...must all be busy!

Just a quicky update ..plodding on with the bedroom window recesses that were mouldy. Cut back the paper to the rounded edges of the window recess around the bay window (paper was more mouldy on the back than was visible), refitted curtain rail as the plastic plasterboard fixers the previous owner had used weren't upto the job and were straining under new curtains. Then i've spent ages scraping back paint around the two arched windows at the side of the bedroom. Put on lots of filler yesterday all around the arched windows and then sanded it back down. Today taken the curtain rail back down and just filled around the bay window and waiting for it to dry so i can sand it down again.

On the baby news.....we are going in first thing monday morning for labour to be induced (week 38) ..just routine for the gestational diabetes so all ok otherwise. So there's a mixture of excitement and anxious going on mixed with panic to be ready! Could take anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days. So I need to get around the windows in the bedroom finished this weekend. The painting of the doors will have to wait now!

TomsMom

Oooh Andy, not long now. I hope Mrs Andy's labour isn't too long and I send you both my very best wishes. Looking forward to your post saying that Baby has arrived. By the way, did you paint the nursery pink or blue :rotfl: .

andrew-b

Nice try...Ivory walls, chocolate curtains to match futon ..the colour it was as the "spare room"! We do actually know (from 7th scan!!) though can't reveal!

Today has been a bit of a frantic rush to get the bedroom window recesses painted. Took 3 coats of zinsser permawhite before the filled areas/plaster wasn't showing. Thinks it's finished though by the 3rd coat i was painting by artificial light so will find out in morning. Sunday going to take things a bit easier and intend to make the most of our last lay-in for a long time! Need to tidy away my painting gear. May clean out the car before working out how the baby car seat fits. Need to sort out my own bag (mother and baby sorted)...money, phone, snacks, drinks, lunch, camera, books, playing cards, kitchen sink etc. If OH doesn't go into labour by 8pm then they will kick me out and could call me back again in the middle of the night..so sister-in-law is staying over to ferry me about as needed. Definitely will be an early night on Sunday..though whether either of us will sleep much i'm doubtful!