First-time house renovation

typeractive

Nice one! Congratulations to everyone. Well done mum and baby

spirit

congratulations to the new parents from me too :beer:

..and you thought that DIY was tricky :rotfl::rotfl: you aint seen nothin yet.

Glad baby Oliver is here with you now and all is well. :T

andrew-b

Thanks everyone! Docs let Oliver come home Wednesday lunchtime so we are all home now. Great relief to finally get out of the hospital.

The dog seems good with him and has had a good sniff (i'd already let him sniff worn baby clothes a few days earlier!) and licked the back of his head - when they are in the same room dog is ok...when they are in different rooms dog wants to be where baby is.

Spent hours last night trying to work out how the hell to put the seat liner in the buggy...so far it's taken 3 of us and not one of us has managed to comprehend the instructions or come close to getting the harness attached properly..so father-in-law has taken it to the shop to get them to show us. Still at least i've gained some space back in the shed where we'd been storing it!

First night was pretty good and baby had to be woken for his feeds. Today i've even found time for housework. We can't go anywhere though as OH has to wait about 6 weeks before she's allowed to drive.

Still i will of course be encouraging DIY from an early age...6 days old is probably a bit early to train up my apprentice (can't believe his nearly a week old already - guess it won't be long before his renovating his own house lol)!

TomsMom

Nice to hear from you New Daddy Andy! It must be wonderful to be home and be a proper family now. Good to hear the pupster has taken to baby so well. Good luck with the buggy liner - it was so much simpler when I had mine 40 years ago, you just had to decide what colour pram you wanted, all very much a muchness then. Mind you, it was at the time when prams (much larger then) were safe to leave outside and of course that's not so these days.

Take time to enjoy Oliver, the DIY can wait a bit longer!

ukmaggie45

Andy, so glad to hear that you are all safely home together. :T

andrew-b wrote: »

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Still i will of course be encouraging DIY from an early age...6 days old is probably a bit early to train up my apprentice (can't believe his nearly a week old already - guess it won't be long before his renovating his own house lol)!

You mean you haven't given him a screwdriver to play with yet? :eek: :rotfl: Though have to admit haven't yet given the twins forks and trowels to play with yet, so maybe I shouldn't nag!

But you're right about it won't be long before he's renovating his own house. We prob wouldn't be doing our renovation if DD2 hadn't been able to recommend a builder from their extension and renovation!

OH went round to house earlier to check on some currant bushes that arrived last week and we left out on the patio (very windy here today) and has propped them up somewhere in garden where they won't blow over again. Found some work in progress on the gas fire.

Flue for gas fire by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Cowl going onto flue by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Back of house from lawn by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Might be more photos later if I can persuade him to go back... Can't wait to see the fire in place!

latecomer

andrew-b wrote: »

Just popping in to say my son Oliver was born late night Friday 7lb6oz

Congratulations :beer:

Glad to hear everyone is well despite the rather traumatic events (brings back lots of memories!)

stolt

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

renovation!

Maggie, has your next door neighbour got there upstairs window upside down??????:):)

ukmaggie45

stolt wrote: »

Maggie, has your next door neighbour got there upstairs window upside down??????:):)

It does look odd doesn't it! It's for fire regulations - means of escape. If they were at the top she couldn't get to them (in her late 80s). We went for the same set up as was there before (though were single glazed), top light opening in middle window, and the two side ones fully opening... Only thing that worries me is the proximity of neighbour's boiler outlet about a foot from our windows. I believe that it should have some sort of flue from it to take fumes away from our windows. Not a lot we can do about it though.

stolt

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

It does look odd doesn't it! It's for fire regulations - means of escape. If they were at the top she couldn't get to them (in her late 80s). We went for the same set up as was there before (though were single glazed), top light opening in middle window, and the two side ones fully opening... Only thing that worries me is the proximity of neighbour's boiler outlet about a foot from our windows. I believe that it should have some sort of flue from it to take fumes away from our windows. Not a lot we can do about it though.

oh i see, I wonder how a woman in her 80's is going to squeeze through that! lol


got you perhaps but up a stainless steel shield that projects out a little, funnily enough its something its something i need to do myself, we had a new back door put in that cheated space by opening it out..... which was in winter, now the spring has arrived.... just realised said door frame will open up and stay open about 3inches from the flue.... not good if we have put the hot water on for an hour or so and melt the upvc!!
i got up the ladder and cleaned all the gutters and soffits which the missus was really happy about as it was windy and a bit chilly plus i was soaking both of us with soapy water!!!!!!!!!!!



had a week off just gone, got so much done around the house,
painted the fences in the back garden, put some trelis up around the fence by the extension as it was a bit of weak point for people getting over from next doors front garden. I took all the tiles up from the old kitchen thought i would have to take up the dried adhesive but as we are having amtico down again they can level the floor with some latex stuff over the top so that save me a job. Took all the tiles out of the downstairs bathroom and the sink and toilet. And fixed the deaed extension roof with some rubber flashing arounf the skylight, when i peeled off the end caps it was so badly done i'm surprised it lasted as long as it did. Weather was really good monday/tuesday so spent time in the garden moving some plants about and levelling the astro turf where it had sunk in a couple of patches.
Electrician has been, cleared the old sockets from the walls in the new dinning room, and we put in a grid switch whch is like a glorified large spur switch . So ready for the windows to be fitted in acouple of weeks.


Spring has fully arrived in our garden we had some collard doves trying to nest on our sky dish, but they dont make very good nests and half of it has been left on the ground, so we made a nestbox for them but they havent gone near it!!!!:( there have been some blackbirds nesting int he ivy on our front gate the moummy blackbird has made a lovely nest out of all sorts around the garden, girls have been good aswell. at the other end t blu tits have return back to the nest box they used last year. Shame as i was going to install a wireless camera in the nestbox but they arrived earlier than i thought they would, heres a little pic of the fella...

ukmaggie45

Hi Folks, things are slowly moving on, OH has been taking photos as I've been too ill to leave the house for over a week now.

Last week they installed the gas fire, but I wasn't too pleased when I saw the photos!


Gas fire by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Having spent over £1000 on a feature fire I didn't want the switch for it directly underneath it! :eek: OH got onto builder, and they went and had a look at it to check that the wire to the switch was long enough to reach to the side of the chimney breast. Fortunately it was, so yesterday they re-positioned it.


gas fire switch repositioned by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

Rest of the doors have gone in now too, and kitchen plinths are finished too. Kitchen fitter has sorted out the water to kitchen and utility, so we finally have hot water at the sinks! :j


Master bedroom door and second bedroom door by ukmaggie45, on Flickr


Kitchen from door by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

This morning builder was going in early to replace top step to landing before carpet fitters arrive to lay underlay. They'll lay the carpets tomorrow.

Have a ton of stuff to do in the garden - have 42 plug plants of lavender that need to be potted on, and some lobelia too. The garlic is coming along a treat, as are the shallots. But need weeding! Might try and get a bath in a bit and see how I feel after that. Might get to the house this afternoon or evening and do a bit of gentle potting on if I don't feel too weak and feeble after the effort of getting clean! :eek:


Garlic and shallots by ukmaggie45, on Flickr

We've bought 3 climbing/rambling roses (The New Dawn) that we're hoping to plant against the netting at the bottom of the garden. I ordered them from Crocus (got 20% off from Gardeners World magazine :money: ). We have one of these at the caravan, and it seems to be doing pretty well there, once we managed to discourage the rabbits sufficiently for it to have a chance!

There's a lot of ivy needs to be cleared first, so we'll see. Have another patch in mind for one of them if we can only get 2 in by the netting. I have to say that I am very pleased with the quality of the plants, lots of shoots coming. :j They are in decent sized pots too, so we don't have to rush to plant them - OH is still pretty weak after the virus we've both had, so doesn't really feel up to doing a lot of digging and chopping right now. Hopefully we'll both improve over the next few days.

I'm so looking forward to the carpets going in, as we can start moving some stuff over then! :beer: