A blissful home - mortgage_girl's MF diary

mortgage_girl

Well the holidays are here! :j:j:j ...Well actually I'm already a week into the holidays but last week seemed to pass by in a bit of a haze of feeling under the weather and getting organised with a few garden jobs and some eb@y listing...I even went into work for a few hours to get a few jobs done. I also had the new fireplace delivered and I bought myself a new (well, reconditioned) laptop as my old one takes forever to start up and I'm convinced that it's going to go to laptop heaven pretty soon.

I'm feeling so much better this week and looking forward to the rest of the summer holidays. I've been digging up raspberry canes today as they seem to have taken over the flower beds. I've also arranged for the chimney sweep to come round tomorrow so that everything's ready for the builder sto begin work - hopefully he'll have fitted the fireplace by the end of the week. :jI've also decided to go ahead and decorate the dining room now that I've sold the furniture. My gf has prepped the walls and skirting boards so I just need to buy the paper and the paint and we're ready to go. I've decided to go for a Sm3g electric wall fire as the room can be a bit cool and it'll be a nice feature. It was a bit over-priced compared to other fires but I did a bit of looking around and managed to get £80 off. It's been delivered later this week and the builder has agreed to fit it and channel the wiring through the wall. I'm really excited about getting it all done now. It's been costly and has meant that I haven't been able to make my usual op's but I've lived with the rooms as they are for 10 years now and once it's done then that'll be it for home renovations until I get the kitchen extended in a few years time.

In non-housey news, I've been going for a run in the morning and absolutely love it. It's so lovely to take in the coast views and have the sea front virtually to myself. I've also been getting back into batch cooking and am trying to use up lots of surplus goodies that have been lurking in my cupboards for far too long. I'm currently making my own muesli from oats and my stash of dried fruit - it's surprisingly yummy. Ooh and I almost forgot to mention - I've submitted my final essay for my course, so now it's over! :j It has been such hard work trying to complete it alongside working full-time and I didn't realise how much it had taken it's toll on me until I finally stopped last week, but now it's done and I'm hoping not to have to work quite as much on an evening next year.

So that's it really. I've got a few more expenses coming my way but I'm going to do what I can to make a few little op's where I can. And apart from that I'm going to make sure that I find plenty of time to unwind and relax this holiday.

MGx

cookie9

Hope the decorating is going well.

mortgage_girl

Thanks for stopping by cookie. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to come online. The past week has consisted of lots of multi-tasking - I've sorted out lots of 'treasures' to sell so have gradually been listing those on eb@y, I've weeded the flower bed and cut the triffid hedge (!), the chimney has been swept and the fireplace has been fitted - it looks fabulous, I'm so happy with it. I've also had another trip to BnQ for some more paint and wallpaper and came back £160 poorer :eek: it was all essential stuff though. Today I've been busy coating the plasterwork ready for papering and my gf has been busy painting the dining room walls. Tomorrow we're going carpet shopping and I'm going to start sanding the living room walls ready for painting - oh and I'm hopefully selling my old chicken coop so that'll be a few more pennies to go towards the decorating funds.
So yes, it's been quite a busy week - I don't know how I ever find the time to go to work - thank goodness for holidays!:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

MGx

BookWorm

Hello MG

You sound like you are having a super productive break- decorating is going great guns! Also glad to see that I'm not the only one being spendy

Hope you are managing to have plenty of fun and chill time in between though.

Hugs BW x

Moneyfordreams

I seem to be spending on our home too.... still I think cost effectively, we need to love the homes we work so hard for

mortgage_girl

Thanks for stopping by BW and Moneyfordreams. I've finally managed to get some time to visit MSE land, not that I've done much money saving recently- this decorating lark keeps expanding. Not only has it gone from just doing the living room to doing the dining room aswell but our search for a dining table expanded into getting a brand new sideboard and bookshelf...and then a tv stand and nest of tables too. :eek: And despite doing all the painting ourselves we decided to get someone to wallpaper the feature walls as we just didn't feel confident in tackling ourselves, especially with it being expensive patterned paper. However, we discovered that we'd bought far too much paper and with a tin of paint I ended up getting a £70 refund from BnQ which I'm sure wouldn't have happened if we'd have tried to paper the walls ourselves...so that almost covered the cost of the decorator.

The carpets were fitted on Friday and the furniture is being delivered this Thursday so all being well it'll almost be finished before I go back to work.All we're waiting for is the sofas being delivered in September. I'm shattered (and skint!) but it's been well worth it and I'd have rather have spent my money on tackling these two rooms than a fancy holiday - they look fab!

I sold the old chicken coop and have managed to sell quite a few bits on eB@y (I can't believe what people will buy!) so the extra money is going towards the decorating costs. I'll also have to cut down on my mortgage op's for a few months to recouperate my saving stash and pay off the credit card.

Anyway, for the past 5 weeks all I seem to have done is eat, sleep and breathed decorating so I'm looking forward to a bit of chill time during the final week of my hols. The trouble is that I keep finding more and more stuff to list on eB@y...I'm sure I'll be a minimalist by the time I've finished!:rotfl:
MGx

BookWorm

Hello MG lovely to 'see you'. You have been busy - sounds great though. I'm sure you will be thrilled with it when you are finished too.
Hope you have a lovely last week of the hols x

mortgage_girl

Lovely to 'see you' too, BW. I literally haven't had a minute to log on which is a bit ironic considering I've had 5 weeks worth of holidays! It's amazing how much the decorating has taken over. Nearly done now, thank goodness. I had a mini meltdown last Thursday as I was just so fed up of my house been upside down - the only 'chaos free' rooms were my bedroom and the bathroom. Really looking forward to getting back to normality. I've already started a 'to do' list for next week but need to make sure I have some quiet time too as I am feeling a bit drained at the moment - have some quiet birthday family time planned for Tuesday which will be nice, it will also mark a year since my grandad passed away - the time seems to have flown by.

Tonight I have listed another 5 items on eB@y as I just need to keep things ticking over / declutter. And now I think I'm going to get tucked up in bed and read for a bit.

MGx

BookWorm

Definitely take some time for yourself hun. Hugs x

BookWorm

Hellooooooo - anyone home?

Hope that your return to school hasn't been too busy/difficult/etc

Hugs BW x