Daydream thread... without the rose-tinted specs

rhiwfield

Choille, I'm tempted to take a piccy of our "dining room" to let you know you're not alone . 8 weeks since our last auction buys and still loads of clutter despite good sales. But it's clear that selling the stuff piecemeal brings in lots more than a big clear out, against which it's gloriously cathartic to take a car full to auction (or tip or charity shop).

Up in M/c DW & DD1 have been clearing out MIL's house, ripping up some disgusting carpets, getting rid of the stairlift. I'm dreading what theyll bring back and want me to sell.

choille

Things is if you have stuff listed & it sells you sort of have to have an idea about where the stuff is - so you have to have it about, sometimes it's difficult remembering where I've put things. I've started putting stuff in the house build which is a bit not on.

phoebe1989seb

I totally sympathise with those Daydreamers living in caravans whilst their work is ongoing, yet in a way I wish we had opted for that route. We bought our house as a *half finished project* as it had been re-thatched and had a new oil heating system, plus replacement joists/floors, but the reality was far less ideal......no kitchen, basic bathing facilities, electrics upstairs only etc and that's without going into the delights of the collapsing boiler room

We moved in with the contents of a six bedroom house and three cats, with the intention of doing most of the work ourselves over a five year period, yet I feel we would have been far better to have put our stuff into storage and moved into a static. Better still we should have camped out at my parents' house and maybe we could have prevented them both having to go into a nursing home after my dad developed Vascular Dementia (mum already had Alzheimer's).

Either way, it would have been much easier to get on with the work without so much stuff all over the place Add to that DH's eBay business with stock spilling out over every surface and more recently the influx of boxes from the sale of my parents' house........we have rooms where it's virtually impossible to get over the threshold!

We have the sanitary ware for two shower rooms being delivered tomorrow and I despair over where we're going to put it till the plumbers are ready to install

I know that [STRIKE]we[/STRIKE] I would soon tire of life in a caravan and the Winter months would be no fun, but sometimes, just sometimes I doubt my own sanity in opting to live on a building site......

Well done to everyone for having the courage of their convictions to take on these projects and see them through to the bitter end :T

Edited to add - lucielle, glad your DS is ok x

COOLTRIKERCHICK

morning all:j

Luceille, so sorry to hear the news... Rummer, reading between the lines, you really do nee to take things easy, I know you are trying to get things ready, and in order for when rumlet arrives, but you really do need to pace yourself..If little rumlet is going to be here a bit earlier than expected, for what ever reason.. you need to be ready health wise too..

Well I have sold one thing on the bay since starting to list again yesterday:T out of the £2.36 profit after taking all expenses away.. might be able to buy a very small pack of nails for the ranch:D.

rozeepozee

choille wrote: »

We are no where near ready to choose finishes either, but we are doing the concrete Rayburn hearth.

I just want a roof on so am playing with thoughts as it is the only thing that is keeping me sane at the mo - I just am so weary of the thought of yet another Winter in the caravan - our 6th!

Choille, you really have my sympathies. I thought a second was bad enough!

We have to decide on the flooring for the utility room because it needs to be laid before cylinders are installed for hot water etc. the others will have to wait - because we've no cash for them!

Phoebe: we had the same dilemma. The house we bought was liveable, but the thought of trying to live in half the house whilst work went on around us. Not attractive when you have three pre-schoolers. On the whole, I try to treat caravan living as an extended camping adventure, but after 18 months, it's wearing thin. The worst things are no storage, what we can store is damp and the kids can get into everything now, so they're constantly exploring and emptying out the cupboards! One twin emptied out my expensive face powder all over herself the other night. No laughing matter.

The chooks are really cheering. We can watch them from the "deck" of the caravan. The Seabastopols are gorgeous! Such gentle giants.

Lucielle, good sleep is a human right. Don't feel guilty about a mattress buy. It sounds like it will dramatically improve your sense of well being.

Davesnave

Gosh, you did have a day of it, lucielle! :eek: Glad DS is ok anyway.:)

Yesterday, I spent time trying to stop water coming into the big barn at the back door, which is half way along it. The barn is at the bottom of our sloping garden, but the goons who built it didn't consider where the ground water would go! Consequently, it used to flood a bit (only to a depth of about 1") in two of the interior 'rooms,' but work I did digging a ditch last winter cured that. It still has a little pool around the door though, which is puzzling, as the floor seems well above the water in the ditch! Artesian pressure???? :huh:

Anyway, I started digging a ditch going along the foundations in the other direction from the doorway, hopefully to take more water around the other end of the barn. It will just drain into the yard, which, in turn, drains into the thatcher's yard! :rotfl:

Hopefully I will finish that ditch off today.

Eventually, I think we will make new drains for the barn and maybe run these where the land drained in the past, in the gap between the thatcher's two barns. There's some kind of sump there which re-emerges on someone else's land as a pipe which discharges into the stream.....

I think the lesson is, don't mess with drainage that's been there a long time by just building over it!

Davesnave

Choille you have great fortitude and faith. :A.... But it will all be worth it in the end. :D:D

We haven't moved as quickly as we might have done if we'd been uncomfortable, though now stuff like the two jerry-built conservatories are showing premature signs of ageing, we'll need to get on with it soon. Like rhiwfield, I hate destroying things that are functional, but it gets easier when you think they might just fall down!

Unfortunately, I can't see our build starting in the spring, as we'll not have a static in place or the doors on the big barn unless some kind of miracle happens over winter.

Nevertheless, I've my own programme to follow anyway, like getting all the trees planted that are currently in nursery rows, right where the static would go. It's the only place that's 'within the curtilage,' both reasonably dry and level and not totally out of place once the building is finished. ('cos we hope to just leave it there!:D)

Hope you feel better today Rummer.

lostinrates

The clearview is being overhauled this morning. Wish us luck.

I'm going to show him my dodgy ebay purchase one too and ask if there is any hope. What was I thinking!?

I remember thinkipng I could not do what choille is doing only because I couldn't cope without the hot bath.

We now realise we'll be unlikely to have a working bath by Christmas. This summer has been a bloody pants one, and mainly because I've been out of loop and not driving anything. Yesterday I was in bed and the electrician turned up...I didn't know he was coming and he needed my room for loft access....I am just so out of things ATM. .

Anyway, its the electrics finished for this year.

I hate, hate, hate heating people of all description and if we ever build I shall build like Romans and factor in enough money for staff to man fires underneath. Simple.

Rummer

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Rummer, reading between the lines, you really do nee to take things easy, I know you are trying to get things ready, and in order for when rumlet arrives, but you really do need to pace yourself..If little rumlet is going to be here a bit earlier than expected, for what ever reason.. you need to be ready health wise too..

CTC I have been so unwell that I have been unable to do anything for the last while other than direct my beloved from the couch Mercifully he has sensed the urgency of our situation and is quite motivated.

My full sympathy to those living on/in building sites I find it stress inducing enough just decorating part of the house so I can't imagine how hard it would be to have work going on longterm.

rhiwfield

lostinrates wrote: »

The clearview is being overhauled this morning. Wish us luck.

I hate, hate, hate heating people of all description and if we ever build I shall build like Romans and factor in enough money for staff to man fires underneath. Simple.

I think you've been unlucky Lir, not all heating engineers are rogues.

We should get the rear firebrick for our woodburner delivered today, the old one is cracked and just usable. I'll take careful note of the dismantling sequence so that hopefully I can put it back right

I think the storm showed how vulnerable we all can be to floods and weather mishaps, including the poor girl who was killed living in a caravan while their house was built. I fully expect the weather to test us more and more, exposing construction deficiences and weaknesses that have held up until now.

If I had the money, and the energy, I'd want to invest part of it in energy/heating systems that largely did away with fossil fuel use (and that wouldnt include a woodchip boiler :eek:) The rest I'd spend on a handyman gardener and a cleaner so that we could get the jobs done that are falling by the wayside