2014 - New Rules to Live By

Pennydropped

Second coat of paint is on. It looks great. I cannot believe how different the room looks with a little bit of colour.

I've also painted a contrasting colour on the center wooden strips of my patio table, as the children wanted more colour than just white on the table. I wasn't fussed what colour the table was, as long as it looked neat and clean, so I have made them quite happy by painting the center of the table top a bright sparkly blue. That colour matches our umbrella (parasol? whatever it's called!) for the table, so it seemed the best choice. I used a tester pot that I already had at home, so it cost me a total of £0. I like that. :rotfl:

Next is the wallpaper! I cannot wait to see how that looks!!

Pennydropped

Wallpaper is up on one side of the fireplace. Tomorrow it will go up on the other side. It will involve dismantling and taking down a shelf as well as moving a huge television stand and television. But the side that is done looks brilliant!


I'll be putting painted moulding up around the room where the wall meets the ceiling, and replacing the skirting board as it's in poor shape. So my next trip to B&Q will involve a saw, a mitre box, and a trip through the moulding/skirting board stuff.


I made some decorative bunting for the fireplace, using old shirt material that fits in with my colour scheme. It gives the fireplace a bit of colour. And I've purchased a wing chair from the furniture recycling place for £15. It's really nice, but needs the material replaced (as it's a bright orange!), but I can do that myself.


Slowly but surely, the living room is getting closer and closer to done!!

Pennydropped

While preparing the second wall for the wallpaper, a couple of big chunks of plaster literally fell off! So I'll be filling those spots on Monday, most likely sanding them down on Tuesday, and if possible, putting up the wallpaper after that. I was SO CLOSE to getting the wallpaper up!! That's okay, almost done still. The wallpapered wall really changes the look of the room - very "country cottage" feel to it, so I'm quite pleased with that.


I also have to take a shelf down on that wall (was getting ready to do that when the plaster fell), but I suspect that my ex put it up not only with screws, but with No More Nails. So I'm going to take that shelf down before I start filling the plaster, just in case more plaster comes down from the shelf removal. Might as well be prepared.


Just a little bit more and the entire downstairs portion of the bannister will be sanded. Then I will start working on the upstairs section. It's not nearly as large a job as the downstairs was, thank goodness!


I won some John Lewis vouchers this week. £200 worth!! What a great thing to win!! And I've spent about £150 of them. But I used them to buy birthday gifts, make a start on some Christmas presents (which I've now put away), and a huge grocery shop at Waitrose (their essentials range is actually quite reasonably priced) and stocked up on meat that was on sale (now tucked away in freezer) and items with longer shelf life for over the summer holidays (cereal, tuna, baking goods, and so on). This means that my summer grocery shops will basically be milk, bread, and some fresh things like eggs and fruit. I've bought a fair bit of veg, which will be chopped up and bagged to put in the freezer (courgette, onion, mushroom, and peppers for example will be roughly chopped and put in serving size bags for cooking together).


I was a bit nervous to just take that huge whack off the vouchers, as I'd considered buying a large item (Wii U) that the children have been asking about for Christmas. After much thought, I felt that it would be wiser to take care of immediate expenses as a priority (stocking up for summer, paying for birthday gifts which are coming up) and just using a small amount towards Christmas. It was nice to be able to take advantage of a few sales in that regard.


The £50 I have left will go towards a shopping delivery from Waitrose mid to late August, as I also have a voucher code that I can use with it for £15 off my first grocery shop online there. So then I can do a bit of stocking up prior to school starting for winter (soups, tuna, laundry detergent, washing up liquid, things like that).

Pennydropped

I have decided I am going to "skim" my current account to save. Every day for the next 30 days, I am going to check my bank balance and move a small amount over into my savings. I figure generally under a fiver, possibly a teeny bit more. About what I'd pay for coffee out or 2 happy meals at McD's for the kids on a lazy day. A couple pounds when I walk somewhere instead of taking the car - that'll cover the difference in petrol or a fiver if I walk somewhere I'd normally have to pay to park. If I make do with what's in the cupboards for a few meals, then I could save the tenner I might have spent at the supermarket stocking up when I didn't really need to.


So starting out my 30 day skim, today I moved £4 over to my savings. It's not a huge amount. But I'm figuring that even if I moved just that much every single day for 30 days, I'd have £120 in savings without really doing much. I'm hoping that as I see the total climbing a bit, then it'll inspire me to do more. So I'm putting my goal at £100 for the month, as I know there may be some days where I can't put in £4. And then next month, I'll move my goal up to £120.

Pennydropped

Only £1 today for my skim. I have to leave enough money in my account to cover a few small bills that are due to come in, as the last thing I want is to go overdrawn!!


Today is a no spend day anyway. I have tons of things to do around the house and I am going to be moving some furniture around.


Ds1's desk is being moved to Ds2's room. My desk is being moved to Ds1's room. I will no longer have a desk, but I've been doing my paperwork at the table lately anyway, so it's not a problem for me. It actually forces me to tidy up afterwards, as I don't like the table piled up with paperwork.


It also means more space in my room! I'm looking forward to buying a new bed eventually - a double bed, whereas the one I have now is massive and takes up far too much space. Bigger beds are not necessarily better. They're quite greedy - they take up space, the mattresses are more expensive, the sheets are more expensive. I saw a very cool pinterest pin recently that had a bed frame that was made into a bench. I'm seriously considering doing this, as I'd like a nice bench for the garden. I figure the worst that can happen is I mess it up, right? The bed is broken (a few of the wooden slats broken), so I was going to take it to the tip. This will save me a trip to the tip, plus possibly a nice bench out of it. So that's a project I will line up for September when the dcs are back in school.


A side project I'll be starting? Operation Shred. The "to be shredded" pile is getting large and I just don't ever have the time to sit and burn stuff in the chiminea anymore. So I need to dig out my "shredding scissors" and do some shredding in the evenings while I'm watching a film. Busy work, I guess. I wanted to buy a shredder, but with very little effort for a short time each evening I can get it all done and then just keep on top of it by doing it as it comes in. (something I really need to be less lax about!)

Pennydropped

Still skimming from my current to my savings. Up to £17 now, so going along swimmingly.


It has occurred to me that it is almost August. As I sit sweltering in the heat (actually it's not too bad, as I have ceiling fans!), I realise that winter prep work needs to be started soon. Maybe sitting down, making my winter prep list will make me feel cooler! Worth a try, right? So that's the plan this week - get my winter prep list written up so that by the first of August I have a game plan.


Included in that winter prep list will be my "school supplies" list. I am not one to feel that the children need brand new uniforms every autumn. As long as they are going to the same school, and their uniforms are neat, clean, and serviceable, they will use the same uniforms as last year. This means that mainly I will only need to buy trousers, shoes, and socks for both boys, and a new backpack for ds1. The shirts and jumpers appear to be fine. Trousers and shoes are because those silly boys grew - the nerve, eh? And socks - well, I'm not sure how they manage it, but most of their socks seem to have holes in them. I'd darn them (and have actually done so in the past) but even with the neatest job, both boys have sensory problems and it just doesn't seem to be comfortable. One might say I'm not doing that great a job (and one might be correct lol), but if I have to splash out regularly on new uniform replacement items, I'd have to say socks is a reasonably inexpensive choice, so I'll not complain.

Pennydropped

I've painted my stairs. White gloss paint. Looks amazing. Did it on a whim today as I was agitated and needed something to do. I did have to constantly reroute the children away from the staircase. What is it about wet paint that fascinates them and makes them want to touch it??


I know I was going to carpet it, but money being what it is, I actually HAD the paint on hand already, plenty to do the job. So basically it was free, as it was leftover paint from something else. I'm browsing through carpet treads online to find a nice reasonably priced set that I can put on the stairs to dress it up a bit and make the stairs warm and slip proof for little feet.


I couldn't believe how fast the painting went!! Another coat to do, and it'll be done. Then I'll be able to order the carpet treads and put those on myself. Cheaper than the carpet, will look just as nice, and I can put it in myself, rather than paying someone else to do it. Win-win!

Pennydropped

Today it's all about the fireplace.


I've already discovered a useful feature of whitewashing the fireplace. Last night while sitting on the sofa, I happened to glance over at the fireplace to see a huge black spider scuttling from inside the chimney, right across that big white fireplace. Normally, it'd be hard to spot on a dark fireplace with a black sooty interior. Not so with a white interior! Score!! I am sorry to say that the black spider is no more. Bes and such I will happily wave outside. And if the spider is near the door or window I will scotch it outside if I can. But those big nasty looking fast spiders? Sorry, they're toast. <shudder> Although I am considering parting with £9.99 at Lakeland to get a spider-sucker-upper that catches them so you can then pop them outside. Worth a thought anyway. (for all you spider lovers out there - see? I'm not utterly heartless!)


I've noticed black soot tumbling down here and there from the chimney. It's either the wind (?) dislodging it or the neighbour's resident chimney bird (long story). I'm not really sure which. I'm not even sure if it's normal to have soot dropping down here and there. But it's frustrating to put a nice candle decoration on top of the little "fake" woodburner and within 24 hours, it's half covered with sprinkles of soot. Is this normal? This is the first time I've had an open fireplace, so I couldn't really say.


I'm looking forward to the decorating challenge of the fireplace this Christmas. I've prowled Pinterest, looked through old magazines, and browsed craft blogs. Too many ideas and just one fireplace!

DawnW

Hi,
I have enjoyed reading your thread, and really admire your positive can-do attitude

If you have soot falling down your chimney it indicates that it will want sweeping. It is dangerous to light a fire in it until this is done (though an electric fire in there is obviously ok but the falling soot will be a messy nuisance, especially as you have just decorated).

Take care xx

Pennydropped

I've had it swept in November and council has come to check it twice. There's only been 1 fire in it in the last year, and that was at Christmas, when it smoked up my room - which was AFTER the sweep came and cleaned it. I may have to ring a different sweep to clean it, perhaps the previous one did a bad job. I only have an electric fire at present, due to the council not being able to figure out why it makes my bedroom smoky.


ETA: I hadn't really been using it and still had it swept in November as I was hoping to have a few fires in it in December. Over the last 2 years, I think it's had a total of maybe 4-5 fires in it - all but 1 were well over a year and a half ago. It never smoked my room up until the one in December.