EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

RelievedSheff

savingholmes said:

That energy use is low. Well done

I agree. That is remarkably low usage with electric heating. We use 2900kwh of electric and we have gas heating! 

milann

Hope you enjoy the items that insisted on accompanying you home 😂😂👍

EssexHebridean

Morning all! Well we did indeed fill up the big car yesterday - 154.9pp/l paid for diesel - which almost felt cheap after driving past 162.9 while we were out!  It was still a little over £40 for just over half a tank though. Sigh.  Realistically I'll probably take mine round via the petrol station on my way home from Lincoln on Friday to to top back up although I bet I'll be paying more than 1554.9 by that stage! 

Spent yesterday morning doing more prep on the hallways ahead of the refurb - remaining bits of hideous orange pine dado rail removed, ALL the wallpaper now off, odd fittings and fixtures removed, some lengths of cut off but painted over cable stripped out and some more gripper rods levered up. Also removed one section of skirting and discovered we were going to need a crowbar for the rest. We've got the quote for the plastering which we're content with - and once all the prep is done we'll be firing ahead with that - very exciting! we've also now borrowed a crowbar from my Dad so can get on with the final bits of gripper rod and the rest of the skirting. 

I've got a social week this week it seems - A meal out with a friend (an MSE pal originally, now very much R/L!) this evening, then the trip to Lincoln later in the week which will undoubtedly involve a trip to the pub for dinner. There's also a suggestion of a bit of a team gathering at the rugby club next Saturday but I plan to make a decision on whether to go along to that a little nearer the time depending on how my social energy levels are faring after a busy week. I've got some Clubcard vouchers changed up ready to use as at least part payment for tonight's Pizza Express jaunt, and MAY be able to use my free doughballs from the app too as long as I check I can still use the vouchers to pay for the rest. I'll hop on the tube straight from work into town, and then MrEH will pick me up from our nearest tube station when I get back this evening. 

I checked the contents of next week's veg box last night - it's a very "standard" one and I've taken the decision to skip it as realistically it would mean we'd be overpaying for a lot of very basic items, many of which we really won't need more of either at that stage. Obviously this time of year is tricky, and I'm more than happy to have the occasional basics only box but definitely don't need them too often.  I'm hoping our shopping next week should be reasonably budget friendly although I *might* get a chicken to roast for Sunday lunch as we've not done that for a while and will then get several more meals from it afterwards of course.  (I do still have a breast of lamb in the freezer though, so may well decide to make stuffing for that and have that instead. The freezer is starting to have a little more available space so I was able to begin to restock frozen veg at the weekend which came as a bit of a relief! 

Prolific is now sitting at £9.38 payable/£2.37 pending - and like a number of others I'm slightly twitchy about the cashout option being disabled at the moment.
OnePoll at 937 Points
Ipsos creeping up at 958 points

milann

It sounds as if you’re getting organised ready for the work in your hall. Mmmmm orange dado rail sounds interesting 😳
I haven’t had breast of lamb for years…..might have to do something about that 👍

EssexHebridean

The whole thing was pretty interesting when we moved in - think 1980's artex on the bottom half (in fairness, actually pretty professionally done in a decent pattern) and woodchip wallpaper above - from  memory I seem to recall the artex was painted white and the woodchip was yellow gloss painted - then the varnished pine rail around the middle....truly gruesome! 

LOVE breast of lamb - and it's such a cheap Sunday roast too! 

Right - just cashed out Prolific as I had a couple of bits paid and had already decided to do it once it went over £10. I assume whatever the issues they had over the weekend they're sorted as I was able to cash out fine. £10.87 already paid and now transferred to the Gym Neutral Fund, and signature updated! 

RelievedSheff

That has just brought back memories of our hallway in the old house. It has all been painted magnolia when we moved in but had a dado rail half way up the wall and a picture rail near the top. The bottom was plaster the middle was textured wallpaper and the top was plaster again.

When we got round to decorating it we found that the bottom section had been previously been painted a dark maroon colour, the middle a dark green and the top section a mustard yellow colour. It must have been an assault on the eyes in it's hay day

We toned it right down and put panelling on the bottom section (which was a nightmare job) which was painted a light brown, cream wallpaper in the middle section and a cream colour on the top section.

EssexHebridean

OK - for hallways, that definitely wins! Our kitchen had a grand selection of wallpaper from 1950's through to 70's when it was all ripped out - I've got a photo somewhere showing the various different bits we found as it was all stripped back! Mind you when we first moved in it was painted a sort of hospital green, apart from the tiles which had been gloss-painted dark green....it felt like being underwater and was literally the first thing we sorted out!  Favourite by miles though and STILL the winner was the front room in our rented flat - the previous tenants had decided to have a go at sponging - so they painted the walls brilliant white, then decided to sponge a bright cerise over the top. the problem was, they'd clearly never done it before, and started in the middle of the largest wall - the entire room had turned into a study on "getting slightly better at it as they went along" - by the time they got round they were making a half decent job of a truly awful idea, but the join down the middle of the wall looked shocking. It was gone by the end of the first weekend we lived there! (But we did wallpaper straight over the top - first pausing to write "this was NOT us!" on the layer underneath!) 

milann

Lol at the wallpaper stories. We had a brick pattern which wasn’t straight and I ended up tilting me head when I looked at it…..they must have had surplus paper as we found a strip in every room 😂😂

savingholmes

Love the 'this is not us'

One of the houses we bought was like that green marble sponging in the front room and a khaki sponge effect on the kitchen tiles... The rooms felt so much more restful once I'd painted over all that.

boxofpaws

I do wonder if all the garish colour combinations will come back around, and in years to come people wonder why everybody painted their walls cream or grey all those years ago.