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

EssexHebridean

It's safe to say that we've swapped a perfectly useable kitchen for an awful lot of dust... :eek::eek: Did have a slightly "what have we done" moment when I got home last night, but that was hardly surprising. About half of the demolition is done and all the stripping out. Sparky has been in there today to get started on the electrics and I've paid the first £500 across to him as well. Hoping the interest will be paid to my old ISA tomorrow - if so then I can close that and transfer the money to clear off the card for the kitchen units.

Light fitting got collected yesterday evening as that felt like a sensible thing to do.

Dinner tonight will be fish & chips - cooking in the spare room yesterday worked out OK but not easy so we'll stick with our plan to have takeaway or eat out a couple of times a week while this is happening. Must remember to keep an eye on stock levels for the tap too - make sure there are still some about as last thing we want is for that one to go out of stock too! We've settled on the slightly cheaper one as really there's not much difference between them. Trying to remember to go through TCB for absolutely everything! :rotfl:

Got a few small Prolific surveys this morning - only just over £1 all told but they were all pretty quick so that's fine. Also picked up a few on OnePoll today.

Brain's a bit frazzled to be honest - probably need to sit down with MrEH and a list this evening to run through anything else that still needs doing - not only on the kitchen but on regular "life stuff" too.

MistyMountainTop

Oh the dust!!! I had forgotten about how much there is and how it gets everywhere. It will soon be over, I hope there will be photos somewhere for nosy people like me to drool over...

EssexHebridean

Well it was even more dust-city last night Misty as the sparky who'd been told to hang a dust sheet over the kitchen door, didn't. I spent pretty much the entire evening wheezing, coughing and cleaning. Not happy, and MrEH had a fairly "to the point" conversation with Dave-The-Builder first thing this morning. Hoping today will be better.

There will be pictures on my Twitter but not at the moment (Twitter is the same username as on here, and there will be stuff going on the blog in due course too - pretty sure that's also linked from my profile on here). At the moment I'm leaving it to just written updates - will probably start putting pics up from next week.

Fish and chips last night was lush - and we ended up with large pieces of Haddock as they had no small...no extra cost. Love our chippy! Also got the last 2 stamps on our loyalty card so my next one from there will be free.

Stopped at the cashpoint this morning and took money out ready for the weekend - hoping that will see me through. I'll happily raid my "fun stuff" account for this weekend and next though.

EssexHebridean

Hey all! LOVELY weekend down in Bournemouth - I took out £50 cash and came back with £5 plus 2 x £2 coins, and only last night's meal went onto the CC so all good there! :T Also got down there and back without needing to put any more fuel in the car - aqlthough that will need doing before we head to Cornwall on Thursday.

The event we were at ran a subsidised bar so we pretty much just drank there rather than going out around the pubs etc which worked well. There will be a contribution to the food costs for the house to pay but I'm hoping that's not too much - not that much of what was bought for the weekend actually got eaten so I imagine that those down there all week will be bearing the cost of the share that wasn't. That obviously doesn't include us!

I have been spendy this morning as I've treated myself to a Fitbit Charge 2 - I've been debating about one for a while and spoke with a couple of friends using them over the weekend - their feedback convinced me. I'd promised myself that if I stuck to my increased walking etc for the first quarter of the year I'd look again at buying a tracker, so I've stuck with that - shopped around, and found the one I wanted for £99.99 at Curry's - and I went through TCB as well, natch! So I shall head along to the store this evening after work and collect my snazzy new purple tracker! :T

Transferred another lump of money to the sparky who has now completed first fix - and we assume that the builder is going to want something at some stage although he's not said as much yet. I *think* we just have the appliances still to order now - I'm just waiting for the confirmed price on the worksurface to come through as well.

Cornwall for the weekend then which will be another good break from the building site - need to transfer a chunk of money over from our fun account to cover our costs down there I think. Planning lots of free stuff and lots of limited cost stuff, and we're camping so that also helps keep costs down. :T

Scott_Weiland_2

i have seen the twitter pics it looks like you have knocked seven kinds of shhhhhhhugar out of the kitchen mind

EssexHebridean

Yep - just a bit Scott! :rotfl: I just have to keep reminding myself that it'll be amazing when it's done!

MistyMountainTop

I hope things are going smoothly - I had a look at the photos and had to laugh at the wallpaper - I'm sure my auntie must have lived in your flat at some point! Her whole place was covered in it, and she had swirly brown and green carpet that was supposed match everything but never did! It used to make me feel quite dizzy.

EssexHebridean

You should have seen the flooring Misty! :rotfl:

The DD went out for the 0% card today, so I've adjusted my signature accordingly. I'm leaving Prolific Academic to get to £20 before I withdraw, hoping that won't take too long, I've got about £13 showing at the moment. OnePoll is now at just under £18. Opinion outpost has gone to Ess Aitch 1 Tee as it keeps telling me it can't load the surveys. I thought it might be something to do with Cookies but as I use a private browsing window for it and always have, that doesn't seem logical. Annoying though. YouGov is trotting along slowly, as is Populus Live, and Power of Opinions.

Our weekend in Cornwall was ace - and it was SOOOOO nice to be away from all the dust for a few days. one of our absolute favourite campsites too - and at £12 a night, a complete bargain. We treated ourselves to Rick Stein's Fish & Chips from his chippy in Padstow on Friday night, and did lots of exploring and wandering too. Definitely didn't want to return to the chaos of the kitchen yesterday.

After the bolognese tonight I'm all out of practical, easy to prep without a kitchen meals. I'd planned for the schedule we were expecting and as that's gone completely sideways we're now left without much idea of what to do from now. Mum has run a full load of washing through her machine today for us so we'll collect that on the way home - thank goodness they are close enough to make that doable!

Main CC bill is in and I've managed to sort out the bulk of the transfers needed to it I think. I still have £1,400 of kitchen costs to take from the ISA and transfer over, and MrEH needs to sort his bits and pieces for me - then I just need to add up everything I have transferred and check it balances!

The kitchen itself is going to go over budget but will stay within the 10% contingency I think. The worktops have proved to be the budget buster at very nearly 2k but the one we've chosen is gorgeous so I'll let them off. Hoping to find some significant progress involving a floor when we get home tonight - fingers crossed...

EssexHebridean

Apologies, had a bit of an AWOL week one way and another!

The kitchen is trundling on - and I think there now may FINALLY be light at the end of what has become a rather long tunnel! for a while it looked like our planned holiday was going to be have to be scrapped - or at least that only MrEH was going to be able to go, however allowing that the delays had to happen, we have now worked them to our advantage as there has to be a delay on works in any event while the worktops are cut, so we're going to incorporate that to match our holiday, meaning that will work reasonably well, albeit I'm not looking forward to returning and STILL having no kitchen!

The appliances got ordered last week and are now sitting at home - total came to £1280 but that included a total of £75 discounts using AO codes - I did chance my arm and go through TCB as well but as expected the use of codes has prevented that tracking - I rather thought it might. I also talked my way into a price match with one item after I'd ordered it which was handy.

Tax changes have meant an additional £9 in my pay from this month which is nice - and frankly at the moment everything extra is welcome!

"extra" spends over the basic budgeted stuff for the kitchen , notably food, are ending up higher than we expected due to it taking longer. Having said that we're finding some nice meal ideas now I've finally got my head around it a bit - the camping stove enabled a really nice stir fry on T's "stir fry for a fiver" deal on Monday - and while £5 is more than I'd usually pay for a stir fry, it was extremely tasty, very quick to throw together, and we might have that occasionally in the future we think. Another success was a gorgeous couscous salad last night involving a bunch of chopped parsley, chopped fresh tomatoes, pomegranate seeds, chick peas and a good slosh of lemon juice. We crumbled reduced fat feta over the top but actually agreed that something like cashew nuts might be a better match for it. Again that will be being added to the meal plan for the future. :T

Tonight MrEH is hopefully being fed at a seminar he's presenting at, and I have a reduced price Lamb Tagine ready meal which didn't appear to be TOO horrifically high in salt...

Clothes spending also occurred at the weekend - again budgeted for though - I've been looking for new work trousers for ages and finally found a pair that fitted, and also bought the trail shoes I've been half heartedly considering for a while as I felt it would be useful to have those ahead of holiday. (I've been wearing them for general walking all week and so far I'm thrilled with them too so happy with that purchase - £24.99 so they don't break the bank either). As we were at the place where I can get them I also bought a new pair of walking socks - they're not cheap but they are extremely good so I don't resent that. There will need to be more clothes spending ongoing as I'm now at the stage where as I fit into some of the bits in my wardrobe that haven't been fitting, others seem to be "stretching" to the point of being too big to wear...I *think* this is a good thing...

Generally speaking under control.

Holiday stuff is all budgeted I think - as usual we'll use the CC for fuel and the main shopping while we're there - that will get transferred out of savings once the bill comes in. Accommodation and ferries are paid for.
Spending money is stashed aside ready to be taken out in chunks as needed.
If we end up at the village with the Harris Tweed shop I'm considering a new bag - but will wait and see what they have - that'll come from my personal money though obviously.
All good - and boy are we looking forward to two weeks "living" somewhere with a kitchen, and eating lots of REALLY tasty Hebridean produce! :T:D

lucielle

Hope you have a good holiday, I need to get my northern fix. Sadly not till September, though do have a weekend in Oban.
L