Atrixa's Saving Diaries

savingwannabe

Well done on saving money and on the coving brilliant way to do up house and save money too. Leaks are such a pain i had lots when i first moved in. I hope there is an easy cheap solution. It's lovely that you are ordering nice things for the home. Stay warm it's cold. 

atrixa

Thanks all Lining paper is now on, gaps have been filled and the first coat of paint is on the coving. It's such a pain moving all the furniture around but it'll be worth it. Roofer didn't turn up on Saturday so I'll contact another one tomorrow. I did a small Mr S shop today and used £2.50 of my  points. I've batch cooked a chilli so I'm set for meals for a few days.

MovingForwards

How annoying, why don't they just decline the work or phone to reschedule it. Hope the next one is more reliable.

Have you got much left to do?

atrixa

I'm just logging on between coats of paint on the coving. Just one more coat on there should do it, then I need to do two coats of the darker green accent wall tomorrow. Then next weekend I can get the rest of the paint on the other walls and hopefully paint the trim on Monday evening if I can finish work reasonably early. Then I'm done and I can have my weekends to do other things, like exercise and reading. There's still the porch to do, but if there's a leak then it's a waste of time until it's sorted. I need to do the stairs at some point but that won't be too bad. I just need to remove the textured paper, fill and sand it and then probably paint with the same dark green as in the bedroom. Quite frankly it can wait.
I tried contacting two more roofers and they've both been unresponsive. There's another one I can ring on Monday but after that I need to find more with decent reviews.
Yesterday was a NSD, today I might nip to A!di at some point. Quite fancy some hummus and veggies. My weight loss is going well, I'm about 4 pounds off my goal weight and my jeans are fitting better I hope everyone's doing ok, this month has been quite hard with the lockdown and the rubbish weather.

MovingForwards

I'm not surprised your weight is near your goal, DIY uses a lot of calories, up and down ladders is great exercise!

You've done loads to your home and are long overdue that rest and 'me' time.

savingwannabe

This is fantastic. Well done you.

atrixa

Bedroom is painted! It's looking very fresh. I was going to do the trim tonight, but my back's aching and I ended up working late. I'll do it at the weekend instead.
Roofer came round today. He was fab- took a really good look at the place and I need the smaller chimney stack at the back of the house repointing and flashing sorted, the porch roof replacing with a flat roof and some guttering joints replaced. He couldn't find anything wrong with the main chimney stack, so I suspect that the damp stain is just a stain- it doesn't actually feel wet. I'll get some stain blocker on there at some point and repaint. The main roof is looking pretty good considering it's age. While the loft hatch was open, I took a photo of the old wallpaper that's still up there:

What era do you think that's from?
Anyway, the quote for the roof works is around £1800 inc vat  I've done a quick google search to see if it sounds reasonable and it doesn't sound far off. I'm certainly impressed with this company's communication so far. I would ideally get multiple quotes, but if other places don't respond or don't turn up I'm just wasting my own time at this point. What do you guys think? I can cover it with my savings, dipping into my holiday pot a bit (I'm going nowhere anyway).

savingwannabe

I quite like that paper it's a bit Agatha Christie to me!  It does make you wonder about the history of your house. Well done on great roofer and decent quotes. That sounds good make sure he is with checkatrade and ask someone to look over his plans for the roof before you sign.

MovingForwards

I don't think it's a bad price, for everything you've listed. Maybe you can get it a bit cheaper, but you may not like the person.

I'm going to say 1950's for the paper! It's great there's little bits of hidden history in our homes.

atrixa

Bedroom is done! I picked up a few artificial plants to make it look a bit more homely, but it's looking very fresh so far. I put the new curtains up and chucked the horrible diamante ones out. I've ordered a mirror for the living room (on sale) and a metal print for the vestibule to give that some more character.
Landline provider still hasn't fixed my phone or the billing so I'll complain again at some point. I've moved the money I need to pay the back bill (whenever that comes around) into a savings account but I'll certainly be asking for some of it to be forgiven due to their incompetence.
I've not heard from the roofer yet about dates for scaffolding to be put up etc, but the lead time is fairly long and the weather has been rubbish. 
I've come to the conclusion that I need to spend some money on some new underwear. The elastic has bust on most pairs I own and there's some holey seams. I might treat myself to some new comfy joggers to wear while I'm working from home too.

Plans for the weekend:
Use some stain block on the stains in the living room then paint over them once it's dry.
Remove the textured wallpaper from the landing wall.
Cleaning
Go for a run on both days
Research cost associated with adopting a cat. If any of you have any tips on that note, please let me know! I'll be looking into local shelters and pet insurance, how much cat food is and the kitty's associated stuff like a scratch post, food bowls etc.