Cheery's country living adventure

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  • Karmacat
    Karmacat Posts: 39,459
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    Wow, I hope that builder really does turn up, Cheery. Thats a lot of builders to phone.

    As for Whaley Bridge, I feel so sorry for those people. Even after they go back and they've been assured it's safe ... I know people like that are tough, but still :(


    Loving the paper stripping :)
    2023: the year I get to buy a car
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    I think there are a lot of stressed people in Whaley right now :( Really heartening to see the community facebook pages though, so much support for each other.

    Well, Mr Cheery has done some more wallpaper stripping, but I haven't (yet). However, most of it is off now, and goodness me the whole thing looks brighter! :j The plastering is pretty good, and has been painted (white), so it'll be easy for us to just paint it once we've filled in the little holes. I'm off for the next couple of weeks so should easily be done in that time :j

    Obviously trying to decorate as frugally as we can... :money: Trying to think (vaguely) about budgets for the whole house...

    Study
    We did paint my study a couple of months ago - that cost £12 for a tin of paint, and about £70 for an Ike@ rug (which I adore, and which has made SUCH a difference). New desk off freegle, and new bookshelf being thrown away by a pal. Sofa cover (which doesn't *quite* fit the sofa but who's counting?) for £5 from a charity shop. Under £100 for the room :money:


    Hallway
    The hallway (site of current stripping) should just need some filler, a bag of plaster, and a tin of paint - might also strip (or just re-gloss, or even remove!) the banister rail. Should do the lot for under £50 I reckon.


    Bathroom
    Bathroom might need a bit more doing but mostly elbow grease. Paint stripper for the tiles, then possibly new paint, or tiles, or cladding. We already have a new bath (with feet! From Freegle again!). Will need new flooring. May splash out on a new shower as the current one is SO hard to get the temperature right and does my head in. I reckon under £150 for the lot.


    Kitchen/dining room/ceiling etc -
    Well, this is where the money is going :eek: The only actual quote we had originally was £17,000 :eek: :eek: :eek: which included taking three floors of stone chimney out by hand, which Mr Cheery has since done himself :eek: (which took months, no wonder it was expensive!) and replastering and finishing everything, which we plan on doing ourselves. We're budgeting about £6000, but quite frankly at this stage I'll pay whatever I can to make it go away :o (again, don't tell the builder...).

    Not going to put any more MB dosh towards the mortgage until we've at least got a quote for this just in case we need it!

    Once the actual *building* work is done, we'll also need to cap off the gas supply, get a new hob, and do *something* with the kitchen cupboards, although we'll likely be rebuilding those ourselves. And generally paint etc.

    I reckon about £7000 all in, which will wipe a lot of our savings :eek: but I'll do my best to replenish with MB money (and quite frankly it's going to take so long to get someone to do it I'll have saved it all in advance before they get here at this rate!)


    But after that, several other things need doing too...

    Two spare bedrooms
    These are above the kitchen/dining room, and at the minute are just one big space, impossible to walk on due to dodgy joists, and with a giant hole in the middle where the chimney was :eek: Not decided if we're going to put the false wall back yet or just have one massive bedroom :D but if we do, we'll do that ourselves, and decorate ourselves, so I reckon under £200 for the two rooms (including fitting out with furniture which will all be freegle/charity shop)


    Our bedroom
    Not sure if we'll be shifting to the massive room yet... or using that as separate wardrobe room and guest room. Will definitely paint what is currently our bedroom though, but shouldn't cost more than about £50 all in I reckon.

    What else?!

    Living room
    Urgh. Needs a repaint, but the carpet is pretty new (I don't particularly like it, but it's unobtrusive, and so it's staying for now). We had the gas fire removed, and want to replace with the solid fuel stove we removed from what is now the dining room, so will need to budget for that to be fitted. I'll likely do a bit of plastering too round the chimney. I don't know - £50 ish plus whatever the stove costs I suppose...


    Utility room and shower/downstairs loo
    I think these were done pretty recently. Not what I would have chosen (white plastic walls!) but wipe clean :D and certainly don't intend to make changes really.


    I THINK that's it :eek: Except the double glazing has blown in at least three windows... Yawn. And depending on how we do the kitchen ceiling, we may need new windows upstairs that we're able to get out of (to meet building regs). Still, windows for the sake of windows isn't a priority - there are a LOT of windows in this house so a couple of them being misted up isn't too much of an emergency :o

    ************************
    Gosh, I've overwhelmed myself thinking about all that lot :o :eek: :rotfl: Might go for a lie down. at least I'm safe in the knowledge that it'll probably take another 3 years to get everything done so we won't have to pay for it all at once! :rotfl:
  • Karmacat
    Karmacat Posts: 39,459
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    Fantastic forward planning, Cheery, though obviously because its *your* forward planning, it must feel overwhelming :eek:
    Speaking as someone who just paid out £14k for a kitchen (which included all plastering, an RSJ and oven etc, though not the washing machine or the fridge freezer) your kitchen costs sound very reasonable, even though they're the biggest set of costs. Loving that Mr Cheery has done so much of the setup work.

    Now go and have your lie down :)
    2023: the year I get to buy a car
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    Thanks KC - maybe I'm just being optimistic about the kitchen costs?! To be honest the fact that it's in the kitchen is really irrelevant - it's replacing the ceiling joists we're paying for, nothing to do with the actual *kitchen* element of things, which will mostly be DIY. It's hard to get a realistic idea of numbers though when nobody will even come and quote for it :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

    If these folks who are due next Thursday do actually turn up, seem ok, and provide a quote, then I think we'll probably just go with it (as long as it's not £17,000 again!)

    Anyway, what I'm *actually* meant to be doing today is emailing various high up people asking for meetings about the promotion I'm applying for :eek: I don't want to :o:o :rotfl: Being a bit of a scaredy cat about the whole thing :o But I was SO annoyed when I didn't go for it last year and someone else did :eek: SO annoyed. So this time I HAVE to or else I'll spend yet another year being angry with myself for my timidity :o

    But gosh it's involving a lot of putting myself out of my comfort zone :o :rotfl:

    Will be a nice pay rise though :D Which I suppose will come in handy with this kitchen palaver :rotfl: (although my original intention was to get a pay rise then start to drop my hours!)
  • Karmacat
    Karmacat Posts: 39,459
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    I didn't get any joists done, but the RSJ, and tearing down two levels of ceiling plasterboard, plus putting up a new layer and then plastering it, were sort of ceiling-related :D it was great.


    Good luck with the applicaton - go for it!
    2023: the year I get to buy a car
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    Certainly sounds like you had a good deal done! :eek: We've already torn half our ceiling down :eek: :D It made a right mess :rotfl: :rotfl: Fun though :D It's literally just joists and floorboards up there now, no plaster or anything (well, on the dining room side, that is - the kitchen side itself is still plasterboard).

    I keep thinking replacing joist is a MASSIVE job and that's what's putting builders off - it *feels* like a massive job to me, but surely this is something builders do all the time?! Well, some of them anyway!

    Anyway, I'm not ringing any more, I think 16 is quite enough :eek: Let's see what these folks say next week, then I might start chasing some of the ones I already rang (although quite frankly if I have to chase you to even get a time for a quote, I don't hold out much hope of you being reliable enough to actually DO the work!)

    Emails sent :j Four of the five are on holiday anyway :rotfl: :rotfl: Now need to concentrate on sorting out the draft of my form before I meet my mentor in, er, 3.5 hours :eek: Mr Cheery is going somewhere else and needs to drop me off early, which means we need to leave in just over an hour :eek:

    Might have a quick cuppa first :D
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    Oh, just had an out of office from the fifth one too :rotfl: Oh well :D
  • Karmacat
    Karmacat Posts: 39,459
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    I keep thinking replacing joist is a MASSIVE job and that's what's putting builders off - it *feels* like a massive job to me, but surely this is something builders do all the time?! Well, some of them anyway!
    It's not massive to them, I guarantee you. My builder sent in two guys, and in one day, they demolished and removed the chimney breast, had the akro supports up, knocked a hole through the structurally supporting wall, and inserted the RSJ. I think they finished off the plastering on the other side of the structural wall the next day, but that was all. Amazing!
    2023: the year I get to buy a car
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    Ooh, that does give me hope, thank you! :j :j :j
  • Cheery_Daff
    Cheery_Daff Posts: 15,562
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    Morning MSE folks :hello:

    Yesterday was an acceptable day - bit of work (well, 'sitting in front of the computer' at least :o ) at home, then a drive to the office, and sat there for a few hours instead :rotfl: Productive meeting with mentor about promotion application though so that's good :j

    We did pop to the supermarket on the way home... but I successfully avoided vending machine and cafe so I'm counting that as a success :D They're my weak points when I'm in the office, both in terms of money saving and in terms of diet... :o

    This morning the sun is shining, the young hare that has adopted our garden as its home was munching the grass when I went to let the chickens out (and stayed perfectly still so I wouldn't see it :rotfl: ) - better than munching my kale which I caught it doing yesterday, pesky thing! :eek: I don't mind though - what a treat to be able to see a young hare each and every day right in your own front garden! :j :j

    Today I'm contemplating life coaching :eek: :rotfl: :rotfl: Honestly - I spend SO much time talking myself out of putting in this application, then it takes hours to talk myself back into it. The deadline is in less than a month, I'm meant to be on holiday from work for the next fortnight and I'm going to have to spend quite a bit of it filling in the forms and meeting people about them - NOT my idea of a holiday - mainly because I haven't done it sooner :mad:

    I'm not lazy, and I really do want it, there's just part of me believes I don't deserve it :o

    Anyway, I've only ever had life coaching (as opposed to counselling I suppose) a couple of times. Once when a friend of a friend was training and offered some cheap sessions - through those I made a conscious decision to stay in my PhD when I was on the edge of leaving.

    The other time was through my old job, which offered job coaching through the careers service (my current one doesn't). I used that to summon up the courage to apply for my current job :D

    I have a mentor, who's really helpful on the practical side of the application, which is great, and another mentor who will help me redraft when I've written it, but neither of them are the sort I can explore this emotional stuff with...

    I don't know why I'm moaning on about this here - I suppose because I would actually have to PAY for someone which doesn't feel very MSE :rotfl: But in the grand scheme of things, the promotion would be rather a pay rise... and if someone can help me get through these next few weeks without agonising every day then that might well be worth it!

    Has anyone had experience of life coaching for this type of stuff? Would you advise face to face rather than telephone, or some kind of online course?

    Normally I'm content to try and jolly myself along (pretty successfully) but there feels like there's a lot riding on this in a short space of time and I just want to get it done (er, but not enough to actually just get on and do it myself, clearly :rotfl: )

    Or shall I just re-read 'Feel the fear and do it anyway', a copy of which I just found on the bookshelf behind me :rotfl:
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