SLLM (Single Lady Large Mortgage)

LadyWithAPlan

I am loving your welding adventure... so much so I am thinking welding may be on my next list of courses... I really want to weld some tables and furniture - but your cabinets look quite complicated. Please put then up as they approach each stage.
My one experience of blow torch/soldering was last week and I enjoyed it so 

Think its good to OP right now with all this uncertainty..Your sub 60% might be sooner though - guess it depends on what house prices are doing.. they seem to be stable or falling a little by me.

Sistergold

Oh thank you @LadyWithAPlan, yes the welding is coming up and thank goodness I have not burnt the house down yet. Yes it’s a good feeling when you do soldering in the plumbing course. I am glad I have at least made you think of welding. I think welding is worth it for sure so much you can do. Yes you are right I did start on the complicated things as to make tables and other bits of furniture will be much easier. With me the kitchen was so pressing and so that got me started and now like you I am planning so many bits to of furniture that I will need do. After the kitchen I can then do one item at a time as there will not be as much pressure. Problem with the kitchen one thinks of it as a complete package and once you don’t like your kitchen you want it gone and changed over night. 

With the 60% LTV I calculate it using the original purchase price. If it were to be calculated using the current value it will mean I am much below the 60%. The thing is I don’t move banks and when I switch products I don’t ask them to value. If they value it themselves hopefully their desktop valuation will not say my house has lost value to before 2019 value when I purchased but who knows? Fingers crossed it’s worth at least what I bought it for and if not hopefully I will still be in the 70% LTV bracket which is not too bad most of the time for whatever rates. Tough times we are in with mortgages but life must go on very little helps.  X

Mumoffourkids

So I’ve been doing some DIY today inspired by you lovely ladies. I had a massive cupboard in my room which had sliding doors but they kept getting stuck and meant I struggled to get my clothes. So the last couple of days I have removed the sliding doors and put up a curtain pole and some curtains. It looks much better and means I can get to my clothes a lot better. Next on my list is to replace a folding door with a sliding door meaning it doesn’t block off the landing as much. I also have three doors which I think I can cut up for firewood for my wood burner. I think the wood is untreated so I’m going to try and see what happens.

I’m even inspiring my daughters to do some diy. My 16 year old has a little annex in my house which has a little kitchenette, bedroom and toilet. I bought some stick on floor tiles for her and she has put them down and cut them to fit in her kitchen. So I’m teaching the girls as well. Next for her is to do her mini toilet room with the tiles. I’m also going to teach her how to how pictures up as she seems to have quite a few to hang and that is another easy job that she can probably do. 

Sistergold

oh @Mumoffourkids, your diy sounds all exciting and very good that you are getting your children to do some things for themselves. It’s surprising how capable children can be actually. “She tiled her kitchen floor!” well done to her. She will appreciate it more as she did it herself. My 14 year old and 12 year old painted their rooms over the summer holidays. Just bought them some paint (they chose the colours) and got them started to show how to on a small area. Showed them to protect with tape etc. they painted and decorated their rooms themselves and they were very proud of their results. I think that way they don’t keep asking for unnecessary changes to their rooms as they know the effort it involves to get it done. So I told them I don’t mind how often they ask to change their room colour but I will not get involved in the actual painting. I think they were a bit fed up by the time they finished. Lol

Sistergold

Good evening ladies
I am really excited about Christmas this year or I am trying to psych/cheer myself up as its been a few years of stress with covid and now the suppressed economy! I have gone ahead and bought a Christmas table cloth ahead of time. I must say delivery was quite quick and so that’s one thing done. I am not sure where my old tablecloth went since I moved into this house. In any case it’s nice to have a new cloth as the old cloth was the one I used while I was married so let’s just say it’s a new start since I have not been able to find it since buying this house the new cloth is this

I hope it will serve me for many Christmases to come. 

This Christmas cloth will be nice to use if only I can finish my kitchen as I am hoping to make a drop leaf table/trolley/counter. I am really excited about the trolley come table come extra counter which I will be using in the kitchen. I will be able to roll it into the lounge and use as a dining table when needed. We generally like having breakfast in the kitchen and so need a table. The old kitchen had a pull out table but I tried to find replacements which have all been to pull out to final length of 80cm instead of the current 120cm or more which will be better to be able to squeeze 6 people. Having fails to find something suitable I have to make one myself. 

So far the design is that the top will be 46-55cm and each drop leaf will be 50-60cm 🤔. Well I just want an adaptable multi use table. I am going to have a lot of countertop left and so it’s what I will use as the table top so that will be laminate. Better than throwing it away. 

Making the kitchen cabinets it’s really intricate/complicated but it is doable. Taking too long that’s all! If it’s dry this weekend I will work a bit more on the units. 

Happy DIY ladies please feel free to announce your achievements as we all need to encourage each other and know it can be done! The more you do the more technical project you will feel you can tackle as skills overlap. Xx

Sistergold

Hello ladies as you can imagine kitchen making story will be on for a while as I have now discovered it’s not easy to complete a kitchen. So today I was trying to finish off the would be wine cabinet. Got a bit stressed on how to add the bars to hold the wine and other bottles and just could not find the best way to do it! Left it in frustration! Will get back to it another day! Will make some wooden spacers so that I can weld the bars at same distance on both sides! For now I think I will cut the metal for the last 5 cabinets while I refresh my head from what I am making already which seems to be taking longer to finish. After the final cut off I can now go back to them hopefully refreshed! I say final cut but it’s final only for the kitchen units as I will now move to other rooms where I have items to make too. Only the kitchen though is important this side of Christmas! 

Will make a cutting list tonight to be started tomorrow little by little. 

Hope you are all making better progress than me with your different projects? Xx

Friday1989

Oh my gosh @SuseOrm ! Your ceiling!!! What bad luck. 

@Sistergold Incredible welding

My mortgage is slowly decreasing but still feels very daunting. I don't have to remortgage until February 2025 but I'm worried what the interest rates will be like then. 

I'm planning a trip to Japan in April. This is going to be very expensive! I'll stay in hostels most nights but a few nights I'll stay somewhere nice (place with an onsen and a temple hotel). I've wanted to go to Japan for almost 20 years so I decided the cost is worth it for the trip of a lifetime. Just need work to agree to give me the time off, then I can start booking!

Sistergold

Thank you @Friday1989, and oh trip to Japan! That’s truly worth the expense especially if you have wanted to go for a long time. Fingers crossed the time off will come through and everything will fingers crossed work out perfectly! X 

Sistergold

Hello ladies, hope you are all okay and getting on well with all the works you are doing? I have been progressing well but slowly as the units I am working on all need a lot of detail for the specific storage I am assigning them to. As mentioned I have 6 units in a semi finished state. All need the finer details. 

So at present I did mention before that I am working on a wine cabinet which will be wall hung. I am also adding the detail to a would be spice cabinet which will also be wall hung. I am almost there with the detail of the spice cabinet and once finished will also finish off the wine cabinet. At least now I have visualised what I think I must do but like I discovered with with the spice rack it does evolve. The good part is that I am soldering on with the concept and not feeling the frustration of trying to figure how to. That’s what I am finding that which each unit there is the initial frustration of how to as it fails and then I go away, sleep on it or start a different unit then I work out what I need to do or simplify it and go back to finish.

 I am very pleased with how the spice unit is turning out. I have almost completed a spice rack to fix on door and I have also done the shelving for inside the cabinet. I am trying to push myself by doing an hour or so each morning before I go to work so that hopefully I can hang the spice and wine cabinet by end of this weekend. It will then give me a chance to finish off the other 4. It is slow but when it is finished it will be like great I managed to finish the kitchen. It’s good when you start a project and you see it through. 

I do need a lot of luck though to be able to do the hour each morning as the weather forecast is looking like it will rain until Friday? Let’s see how the week goes weather wise. 

Sistergold

Good morning ladies. So I am at home today and hoped to push the kitchen cabinets forward but yes you guessed right it’s raining? Will it stop at some point? Who knows! I have two units which I managed to complete and so painted with primer/undercoat last night. So I guess I will paint first coat today while it rains and see if at some point it will stop so I can weld. I set up a bench in the house to paint on otherwise nothing else can be done in this weather. 

The two units I have started to paint are the smallest kitchen units I will have in the kitchen but they had the most detail and did take quite a bit of time and I am glad they are now almost done. I am pushing so as to get them ready to install on the wall on Saturday. With that installation there will only be one more wall unit to do. Yesterday I managed to cut up pieces for two more units so they can join the queue and that means only two units left to cut! Only two kitchen units ladies. BUT there is still all the welding and painting so some way to go yet but I must say it does feel better already! 

If the rain does not stop I will continue to prepare and paint more of the kitchen walls. The wall painting project has had to be done in bits. So with the walls I have been preparing and painting only the areas which are having the units made at any one time. It was pointless trying to get the whole room ready as the fitting of the units because they are metal can be quite tricky so there are bound to be dents and scratches as you go along. Also due to time I could not do all the kitchen walls in one go. Another issue with walls and preparation is that as I knew it could take forever to do the units I can only take a few old units of at a time otherwise there will be nothing to use in the kitchen. Even the few taken off at a time have caused chaos at times. 

Will update how far I get on today. X