Mortgage free in Forever Home :-)

KajiKita

Had a good day. Slow start with reading a novel in bed, then filling the car from the bags of the bottom of the drive for the tip run this afternoon (more rubble from the lounge works - it’s remarkable the volume of rubble that two window openings and the gap needed for a big lintel create 🙄😳), more novel, groceries delivery wrangling, clearing the next load of rubble from under the window to the bottom of the drive etc.

Tip run went well - Mr KK and I lifted some bags together as he had definitely overfilled them! Got back and dragged the black wheelie bin to the end of our single track lane instead of outside our gate, as there is emergency gas mains works happening outside our house (we are not affected, bizarrely) and we are not convinced the bin lorry will make it through the gap by the hole barriers for the out of sequence rubbish collection tomorrow …..

Then spent an hour or so in the garden moving some of the cubic metre of bark I ordered before Christmas. Renewed the path to the compost bins and made a start on the path down by the greenhouse to the waterbutts, but rain (and an increasingly howling wind) drove me indoors. Very pleased to have got that job started. 😊 Come in for a brew now 😊

KK

LadyWithAPlan

Kk my home has never been so clean it squeaked even with a cleaner to help ! 

If you want to send some tips 

I think it’s great to get on with your neighbours, nice to have a sense of community to help and also lean on.  I have always found it in London so much so I am sure the fabulous people I share a building with are part the reason I am in no rush to move - our what’s up group is full of free food, inc Olio, free carpet tiles, paint, plants, furniture inc my current desk. I even bought my washing machine for £50 5plus yrs ago from there and it’s still fine.. 

KajiKita

LadyWithAPlan said:

Kk my home has never been so clean it squeaked even with a cleaner to help ! 

If you want to send some tips 

I think it’s great to get on with your neighbours, nice to have a sense of community to help and also lean on.  I have always found it in London so much so I am sure the fabulous people I share a building with are part the reason I am in no rush to move - our what’s up group is full of free food, inc Olio, free carpet tiles, paint, plants, furniture inc my current desk. I even bought my washing machine for £50 5plus yrs ago from there and it’s still fine.. 

I might have exaggerated LaPlan 😉 Maybe it was just me with effort! 😂😂

It does make a huge difference, having good neighbours. If ours ever get the properties situation sorted they want to buy a bigger property deep in the country where they can have their horses on the same site as they live. Whilst I would like the situation resolved for their sakes we would miss them, a lot …. 😉

KK

Cheery_Daff

KajiKita said:

@Cheery_Daff, could you, or Mr Cheery as he’s not working, find some other old terrazzo tiles (reclamation, FBMP, The Bay of E etc) - they won’t match but at least they will be in keeping? Maybe give yourself a 3 month time limit on that and then you have to move onto the next option? Other options: as well as carpet, how about a scribed piece of hardwood, as it’s on a threshold - that could work quite well? Or go with the mismatch and deliberately try a different tile or material that flatters and tones with the terrazzo tiles - slate perhaps? 

So the dining room windowsill is the guineapig 😉 (at least you don’t have to lug the sill upstairs for that). Will you use an already ‘good’ stone for that, or use one of the not so good ones? (My questions are intending to start nudging you into visualising the result and make it more real for you, to help get you moving … 😉 If I’m being annoying, please say 😂😊). 

KK

Ha, you're not being annoying, but I don't want to litter your diary with my DIY conundrums 😂😂 Might take some pictures and post them on mine!

KajiKita

@Cheery_Daff, you’re not ’littering’ but happy to continue on your diary 😊

KK

redofromstart

KajiKita said:

 What colour is your witchhazel? 

A really dark orange/red. It's 8' by 8' and an absolute joy for something that was a few pounds 15 or so years ago from my favourite garden centre which had many friendly cats deployed at strategic intervals, sadly long since sold for housing land. 

There are so few good garden centres left sadly

KajiKita

I’m really grateful for the one plant centre I have within 10 minutes drive of me, but they don’t do many shrubs / trees, nothing bigger or shrubbier than salvias. 

KK

savingholmes

You are putting us all to shame with your efforts. My house is never squeaky clean either even with a cleaner. Even she prefers it when I give her non-cleaning tasks and I think that about sum it up.

Well done on the veg plot planning. I have a huge amount of seeds compared with my interest level - but maybe it will return at the new house.

I would definitely prioritise resolving your bathroom. You deserve it to be a sanctuary not a chore.

KajiKita

savingholmes said:

You are putting us all to shame with your efforts. My house is never squeaky clean either even with a cleaner. Even she prefers it when I give her non-cleaning tasks and I think that about sum it up.

Well done on the veg plot planning. I have a huge amount of seeds compared with my interest level - but maybe it will return at the new house.

I would definitely prioritise resolving your bathroom. You deserve it to be a sanctuary not a chore.

Oh dear 😂 I seem to have touched a nerve with the ’cleaned until it squeaks’ thing. Please, please let me be clear here …. we have one room that is clean and clear to the standard it would like (our lounge), that’s the only bit that ‘squeaked’, honest! The rest of the house is a tip, with pockets of chaos and muddle everywhere - I have a list of clearing and cleaning to do! My ambition and hope is that you will gradually see these pockets documented as ‘done’ over the coming months … hopefully before the garden really starts. Actually, that’s not a bad action target to add to my list - 1 decluttering / deep cleaning target per weekend before end of March.

The new house and new garden will definitely relight your enthusiasm especially if you don’t feel so overlooked. Not feeling overlooked made a huge difference to my motivation when we moved here 😊

It’s interesting, I don’t need a bathroom to be a sanctuary. To me it’s a functional space in which I clean myself, take meds, weigh myself etc. it’s not somewhere that is supposed to restore me, just maintain me. However, I would like it to be clean, easy to keep clean, bright and safe - the clambering in and out of the bath definitely isn’t safe, it’s mouldy (and difficult to resolve mould) and I hate cleaning it with a passion ….

KK

Baileys_Babe

I feel the same way about the bathroom, KK, it's a functional space.