And now we go again...

rtandon27

ooooo - a delivery earlier than expected!  Fabulous - it's so nice when everything goes to plan! I'm amazed that you have done just so much in only 3 weeks!!!

OH & I are scouting out some matching shelves for the long wall in our main living space - we've always lived with a mismatch of shelves that in our other places was quite cute & quirky but they were never together along one wall, so plans are afoot to make a change

milann

Hope you got some good photos and food 👍

EssexHebridean

Blackcats said:

I'm glad you expanded "vets" to "old boys" as I was momentarily wondering why a rugby club needed a team of vets (as in people who look after animals).  Must be time for a cup more tea to get my brain working a bit better 🤦‍♀️

Enjoy your day

This is exactly why I added the second bit!  

Badmemory - yes, I've got usage figures going back years too although of course they are of limited use for me now as the property is very different! we briefly turned on the kitchen underfloor heating last night to see that it did work - and having seen the energy consumption on it I can assure everyone that it now falls under the heading of "only if we absolutely have to"! 

SH it was SO nice to be mucking about the with the camera again - and having now been through the photos it really reminded me quite how much I do love the new one -the only "fails" were very much operator error - and even with some of those the camera tried its level best to make up for my shortcomings! 

RT we agreed that the quality on the Swedish stuff definitely wasn't as high as it used to be - although whether it's just the "basic" white ones that this applies to, rather than the full range on the Billys - we aren't certain. Plastic locking fixings where there used to be metal ones - and also the shelf supports feel far cheaper than the old double ended metal "pins". It all works, holds together and feels sturdy and stable, but I suspect they will be far less likely to withstand repeated house moves than the older ones! Maybe a case of "good enough" rather than "better than required".  And yes - we're quite astonished how much we've done in the just over three weeks too - we really are down to barely any boxes still needing unpacked now - there is literally just a single box that hasn't even been opened now and that's the one with my records in it, we're holding off on those as it will be easier to move the sealed box to where it will need to be once the living room painting has happened. 

Milann the photos turned out well - the food was slightly disappointing although I won't argue too much as it was free - I got to use one of the team's meal vouchers as there were only 16 players so they had several spares. It was a cheeseburger - and while I've tasted worse, I've also tasted plenty better! 

themadvix

I’m no expert, but I have a feeling that underfloor heating is one of those things that’s expensive to warm up but basically stays on all the time and once up to temp is actually quite economical to run - being that heat rises, it’s an effective way of heating a space.

EssexHebridean

Morning all - and here we are at the start of another week - don't those weekends just whizz past?! 

More progress over the weekend with getting stuff sorted - and also some more spendiness - sadly inevitable right at the moment though.

Spendiness:
- New Curtain rail purchased for the Living room doors, it needed to be a specific one as we wanted to match the two rails that were already in place for the windows. 
- Also purchased a new curtain rail for our bedroom - we'd been "making do" with a curtain track - one that we'd actually acquired for nothing - but it wasn't really working well for the width of window and as we aren't "making do" in the new house, we decided that a proper rail was a good investment.  Handily though, those two items came in at just under £45 - which we are calling a win!
- Curtains for the living room - the recycled velour ones that we'd been looking at proved to look and feel very nice when we saw the sample, and we are able to go with ready mades although the door one may yet get altered for length. Personally I'm firmly of the view that I'm quite liking the "puddle" effect on those. We haven't got the window ones yet - those have had to be ordered as they only had one set in stock. Hopefully they will be delivered in the next couple of days. Ordering both sets means we get the benefit of free delivery. Total of £178 on curtains - which having looked at the price for made-to-measure I am well aware is a complete bargain! 
- Paint for the living room - £25 as expected. We're hoping to get that sorted next weekend. 

MSE Stuff:
- Soaked both the black beans and the chickpeas as planned. 
- Both cooked in the slow cooker - and far faster than I expected too - we'll be using that method again combined with the lengthy soaking!
- Chick peas provided the usual 5 "tin sized" batches which have now been frozen. 
- Black beans provided a nice batch of smokey black bean and chorizo soup. We had a portion each for lunch yesterday, and another 2 x double portions and 1 x single portion are in the freezer. Those will take a little more thinning down before heating and serving too.
- Having the living room curtains in a position to be fully in place by the end of the week is good as it's a step forwards towards making the house as snug and cosy as we approach winter as we can. 
- Applied a few turns of PTFE tape to the leaking shower head - no more leaking. That really was a super-cheap fix!
- Banks checked and all good. Right now I'm hopeful that we have £500 surplus this month to throw at the mortgage - I'll be pleased if we can do that, allowing that we have done quite a bit of cost-covering for various things from the joint account this month too with a view that no mortgage payment was being taken. 

Plans for this week:
- Measure properly for the front door curtain rail  - with luck we may be able to do what we have done elsewhere and go straight in to the holes from the rail our predecessors had there. 
- Establish exactly what we want in the way of a curtain for there. Can we get away with the same type as we have in the living room (which it must be said drape BEAUTIFULLY onto the floor to save on shortening costs! ) with thermal linings behind?
- Chase the chimney sweeping people for a reply - I'm guessing they don't check the emails from their contact form often!
- See if we can get Mum's central heating chap to come and service the boiler. 
- Decide where we want blinds fitted, and what type. Establish whether the bathroom can be a straightforward simple DIY job. then organise the chap Mum has used for blinds to come and quote for anywhere else. I *think* it's just the landing window that might need him to do it with luck. 
- we also need to come up with a solution for a TV unit at the very least for the front room. we were originally looking at another bookcase for in there, but I have to be honest, we're not sure we need it now - we might be better with some form of cupboard of small sideboard. I'm keen that we don't end up feeling cluttered, and I half think that we need to spend more time in the room before we work out exactly what we need. that's likely to happen naturally as the nights draw in I suspect. 

I might also try getting hold of the furniture restoration chap I found and see if he can come and quote for the various bits I wanted sorted. I suspect that's not going to be a cheap quote! 

Food's sorted for the week - and I need to remember that I want to make sure I shop at Lil's next Friday to make the most of the free bakery item. I'll do the usual and get a sourdough with that I should think. 

And that's about it for now. Still plenty to be getting on with, but also now increasingly chances to sit, relax, soak in our new environment and really begin to learn how it will work for us. 

Sun_Addict

I get through a lot of chickpeas so really should take a leaf out of your book and buy dried ones. 

You really are settling in well and I can sense the happiness/contentment in your posts. 

savingholmes

It does sound like you are flourishing in the extra space. It's always nice to get a new place looking how you want it too.

PennysIntoPounds

Great work on the curtains savings. I love the puddling look, you know it's a classy joint if even the doors are ready to swan off to a soiree in their gowns 

beanielou

I can’t believe how much you have got done in such a short time. 

You will be all cosy for winter 😊

EssexHebridean

Morning all.

SA I'm a devil for buying tinned chickpeas but I do also try to remember to soak and cook dried ones as I know they work out far more economically. I've found that a really long soak makes a huge difference to the cooking time too - I soaked overnight the other day, then popped them on to cook mid morning, and they were pretty much there after 2 hours on high in the SC. I left them to cool in the cooking liquid and they'll be ideal for use where they will then get a further short burst of cooking - if I'd specifically wanted them for hummous I would probably have cooked them for a bit longer. 
SH It's amazing how fast we've adapted to most things about the house, but the additional space is the one thing really that still keeps stopping us in our tracks with a "wow"! 
PiP I LOVE your comment about the puddled curtains - MrEH is VERY cynical about it, but I have to say that from my point of view with the curtains we've got which are a lovely soft fabric and drape wonderfully, it really does work. I'm not sure I'm going to win him over for the front door curtains as well mind you! 
Beanie it's lovely feeling how fast the house is becoming properly "ours" even though aside from that one wall in the living room once it's done, we'll not have done any actual redecoration as such, just soft furnishings and of course the addition of our own furniture. 

We're kind of at that quiet point in the month for regular financial stuff aren't we - good in some ways, but also a bit as though we're "sitting and waiting" for everything to start again! 

MSE stuff:
- Banks checked and fine.
- CC needs some balancing but I'll wait for the final pending transaction to land. The house related stuff will all be coming from my savings, food stuff from the food account (and the credit from T's has landed now so I can sort that out).
- My Strava membership has renewed so I need to get back to doing Ipsos stuff to replenish my iTunes credit. It did at least offset 50% of the renewal cost so I'm quite pleased with that. 
- Remembered last night that we still needed to pay the accommodation shortfall from the beer festival so have now done that - a chunk came from our "joint fun" account and the remainder from personal money. 
- No money needs spending today! (definitely viewing this as a positive!)

I've chased the chimney sweep for a quote so hopefully might hear back from them soon. If I hear nothing by the end of the week on that I'll look for an alternative.

Last night's spaghetti & meatballs was delicious, and relatively straightforward of course for an after-commute meal too. This evening we're having omelettes - partly as a change from tuesday-couscous and also because it's quick, straightforward and easy for MrEH to sort when he gets in from rugby training. Bacon, mushroom and cheese. I'll probably have some tomatoes with mine for an extra effort at 5 a day. I need to check the plan for tomorrow evening but I know there was something planned.

No rugby to plan in for on Saturday so that gives us a bit of time to possibly trundle off somewhere and look at some furniture possibilities for the front room - we're still not sure what the answer is in there with regards to a TV unit - possibilities are either a purpose built TV unit, a coffee table of some sort, or perhaps even a small sideboard although not sure about that as it won't really have anywhere for the sky box and DVD player of course. We've looked at countless stuff online but we've reached the conclusion that actually just trying to see some bits in person might work best. We don't want to buy "the wrong thing" but equally it slightly feels as though we've reached the stage now of looking at so many possibilities that we're just getting bogged down in the worry of getting it wrong.