Prosperous & Creative Soul & MFW Year 3

beanielou

Baby steps.  Keep plodding

jwil

Good idea to take lots of breaks and get used to the local area.

girlatplay

Happy New Home SH.
I'm glad you're in now.  Keep looking after you. 

Blackcats

Great idea to explore with a purpose eg garden centre, local shops, library, coffee shop.  Gives you a break from organising the house and gets you acclimatised to your new neighbourhood,

dawnybabes

Have you joined the local FB group ? You could ask in there for a handyman 

savingholmes

Thanks Jwil, Beanie, Dawn, Blackcats and GAP.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've joined some local FB groups now but not posted yet. 

I went into a neighbour's house 2 doors up today. They've given me details of a handyman/ gardener, a retired roofer who keeps his hand in lives 3 doors up and they are going to ask around for cleaner suggestions for me.

I then went and had a mooch around the R*ang*.  Bought a few things but may return them. I found a really good temporary light. They hardly had any plants. Will try bnm tomorrow. I took loads of photos of lighting but no decisions yet...

I've spent a lot of this evening cutting up cardboard to plug the huge area where the laminate is missing after the previous owners knocked out a hideous fireplace. I don't know why but there's also about a 25cm wide by about 3m long strip of missing laminate along the front width of the lounge. There was also a gap in the floor near my sofa. I still need to fill another metre or so with cardboard but that will need to be tomorrow now.

I found all the gaps in the laminate triggering. So ended up hoovering, sliding furniture around and dragging the rug from the back room into this one to cover the worst of it (including the temporary cardboard). I'm happy with one half of the room now but cream crackered.

My air filter arrived. Had it on in my bedroom most of today so will see later if that helps. My eyes are really sore from moving the rug. So moved it down to the lounge. The previous owners had housecats which is fine downstairs as it was laminate but 2 of the bedrooms including mine have carpet...

I will look on FBMP and Am**"" for temporary rugs... When they laid the laminate they also failed to insulate....

jwil

Gaps in laminate would really annoy me too!  Good idea to find some rugs.

LadyWithAPlan

Hopefully you have soon a couple of corners in the house where you can just enjoy sitting and relaxing 
A place in the lounge and hopefully the weather will improve so you can sit outside for a cuppa 

I also would be wanting to fix everything immediately but you have probably 45-50 years there so !

TallGirl

That does sound annoying but it can be fixed sounds like it was a bad job in the first place with no underlay. Rugs are handy for lots of things and warm too. Hope things settle down and you can pace yourself better. 

savingholmes

Thanks Jwil, LWAP and TG

Got up late. Had a shower. Couldn't find my hairdryer which was a shame. Continued trying to tidy things away and give them place. 

A new handyman/gardener came - he's twice the price of the other one - but sounds like he'll be decent and more reliable. We got on really well. Lots of neurodiversity in his family too. He's plumbed in my washing machine for free and he's block booking me in for 2 weeks time and will call if he has the odd hour availability before then. He also knows how to do electrics so can sort the garage and utility. Exciting!! He thinks I need a specialist for the fascia boards etc as the underneath part is definitely asbestos but thinks he can fix some of the guttering without going near that. I will also need a specialist for the drive as some concrete may need jack hammering out - but he's going to give me some recommendations. It took 90 minutes to talk through the stuff that needed doing - and we didn't even get to look inside the garage! It turned out the radiator in the downstairs loo had been turned off - so he sorted that too.

I totally need to pace myself. Only just having lunch! I was about to eat some soup when he came. Introduced myself to another neighbour in the back garden so that was positive.

So I need to pick some outside lights, some internal lights, flooring for the lounge and the hallway - will probably continue the one that's in the rest of the downstairs. I looked closer today and there is some insulation - just nowhere near enough. There are also no door edging strips - which is why parts are coming out... This house has good bones - but none of the work the previous guy did has been finished off properly. He even put the bath in without finishing tiling underneath. I knew that from the survey though but it kind of sums things up... He said he'd pass on any discounts he gets.

I want a wall easel for my art room area - and he says he can put that in for me - if I send him a link to the kind of thing I'm after (utube). I'm also going to try and order a motor for my Swedish shop sit-stand desk so that it is more practical for me - and perhaps get castors etc. The desk top isn't currently screwed on... Just plonked by the movers... 

The black bin got emptied today - so that's a lot of my bubble wrap gone. Some friends are moving and they'd like my boxes so I need to put the emptied ones in the car and remember to take them tomorrow. I'm having my haircut in my previous town so will combine the two jobs and see DD.