22 Foxhole East

Sneaky o/p of £105, so that is £147 overpaid, (does not cover the £180 interest a month - but it does mean it is not going out of the standard payment DH pays).

Bought a £40 tv from an amazing second hand warehouse down the road from me. We tried fixing the old one, changed capacitors, soldered stuff, fixed it, but I think there is an electrical fault with it. It stopped working again. Boo. Anyway, we have a replacement and it was not hugely expensive.

Trying to put up one of those IKEA units, with all the squares - it is 8 yrs old and seems to have warped, I have managed to get three corners screwed it, but the fourth corner is proving to be problematic:mad:, will have to wait until DH comes home and we can stand it up and hopefully, with gravity, it will behave enough to get the last 2 screws in, then that is another job done.

Then I think I may be on to putting up shelves in alcoves in bedrooms. I only have a few little jobs to do in the kids' bedrooms, then that is their rooms finished, until the roof comes off - hopefully it will just be a quick ceiling skim after that (they have the 3 bedrooms in the attic).

I went around the house this weekend with a notepad and pen and wrote down every single job which needs to be done in each room (except the ground floor - still not thinking about that, remember?). So I am going to start working my way through them.

I realised I am waiting for DH to help with them, and I just have to stop doing that. It is never going to happen. We had the same problem in our last house, I would say 'we should do .......' and he would say ' great idea, we should do that' and I would wait, and plan, and wait and wait. He hates DIY and in the end, after 3 years I realised it was up to me to get stuff done. He won't even put his clothes away, he is never going to volunteer to put up a shelving unit!:rotfl:
He is happy to pay for it, but really he wants nothing to do with actually doing it. Bit sad about that, but he is what he is. To be honest he would live in a skip, but that does mean he never complains if he comes home and I haven't the place tidy and always notices when he comes home and it is tidy and thanks me.

Finally had the quote for the bathroom for fixing the flooring and putting in a new shower, OVER 7K!! the first man quoted too, £2k for labour, + whatever materials we supply. So either I am going to have to live without a shower, drop my expectations (- no tiling and a step up into the shower) or somehow get my hands on another £1000 to get the job done.

The frustrating thing is, until the roof is replaced and I find out how much replastering is going to be needed, there is no point in decorating the hall, stairs and landing (3 floors) and until the bathroom is done, there is no point in getting carpet for the hall, stairs and landing. The two things that are going to make this place look so much better are carpeting and a light coloured wallpaper!

DH does not see the point in having the roof changed until it starts to leak, but as we have nail sickness, really we need to get it sorted. 116 odd year old nails don't last forever! He has the roof money in his bank account, so I am going to have to save up for that as well, I think he views it as his safety net, his emergency fund. I don't think I am going to get my hands on that money again.

Still, now I have my new shiny list of things to do, I am just going to have to get on with the cheaper items I can do myself, and save hard for the more expensive ones. :T I have a plan!!

One text message and he dropped the price by £1,500. The guy is a chancer. He can jolly well do one!!

You know, I don't mind when I get a tradesman in to quote for a job if he just says ' look, I don't fancy this one' or 'I wouldn't do a job this big', that is fine, it is honest. But when they just give you a stupidly inflated quote, with a ridiculous timescale, they are just wasting my time, and it is out of order.

It took me about 8 years in Manchester to get a decent group of tradesmen I knew I could call on, and not get messed about. Hope it takes less time this time around!

I scrumped 24lbs of apples this morning from a lovely man who posted on Streetlife about his windfall apples. Lovely sunny day and me up a ladder.

DS2 was 12 yesterday, he had a lovely day and DH bought his present (!), so that saved me some money. I made a triple decker sponge filled with peanut butter icing, and covered with the taste of the 1970s - chocolate couverture. I found it on the top shelf of the supermarket, and knew it had to come home with me just to weird out DH. Such fun!

Bought a coffee table for £5 from a second hand shop, it makes the living room look great and now we can play Scrabble in comfort.

I am so confused that anyone could have not known Fat Sam had his finger in the pie ( ex- England manager). Never liked him when he was at Bolton with all his irregularities at the JD Stadium.

Did a really nice bit of patch plastering.

I am busy moving bits of furniture around the place, moving bits out of rooms where they are no longer needed and dragging them down 2 flights of stairs to sit in the hall. Now I have 4 bookcases we no longer need, and am going to put up some shelves in the chimney alcoves. I have plans! I sold one of the bookshelves for £15, it cost me £15 new from IKEA, but I suppose it saved the person a trip to IKEA, and I delivered it, so they gave me £20 instead. I have put up a bundle of 10 Miffy books for sale, and a bundle of 6 Harry and the bucketful of dinosaurs books on to the local selling page, only £3 each, but every penny is going into the money box and then into the mortgage overpayment pot. The kids are finally saying 'I do not need this anymore, I do not want it'. Hooray!!
DH has not yet learnt this skill.

I am so happy it is Autumn I keep dancing around the place.