The kitchen's a bit messy darling .....

Half asleep this morning I heard Rez mention the kitchen was a bit messy after he'd been there last night. No probs I thought, a few beer cans and he mentioned something about sweeping up .... excellent!

Arrived to find this!



Just as a reminder, it looked like this previously ...



Personally I think the yellow bricks are an improvement. We just have a little less surface area now.

The boiler is being installed on that wall next weekend so Reza is running pipes and electric down.

What I couldn't believe is the amount of room we've gained taking that plasterboard off! The whole kitchen is plasterboarded up (possible to hide the yellow bricks?!). I think the plan is to take it off every wall and possibly put it back on the boiler one so it sits flush with the wall. I'm looking forward to it! :)

Ew, I also can't wait to take up the skanky floor in the kitchen. I'd rather have concrete! Still amazes me how people lived like this before we came along.

Bathroom arrived!

Well I say bathroom, I mean bath and sink.... still haven't got round to ordering the toilet. So many choices!



In it's full glory in B&Q!

Pipe Problems

On way my back from Manchester last night to get a phone call from a frustrated Rez saying the boiler man had been to give us the ok on fitting the boiler in a few weeks.

We discovered that the pipework Rez has already laid is all wrong!! aaargh!

I don't know the technical stuff but it needs to take a different route and because of regulations be a much thicker pipe which tapers down to a small one. Gutted ......

All is not lost as the heating pipes were still needed so that was not a complete waste of time but we do now need to purchase these thicker pipes and start again.

Reza has shipped in help for this weekend and we plan to have the boiler installed the weekend after (my birthday!)

I suggested we board up the bathroom and the rest of us can get started on taking the plaster off the walls in there so tiling can begin asap.

A busy weekend! (nothing new then?!)

Dodgy double glazing?!

As we are moving the bathroom upstairs we need to at least get new windows for there.

I asked the local double glazing firm to come out and give us a quote. Bruce!! came out and gave us some suggestions for what type of windows we could have. Prior to this I hadn't even considered you could get different types hmmmmmm

A slight hitch to the plan when I invited round a national company to also give us a quote. I assumed they would do a quick measure up and come back to us as Bruce was going to do. No chance!!

1.5 hours later I had missed the gym and we were still debating windows and prices. Typical sales woman ... we took her (lowest) offer there and then or walked away with a higher one valid for 6 months.

I hate rushing into things but in fairness the quote was good and the windows were of a good quality (she bought a long a sample!). As a bonus they could be fitted in the first week of June. So deposit down and the front of the house is going to have new windows sooner than we thought ... eeek!

I then woke up at 3am worrying that I had ordered the wrong ones and bad things were going to happen if this was a dodgy company!

2 days later everything seems to be ok. Had the surveyor round today and we have an installation date of 5th June. Fingers crossed!

Bank Holiday Weekend

This was the weekend where we made real progress.

Stevo and I were confined to the garden while Rez had practically all floorboards up to work on the gas/heating/other stuff unknown to Gem?

Reza stuff:





Gem & Stevo stuff (involved sunburn)









The infamous can crusher ....



I decided it would be a good idea to paint the back door to test the dark blue I may want as a new front door. I was rather impatient and didn't realise quite how long it took to prep. Ty to Stevo :)

Before (after prepping)



After to follow next weekend as you have to leave 16 hours between coats ZZzzzzzz

Unfortunately no BBQ this weekend as it's too heavy to transport in anything other than a van which we can't use at weekends. Maybe next weekend :)

The great wall debate

Wednesday 20th May

So it starts .......

There is a wall in the lounge with a door to the kitchen slap bang in the middle. This is a real pain as there's just not enough room either side for a decent size sofa. So, do we move the door?

Gem's opinion - keep the door where it is, buy a smaller sofa. Don't really want to walk all the way through the lounge to get to the kitchen door

Reza's opinion - move the door to far end of the lounge

We debated this for rather a long time (ty for Laura and Stu for comments also!) and still haven't come to a decision.

One for another time? Although Reza tells me not as we need to make plans for where the radiators/wiring are going.

Bathroom shopping is stressful!

Monday 18th

After months of research you would imagine I had picked out the exact bathroom suite and would be ready to go ..... not the case :(

We had to change our (my?!) plans of having the bath facing you as you walk in to moving it under the window as not much else could go there.

It looked like B&Q was the place to buy as we couldn't turn down the half price sale plus another 10% off in may. Unfortunately our local B&Q had the worst bathroom display ever. I started to get stressed!

Mum to the rescue! We went over to a bigger B&Q in the evening and I finally placed an order for a bath and sink. The toilet is a longer story and still not ordered ZZzzzzz

I still can't believe the B&Q man made me lie in the bath to check it was comfy .....hmmmmmmmm

It starts .....

Week 1

Rather late in posting this but imagine it's 15th May 2009. Reza and I got the keys to Seaton Road. After all the waiting it was such a relief to finally get in there.

Opened the door and the first thing we said (after 'It still stinks!') was 'Ooooh it's a bit smaller than I remember it'. We both laughed ...

We then noticed all the junk had mysteriously disappeared (RIP comode chair) .....great! But we were missing the fridge and washing machine grrrrr .....straight onto Freecycle :)

Just so we never forget, here is how it looked when we first walked in:









The next, most important thing was to open all the windows and doors to get that horrible smell out (1 week on it's still there).

Over the weekend it was all hands on deck to do as much cleaning as possible (go Mum!) while Reza got on with temporary hot water and a last minute decision to rip out the back boiler (initially planned for weeks down the line!)



Vital to keeping the workforce happy ....



Deckchairs in the lounge ... so 'first house' Is that hose out of the window?!



Reza assures me this bit of ceiling had to be removed to make future work easier ... hmmmm ... I trust him ;)



Flooring up



Boiler out ... that was a struggle!



Matt had his own unique way of decorating .... handprints ;)



All hands on deck to abolish the terrible woodchip ... to be found everywhere



First weekend over and (I'm sure I'm going to say this so many times)but a big thank you to everyone who helped and came to say hello! Plenty more to do but we've made a great start.