We started tiling! woop woop

My mission for this weekend was to get the tiling in the bathroom started (didn't even care if we laid one tile!!)

Reza started last week by prepping the wetroom area. He primed and tanked the shower tray and the area around. We were a bit disappointed the tanking liquid wasn't pink like in the pictures hehe





Saturday evening we made a start on the underfloor heating. I suspected it would take longer than we thought but I wasn't prepared for the complete STRESS it was.
I worked out the floor area minus all the bits we weren't heating and worked out the spacing to be 6.4cm. We started and laid a lovely neat cable until almost the end ....... we then realised we had ALOT of cable left which you can't cut or adjust. We were something like 9m out AAARGH!!! (I was happy in this pic as didn't know what was to come!)



It was now midnight and we had to start all over again and probably guess the spacing. We decided to get up early in the morning and give it another go. I pulled up all the cable and wound it back up. We tried 5.5cm and hoped for the best. This time was a lot harder as we'd drawn lines on the floor from before and it was pretty tricky trying to find the correct ones.

Our second attempt wasn't quite as good but at least the cable ended in the correct place with none left over. 3 hours later ....Phew!!




Dad arrived and him and Reza started the tiling........
He'd previously spent some time working out the spacing and cutting for the tiles so this saved a job on the day. We then told him he only had 30 mins working time before the adhesive set .. eeek! No problem!?

We needed a lot of adhesive (almost 3 bags out of the total 5 allocated for the room) just to level the floor out. Couldn't use self levelling as the wetroom area needed to slope.

I'm so happy with the tiles we've laid so far ... they look ace!!! :)









I think by the end of next weekend we'll have the floor completed (dependant on how tricky the sloping wetroom area is).

Bathroom - Tanking & Underfloor Heating (Step 1)

Finally we're making good progress on the bathroom! :)

Reza and Pete fixed the shower tray in place:



Then the insulation boards for the UFH went down:





Reza has now started to prep for the tanking to be completed this week:





Other exciting news is that we had a lovely moving in BBQ :) Yes, I know we've been in since May but we haven't had everyone round all at once. We cleared the front room to set up Guitar Hero and will did a yummy BBQ. Shame the weather was a bit rubbish but everyone had a fab time :) I'm not sure ever in the history of Seaton Road has one household filled up their can and bottle bins so much!!





Had another clear up this weekend and finally got rid of every single bit of rubbish in the front garden!! To most ppl this picture still make it looks awful but it's a massive improvement. I've been trying to get rid of the trolley for weeks now grrrrr



At last we've now got 2 sofas in our lounge woop woop! :) That was the most exciting thing about my weekend. Now a whole 4 ppl can sit down in our house without the use of deckchairs.

Not much progress

It's been over a month since my last post but not much seems to have happened. Mainly because Reza and I have been busy doing other bits and having been away a few weekends.

The bathroom seems to be a big hurdle at the moment is feels like it's taking forever. When your doing everything yourself this is bound to be the way. Reza is doing a great job although when it's 10pm at night and there is a bathroom ceiling on the floor I do have my doubts :p (he knows I am joking xxxxx)

Steve moved in on 1st August - his room looks great (better than ours grrrrr!) He is the only room to have carpet and I am quite jealous. Apologies for poor pics - my camera has broken :(





The kitchen looks pretty much the same. We managed to get an oven which looks like it came out of the war but it does the job. It cooks a stir fry in 5 mins flat!! Put some temporary work surface in so at least there's somewhere for me to cook.




The garden is growing nicely and we've had some yummy courgettes, beans and cherry tomatoes from it. We also have giant marigolds!! I think I possibly planted them a little close together.







The bathroom. This seems to be the slowest room in the house - there's such a lot to do. The walls have all been plasterboarded as per last blog. The shower tray is now fitted and the floor put down. Recent developments are that the ceiling below has been taken out so that it's easier to get the plumbing. We need to run a new soil stack upstairs but want to try and hide this in the wall somehow so it's not showing outside.










Yes that is a toilet in our bedroom AAAAARGH

We did buy some funky taps!!



These were half price at B&Q (still £129 aaaargh) but made them the same price as most other bathroom taps. I thought they would look too chunky with out stuff but they looks pretty cool :) The wate runs out like a waterfall.

Japanese Knotweed. We discovered that growing in our neighbours front garden there was some knotweed. Apparently this is quite distructive and it's against the law for you to chop it down and dispose of it in the normal garden rubbish. You have to burn it. I phoned the council as neighbour is council tenant. After several phone calls they wrote her a letter to say spray some Roundup on it. I started to get quite worried about it as it takes about 15 years to get rid of using this method and about £3k to have someone come and inject it. The main problem is that it is so vicious it digs up foundations and would prevent us from getting a new drive.
Our neighbours daughter decided to chop it down (maybe she was fed up of me going on about it!!) not really knowing how bad it was so I've sprayed some roundup on it to see if that helps. All we can do it keep our fingers crossed.

You can see it fully grown on the left in the corner of this pic (ignore my friend washing her car!!) Then it now chopped down and looking like it's dead - but it's not :( You can see how much it's spread in the pics. All we can do is hope we can get rid of it.

Gem & Reza - now living at Seaton Road EEEEK

Wow, lots to tell!!

Rez and I moved in on Monday and both took the week off to get things sorted and make a good start on the bathroom.

It's been such lovely weather!!

Here's progress since last time:

We finished the bedroom. YEY I am so pleased. It's our one 'nice' room - hence moving the telly to it!! The room feels lovely and just a bit more sorting (of Gem's makeup hehe!) and then we're there. I even managed to give Rez half the wardrobe for his clothes ;)

Here's pics ... taken in poor light as Reza has the power off ... doh! Reza's idea to have the 'feature' wall ... although I wasn't so keen I really love it now. Esp with the clock :) Nice one Rez!







Just a reminder of how it started ... (and Dad starting to decorate)





In the meantime Stevo & Laura started to paper Stevo's room. Several hours later ... all done!!! excellent job ... even with a slight hangover?!



Reza bought me a present (aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwww) yeh ... it's a washing line. Fab :/ lol The old one snapped in the ground so had to dig the old one out. In true council style we found they'd cemented it in rather well ....





Yes that is FOUR of us trying to pull it out. Laura found a penny (half penny?!) from 1928! :) How cool!!

Other garden stuff - our veg is growing well! We now have courgette, tomatoe, lettuce, chilli, bean, mint and chive plants. Not long until we're eating them. Yummy!! Flowers look good too :)

Reza has now started on the bathroom. After covering me in PVA grrr he and Steven started putting up the waterproof plasterboard. It's all finished now and looks coooooool. Next job is to lay the shower in and apply to council for the planning for soil pipe etc.





That's about it for this week. Although we're so busy it feels a lot more relaxed actually living here, not going backwards and forwards to the flat. I'm enjoying the week off. Even the gibs are relaxed :)