House

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 06 June 2011 22:07:25

Sorry I haven't written anything here in ages, we've been busy! We completed on the purchase of a house last Thursday and are now starting the daunting process of trying to bring it out of the dark ages. It's all very scary and exciting! I'm so grateful Mr B has a good baseline DIY knowledge, and a couple of books to complement his knowledge.

The 'dark ages' reference is a slight exergagtion though, it has plumbing where necessary although the main pipe into the house is lead; it has central heating although radiators are sparse; and it has mains electricity although it currently doesn't comply with legal requirements. The kitchen is currently *tiny* (for those readers who know of and remember 94's kitchen - it's smaller), but a builder is going to knock down a couple of walls to open up the dining room into the kitchen, making a large kitchen / diner. The electrician is also coming in to sort out the fuse box and wire in more sockets throughout the house (we're going to do the chasing for it). And a plumber is coming in to sort out the water pipe. Most of the rest of the jobs we can do ourselves. A lot of decorating and removing the 1950's add ons (hoping to find orginal 1890 features behind them!). Oh, and Mr B's Dad works for Wickes so he's designed our fancy new kitchen with us, and I can't wait! :D It'll be worth living off a couple of camping stoves and a mini electric oven for a month or so!

Today I've had a very productive day off. This morning I did some chores around the flat, sorted through my wardrobe clearing several bags for charity and packed up a car load of stuff which I then took to the new house. At the new house I bagged up 7 black bags of polystyrene tiles which Mr B had scraped off our bedroom ceiling (big fire risk and disgusting) and soaked off some wallpaper in the dining room. Then Mr B arrived and we did some more bits and bobs together before coming home and collapsing.

Those who know me, will know that I operate through lists. I have a big, multicoloured packing schedule and a big list of all the DIY jobs we need to do on the house. The packing I feel more than on top of - I'm ahead of schedule and we've moved over almost everything that I've packed, leaving behind the things I know we'll need in the next 3 weeks before we move properly. That leaves us relatively free to do stuff on the house before we move. Which is great, except that the DIY list is so big and daunting that it's difficult to know where to begin! For now we're concentrating on making it safe to live in and sorting out the kitchen / diner. Oh, and because the bathroom is the other room in desperate need of attention and we have agreed to leave the main features as they are for now (financial reasons and possibility of moving the bathroom at a later date), we went to ikea and bought some cheap and chirpy accessories to make it liveable.