Daily Drivel

One week on...

It's hard to believe we've had the bungalow for a week! We spent about 3 hours down there tonight. I had another go at stripping the wood around the fireplace - it still needs more work. Also did some sanding and had a go at filling in the gap between the door frame and wall using a flexible sealant with a 'gun' thingy. Worked really well and looks nice and tidy. Got lots more of that to do :-(

Andrew has nearly finished removing the skirting board from the hall and we're still hoping to get the lounge and hall ready for painting by monday at the latest.

I've managed to get hold of a plumber to come and give us a quote for re-fitting the bathroom. He's going to pop round on Monday or Tuesday next week. Just hope he can fit us in sometime over the next 3 or 4 weeks! We're going to have a look at bathroom suites on Saturday morning on the way to sort out our flooring. Fingers crossed that the flooring will arrive quickly as it needs some time to acclimatise in the bungalow before it can be fitted.

I bought some bird feeders today and they are now installed in the garden - all the bread I put out yesterday has gone already. Didn't see robin today but then the weather was pretty grotty this evening. We had quite a thunderstorm!

Night off...

We took the night off from working on bungalow today. Popped round to see if there was any post and to get some rosemary to go with our lamb. I was chuffed to discover we have a massive rosemary bush (bush - is that right!?) in our back garden when we had a good look round last Wednesday.

Our 'evening off' wasn't much of a break unfortunately - we found out that someone is coming to look at the flat tomorrow so we had to spend a mad couple of hours making it look half decent! There's stuff everywhere - we have hardly been here the last 4 days and when we are here it's usually to turn out a cupboard to find a tool or something to take down to the bungalow! Ah well - it kinda looks ok now.

Phew...

We spent all day working on the bungalow today. I'll be glad to go back to work tomorrow for a rest! At least I'll get to sit down :-) The lounge is ALMOST ready to paint! I decided to have a go at stripping the varnish off of the wood around the fireplace today. Just did the mantlepiece and it seems to have come out ok. There are a few stubborn bits which I'll have to have another go at one evening then I've got to do the wood round the tiles at the bottom (click on photo for a bigger image). I just hope we can get everything done in time! Only 3 weekends until our planned moving date (yikes) and lots of work to do. I think we'll be ok - it just takes such a long time to get the wretched nails out of the wall once the skirting is off! We keep reminding ourselves how much nicer the floor will look done 'properly'. It shouldn't take too long to do the painting - I'm planning on taking a few days off to get that done. Might even start the lounge on Monday. I'm really looking forward to getting the rooms painted and (hopefully!) seeing the place transformed with a bit of colour.

Making progress...

Andrew finished taking off all the skirting board in the lounge yesterday - slow work as the nails are a real b*gger to get out of the wall! I finished filling holes in walls. Dad has lent us a great tool - a big Bosch sander. It's brilliant and will save me loads of time sanding things down by hand. I've got to go round and tidy up the wall where the skirting has been removed - there are, let's just say 'a few holes'! Nevermind, it will be covered up by shiny new skirting once the floor has been fitted anyway.

Today the washing machine is being delivered - cool! It's due to arrive sometime between 11am and 3pm. We're planning to stay in today - no shopping trips, trips out to buy tools etc etc. Really want to get the lounge finished (i.e. ready to paint) today. We ordered a nice new bed yesterday which will be delivered in about 4 weeks time. Good timing really as we're not ready for it just yet! So, all we need to do now is order the flooring and find a plumber. Have decided to try and squeeze a new bathroom suite out of the budget. There is a special shower cubicle (for disabled) in there at the moment and it's rather big and ugly and the drainage from it is rather strange. All I need to do is track down a plumber to come round next week and give us a quote.

HOW many nails!?

I spent thursday morning taking out nails from the walls where loads of piccies etc. had been hung up. Lots of holes to fill! I received a call at about 9.15 to tell me that the fridge would be arriving at about 10am, which it did! The whole purchase went very smoothly. We ordered the fridge from www.searchappliance.com on Sunday evening so no complaints there! Fridge looks great - it's really a poor-mans SMEG I suppose but we like it :-)

Nice isn't it :-)
We both had yesterday off so that we could get stuck in to the decorating over the bank holiday weekend. I had arranged for a chimney sweep to come and do his thing - which he did! So, now our fireplace is ready to go - just need to get some wood and a fire-guard. Also had a tree surgeon round to quote for removing 3 trees from the garden and pruning one - wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be so we'll probably get that done in a month or so. Found out that the tree in the front is a contorted willow (and not a corkscrew hazel as we had thought - oops).

We noticed a robin in the garden a lot of the time yesterday - seems it's actually his garden! Cool :-) Looking forward to getting a bird table set up in the garden soon.

Bungalow - Day 1...

Finally collected the keys at about 1.30pm yesterday. It felt slightly strange opening the front door for the first time! The previous owner popped round and dropped off the rest of the spare keys and had a quick chat. He's very kindly left the lawnmower - a 'moving in present'! One less thing to buy which is a good thing! The grass had only been cut yesterday so the garden is looking nice and neat :-)

I've already painted some nice patches of tester paint in all the rooms except the kitchen and bathroom. Will see what the colours look like today now they have had time to dry out.