Terrible start with the house blog. It's been an extremely busy few weeks and we haven't really sat down at all. We have put all the tools away this weekend though and tidied up for the family to come down for Ash's birthday. It been really nice to see how the house works in normal life and it coped with having lots of people in it very well. Here' some of what we'v achieved since we moved in:
- We decorated Izzie's room - exactly to her specification. She was the saddest of all of us to have moved house so we did her room first to help her to settle in. She's very pleased with it and now makes her bed every morning which is an unexpected bonus!
- We found out we need a WHOLE new roof. Eek. We had budgeted £5000 for extensive repairs but didn't expect to have to do the whole thing. Apparently it was re-roofed by DIY Jim who lived here before and he's done it alllll wrong. So now we have a huge hole in our budget. We'll have to put a lot of big jobs on the back burner which is a shame, but at least we'll be watertight.
- We replaced a lot of lights. The horrible gold ones from the living room are gone, the glass orbs in the hall and landing are gone, and the wooden wannabe castle light fitting from the whisky room is gone. There are still a couple of blingy chandeliers which Ash keeps banging his head on, but hopefully soon they will be gone too :o)
- We have a new kitchen! This one might get a post all to itself. There is still lot to do - flooring (starting on Wednesday), electrics (struggling to pin down an electrician), and tiling - but it all works. Oh and we only have one knob - but it's on the tea drawer so all's good.
- Ash has also made a start repainting all the thousands of windows. They are currently brown wood and long-overdue a weatherproofing. We have decided to paint them in "warm clay". The two that are done so far look nice. He's made a start stripping paint from the stonework too.
- We decorated Izzie's room - exactly to her specification. She was the saddest of all of us to have moved house so we did her room first to help her to settle in. She's very pleased with it and now makes her bed every morning which is an unexpected bonus!
- We found out we need a WHOLE new roof. Eek. We had budgeted £5000 for extensive repairs but didn't expect to have to do the whole thing. Apparently it was re-roofed by DIY Jim who lived here before and he's done it alllll wrong. So now we have a huge hole in our budget. We'll have to put a lot of big jobs on the back burner which is a shame, but at least we'll be watertight.
- We replaced a lot of lights. The horrible gold ones from the living room are gone, the glass orbs in the hall and landing are gone, and the wooden wannabe castle light fitting from the whisky room is gone. There are still a couple of blingy chandeliers which Ash keeps banging his head on, but hopefully soon they will be gone too :o)
- We have a new kitchen! This one might get a post all to itself. There is still lot to do - flooring (starting on Wednesday), electrics (struggling to pin down an electrician), and tiling - but it all works. Oh and we only have one knob - but it's on the tea drawer so all's good.
- Ash has also made a start repainting all the thousands of windows. They are currently brown wood and long-overdue a weatherproofing. We have decided to paint them in "warm clay". The two that are done so far look nice. He's made a start stripping paint from the stonework too.