New taps

So the kitchen sink decided to stop producing hot water, and the lovely man from NPower said it had something to do with the taps.

So we bought some fancy new ones. Kind of space age, and I wasn't sure if I liked them at first, but their growing on me (as much as a tap can after you've seen a £450 brushed chrome tap with a Brita water filter built in).

Light fitting

I know this isn't technically about our house (the one that we own), but about the school's house (the one that we live in), but as its DIY related I'm going to post it anyway, just because it fits.

I've been wanting a chandelier for the bedroom for the longest time (basically since the day we moved in). Actually I want one for the dining room too, but one step at a time...

Anyhow, I found the perfect one - and it was cheap! I didn't want crystals everywhere, because my mum warned me that you have to take them apart regularly to wash them, otherwise they look dull. What I wanted was something rustic, but minimalist. Something that wouldn't look out of place in the BBC Robin Hood series.

Anyway, I found this beauty in IKEA
LERDAL
it's called LERDAL and it has both bulbs and candle holders in it. How perfect is that?

It's only £35.99 and I got 30% off for it being January sales.

I put the whole thing together, following the instructions, until I realised there was no way I was going to be able to reach the stupidly high ceilings in this old Victorian house, even stood on the change table, so I had I get Matt involved.

As I'd done the rest the instructions for attaching to the ceiling looked really easy. Just connect striped leads together, dark leads together and light leads together. Piece of cake.

Only the problem was, once we took the existing light fitting out, there were nine wires coming out of the ceiling, not three and some of them sparked when we touched them.

wires

Turns out you can't just turn the light off, you're supposed to switch it off at the fuse box.

So the ikea instructions didn't match what we had at all, but here are the instructions for if you have the same problem.


This post is linked up at no ordinary blog hop

Tenants!

So we've finally got some tenants in our lovely house.

My sister and her family started to rent off us about a month ago. It's really exciting to have them living in the same town as us, but also so nice to see our house furnished. It looks great, so homely.

It is still missing coving (whoops!) and hopefully we'll get around to putting that up for them soon, but other than that, we love it!


Paint!

So we've finally got to a painting stage throughout most of the house. As we now have tenants for September, and they kindly offered to help paint, it's only fair that I let them choose the colours. I am incredibly happy though. They look great.

The front bedroom is now 'dusted damson' which I had my reserves about, but is lovely on.




The hallway has had its second coat of buttermilk ands looking lovely for it.


And from the other angle you can see an 'overtly olive' avocado colour in the kitchen.



The kitchen does need a second coat, but the colour is good.




Into the dining room from the kitchen you can see how patchy the kitchen is, but the dining room is beautiful buttermilk again.


And from there you get just a hint of my very favourite room...



The living room.




This colour is called 'Espresso shot' and boy was it hard to paint on!

It was so patchy and uneven, even with the roller, the first coat seemed to take forever. Fortunately the second coat went on much faster and it's sooo beautiful. I would have done the whole room in this (with a south facing window that extends the entire width of the room it won't look dark) but Christine was nervous, so we ended up doing two walls in this, and two in 'intense truffle'.

I ache all over but it's totally worth it.

Next step is touch ups and skirting boards.
Exciting times...


- Kj
Xxx

We won't be living here...

Well, it turns out we aren't going to be living in our first house.

This sounds like it's really bad news, but honestly, it isn't!

Matt got a job we'd been hoping for, but it includes accommodation, which means we are now just trying to finish the house so that my sisters family can rent it off us. It's been a strange time for the last few months, not really sure how to finish the house (to my taste, or generic in case someone else rents it) and this way has worked out perfectly. Not only are we financially better off, but my sister and I have fairly similar taste, and with us being close, it's not like I won't get to visit the house. She might even let me help her in the garden...

So now it's the final push to try and get the house finished before they have to move in September. Matt, whose idea it was to start this blog, hasn't really posted much, but he has done LOADS of work, so I'll get him to update as soon as it's summer and he has some free time.


Upstairs floor

The plan had been to lay parquet floor upstairs too, as we had loads of it, but unfortunately it wasn't quite right.

For a start it cost us a lot more (money and time) to adhere, sand and varnish the downstairs floors than we had projected.

Secondly it would be an absolute pain to take up again should anything need rewiring/replumbing. So we decided to go with laminate.

Well actually we were donated some laminate.

It's really nice though. Here's the close up:



You can't really see how deep the colour is, but it's lush.

I should probably wait until we've laid it all and show you the photos, but here is the beginning.




I know it's dark, but that's the hallway going through to the smallest bedroom.

It's got a gorgeous, almost red, sheen to it, and it's textured so it looks like proper wood (as oppose to the laminate that it really is).

It is going down really fast, thanks to the expertise of our friend Richard (who also donated half of it from his rental property).

Can't believe how easy this is compared to the parquet...

- Kj
Xxx

Garden

I spent this morning in the garden and I can barely move now!!

That was really hard work. Our entire fence looked like this



And when I pulled all that ivy off inside there was this


Which is a really nasty thorny tree.

Still the hack saw made light work of most of it. I would have taken it all out except I found a birds nest



And it seemed mean to destroy it.

There's so much more light in the kitchen now. It's made an amazing difference. I no longer have to have the lights on in the day!


The fence does look a bit bare, but once I've cleared all the bed at the bottom I will plant something more productive there. I was planning to have a grape vine, but as Elisha is allergic to them, that seems a bit dangerous.

I'm thinking some kind of espalier. Cherry or pear maybe?

Kj
Xxx
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