WOYWW 274

You show me yours – and I’ll show you mine! Desks, that is… To find out how, visit our hostess Julia’s blog by clicking on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, and come on in and join the fun.

So – what’s on my workdesk this Wednesday? As you can see – not a lot!

As often happens on a Wednesday, I am between projects, so my desk is bare. Well, not bare – I’ve always got loads of clutter on it, but bare of projects. Dare I admit it, that water jar is STILL there! I think the level is going down by evaporation after 3 weeks. I wonder how long I can keep it there?

You may remember what a complete tip my ARTHaven was last week, being full of all my office stuff while the new shelves in my office were being reinforced with extra supports. I took advantage of having to take most of the stuff out, to put a different rug down, as the tiny one that was there wasn’t much good for stopping my office chair scooting all over the place on the laminate floor. Having cleared some junk out of the corner, I find I can now use my big comfy chair in there after all, which makes a lot more room in the far corner of my ARTHaven where it was taking up space. I’ve just got enough room to swivel on it!

Here’s my office now. I really like the look of the red rug which goes with all my red office accessories.

For those of you who expressed an interest, I have at last finished the bereavement card I was working on, and it’s been sent off. Here’s a couple of pictures.

For full details, please see my previous post.

Since there isn’t much of interest on my desk this week, I thought I’d go all foody again and show you what I cooked for our meal last night. It is a courgette gratin and I got the recipe off Pinterest. Here it is ready to go into the oven.

And here it is just out of the oven – I have taken a scoop out for Mum for tonight. At 93 she has a very small appetite and I can usually spare a bit without noticing it too much!

I’ve made this before, and tonight’s was a bit wetter than it should be – I think I cooked the courgettes for too long before making up the gratin. It was delicious, though! I substitute plain yoghurt for the cream as it’s a healthier option now I’m on a diet.

Talking of which, I have hit a plateau with my weight loss, but I am not too demoralised because having visited the 5-2 Fast Diet website it appears that it is very common to stop losing weight after a while, but with perseverance, as one’s body adjusts, one starts to lose weight again eventually. I am very encouraged, though, because I have lost 1 st 1 lb (15 lbs for our Transatlantic cousins!) since I started towards the end of June.

One other bit of news – my hubby and I heard back from our local community college today, that we have both been accepted for our evening classes starting later this month. He is doing “improvers’ watercolour painting” and I’m doing feltmaking! I only hope I am up to it, because they say it’s fairly strenuous… I shall give it my best shot anyway, and let you know how I get on. I’ve registered for 2 five-week courses, one this autumn, and the other after Christmas. I’ve also just been given a huge quantity of lavender by our opposite neighbour who was cutting back her lavender hedge, and as it was starting to drop everywhere, I’ve stripped off all the flowers (mammoth job) and am planning to make some essential oil and maybe some natural cosmetic products which will be nice for presents.

Have a lovely creative week, everyone, and happy WOYWW.

Our New House–Final Jobs

After the builders left last year, there were a few problems that developed in the ensuing months, and yesterday Andy phoned to say that at last they had a day between jobs, when they could come and tie up these odds and ends. He and Paul arrived early this morning, and it was quite like old times having them around again!

The main job that needed attention was my bath in the en-suite bathroom. This free-standing bath came with no fitting instructions, and Paul did his best at the time, but I found that the bath was moving if I leant on one side, and then a few months ago I was showing some people around the new house and one of them sat on the end of the bath and it all started to tip up! As a result of this I was very loath to use it in case the movement had caused any breach in the waste, which would cause a flood. Paul did come back and try another tactic to fix it but it didn’t work, and today he finally fixed it for good, by attaching two L-brackets to the side of the bath and onto the floor – very difficult to get at behind the bath! Unless you look behind the bath, you really can’t see them, and it now feels rock solid. Very pleasing! I did warn Paul not to drill right through the second skin of the bath and make a hole right through, because I didn’t fancy pretending to be a little Dutch boy every time I had a bath, plugging the hole with my finger!!

The grab rails in my bathroom that came from Amazon look brilliant, but the design was awful – they were a real pain to fit, and the covers kept popping off. Paul did glue most of them down but he said that a couple of them seemed to be OK so he didn’t bother. In the meantime they have both popped off, so he has now glued them like the others, so they won’t shift.

Finally in the en-suite bathroom, the counter Paul had built for me had settled very slightly, pulling the grout away, so he has now gone right around with silicone caulking and it all looks very neat. It won’t be fully cured till tomorrow morning so meantime a lot of my bathroom stuff is back in the bedroom!

My hubby has been complaining recently about the electric shower in his bathroom being far too weedy to be any good. It is obviously pretty old, and rather than trying to repair it, he decided he’d like a mixer shower tap fitted to the bath, so Andy turned up today with a second-hand one from his store, for which he charged us a very reasonable sum. It looks great on the bath! The hose from the electric shower is visible on this photo, but my hubby has since unscrewed and removed it. We are leaving the actual shower in place, because to remove it would involve making a mess of the wall. They also fitted the poor old chap a grab rail – he’s feeling his age since his retirement!!

In my ARTHaven, the grout had also cracked away around the sink, so that is now beautifully finished with silicone caulking. Also, a few months ago, the head of the tap fell off! It is an extending tap with a hose, and I was able to manage jut using the hose, but Paul has now re-attached the tap with his special super glue. I had pointed out to him a little lug on the underside which fits into a corresponding groove in the main body of the tap, but he forgot about it, and glued the tap on so that if you engaged the lug in the groove, the tap was pointing at the ceiling! He said that as soon as he’d done it, he remembered, but by then it was to late, as the glue had set. While I did agree that an indoor fountain may be attractive, it wasn’t really what was required! In the end Paul cut the lug off altogether, and the result is better than before – the tap can now be located in any position without the inner pipe showing, and it’s now working absolutely fine again.

In the office section, the two long shelves they had fitted were certainly showing their inability to cope with the heavy loads I imposed on them, so they are now strengthened with a wooden batten, and additional supports have been fitted.

In order for this work to be done, I obviously had to take everything off the shelves, and clear space for them to work. All this stuff was dumped in my ARTHaven:

Lovely mess, isn’t it. I am not intending to put it back until my hubby has had a chance to measure a rug we’ve got in the loft. If it is suitable, I shall move the bookcases in the office so that I can lay it down, and it seems sensible to do all this while a lot of the stuff is out of the office anyway. The reason I want a rug is that the laminate floor is rather slippery and offers no resistance to the castors on my office chair, which tends to scoot around all over the place when I want it to remain stationary! This has also proved to be a major problem in the ARTHaven proper, so I am unable to use my lovely comfy revolving chair, which is now just taking up space. Instead, I am using my old wheelchair (with the foot rest removed) – I can lock the wheels and it stays put. It is also very comfortable!

Moving everything out of my office has made me realise how dusty everything was, so I’m also taking advantage of this situation in order to clean up a bit in there. We are out tomorrow so I won’t be able even to think about it till Thursday and probably not then, because I will probably be too tired after our outing.

The final job was to fix Mum’s new door. They had fitted this when they replaced the window with a smaller one, so that she would have independent access into her little patio and wouldn’t have to come through our part of the house to get out. The trouble is, she simply can’t get to grips with anything mechanical, and these modern doors are more complicated to work than old-fashioned ones – she found lifting the handle in order to lock it quite incomprehensible, and somehow kept managing to lock the door when it was open, so that the lock projected and prevented the door from closing at all. She then kept banging the door incessantly, trying to make it close, and making the whole house shake in consequence, and the result was that the door wouldn’t close at all without an effort – she had obviously forced something and it was out of alignment. Paul whipped the hinge covers off and adjusted the hinges, and it now works like a dream! The trouble was, Mum then said she’d be able to lock it again herself, and I had a terrible time persuading her NOT to do this, but to continue to rely on my hubby and me to do it for her each evening. We don’t want a recurrence of the problem!

So all in all, a good day, with lots achieved. All those little niggles are now sorted!

Our New House–Carpet, Garage and Airing Cupboard

Delay in uploading due to the DNS server being down for a couple of days.

The first of two posts today. Plenty going on at the new house. Paul has put the finishing plaster on the arch from the utility room into the back passageway, and Ashley was here today as well, painting – he has made a start on the utility room, and I love the way he has done the two-tone green to match the kitchen, so there’s continuity.

Here’s the arch from the other side.

Looking through the arch to the back passageway, now that all the plastering is done around the new boiler, you would never imagine that there had ever been a door there.

Today Paul made a start on the airing cupboard door. This is where the little sliding glass window was, which I was sorry to lose as it was an original feature of the house, but it wasn’t practical. There will be a bi-fold door across this opening to save space.

Paul says he’s going to box in the cables and electricity meter, with a door to give access. What was there before was awful – a panel, which when you pulled the handle, fell right out!

Paul has put a panel into the gap over the door. This will be plastered and painted.

Just inside the airing cupboard is a switch and a timer, to control the heater which runs along the bottom of the wall the width of the cupboard (not visible here because of all the stuff in the way).

The airing cupboard will be divided in two, with the heater serving both sides – one for us and the other for Mum. She will have the rest of the space for storage

Here is Paul working on the tiling in the annexe kitchen. He is using the same tiles as the ones in the main kitchen – again, these look white in the photo, but they are actually a beautiful neutral marble effect.

Here’s a general view of the main kitchen, with the plastering finished, and the tiling almost finished – just the grouting to be done. Ashley has started painting in there.

The pale green, together with the light oak finish of the units and the almost-white worktops, is a huge improvement on the dark appearance before. I love the light, airy feel of the new kitchen. Once Ashley has finished with the painting, the extractor hood can be installed, which will be the finishing touch to the kitchen.

These two boxes contain the water filter and a spare cartridge. This is going in the loft void above the utility room. The cartridge will need changing only once a year, and we have asked Jamie to do this when he returns each September to service the boiler.

Here is Ashley painting the plasterwork around the new window and door in the annexe sitting room.

The bottom cupboard in the annexe sitting room contained a built-in wooden wine rack, and my hubby removed this today – with some difficulty as some of the screws were rusted in. It will provide extra storage.

In the afternoon the carpet men arrived. Here, they have laid the underfelt (lovely and thick and springy, and insulating too) and they are about to unroll the new carpet.

Unrolling the new carpet. We have chosen one that will be neutral, hard-wearing and not show every mark, and a nice background for Mum’s rugs.

Fitting the carpet.

Working around the edges, making a lovely neat job.

The finished carpet.

This is the new vinyl floor covering in the annexe bathroom. It is lovely with the tiles, and makes the room a lot lighter than the dark floorboards. It has a slightly gritty, rough surface so it will be non-slip.

As promised, Andy has fitted a spotlight in the box covering the pipes in the ceiling of the annexe kitchen. A nice little touch to give some extra light over the worktop. It will come on with the main light – adding a separate circuit for it seemed unnecessary.

When the carpet fitters were here, they moved Mum’s new wardrobes into the annexe. This one is in the space created by the wall of the en-suite bathroom, and fits perfectly.

Outside, great excitement! the old garage has been demolished. Andy is either celebrating this fact, or doing a rain dance. Not sure which.

Here is Chris drilling out the foundation of the old garage.

To get rid of the old garage, they are using it as hardcore for the foundation of the new one! I said this was archaeology in the making – in the ancient Middle East it was common practice to build cities on the ruins of their predecessors, forming a tell which when excavated, takes you down through the centuries of the city’s history.

Finally, some more artwork, this time by my hubby. Remember the banana trees on the balcony where we used to have lunch when the scaffolding was still up at the front? Andy is extremely upset with my hubby because my hubby has thrown all those banana skins away… Note the banana skins in the picture, the knee pads (especially Chris’s) and the fact that they are all called “Boss.”

It’s amazing any work gets done at all!!

Tomorrow we’ve got to be back early because the removal men are bringing Mum’s stuff out of storage, and will be with us around 9 a.m. I have to make sure the carpets are clean before everything comes in, and afterwards my work will be cut out, sorting it all out. We’ve got a bit of time, thankfully. I’m already shattered after today… Still masses to do at home too.

Update 24th August: Mum’s stuff arrived safely yesterday, and all the furniture is now in situ, and I have made a start on unpacking and organising her stuff. We are leaving her pictures till she arrives and decides for herself where she would like them. I can’t start on the kitchen until the work in there is finished.

Our New House–Underneath the Arches…

Warning – photo-rich post!

The first of two posts for today. Over at the new house today we found a hive of activity, and then contributed to it – with me doing things indoors and my hubby working hard outside.

The first thing we noticed on arrival was that Paul had started the kitchen tiling. Unfortunately it’s really hard to get the colour right – in the pictures the tiles look white, but they are actually a natural marble-effect. I had problems with the light in most of the indoor photos today because the sun was extremely bright.

In the next picture you can see he’s begun tiling to the left of the window, and is working on the arch from the utility room.

Tiling over the hob.

The tiling is now complete, ready for grouting. Once this is done, Ashley the painter can come back on Wednesday and paint the kitchen, after which the extractor hood can be installed. I think this will complete the work on the kitchen.

The new plaster in the utility room.

The next series of pictures shows Paul working on the arch between the utility room and the back passageway. I managed to persuade Andy (who has an aversion to arches!!) to allow me to have one over the doorway created by the removal of the door. Without the arch, it looks as if a door has been removed, and the arch makes it look much more like an original, intended feature. Andy said, “I take your point…” I said to Paul, “He’s softening!!! We’ll make an arch convert of him yet!” I have chosen the Flannigan and Allen song “Underneath the Arches” as Andy’s theme tune.

Originally Paul thought he might use a purchased arch former, but in the end decided to construct it himself. He has cut four curved pieces of plasterboard to form the arch, and in this photo he is attaching them to the doorway.

Here he is attaching the small blocks which serve to support the arch pieces.

This picture shows the construction of the arch, taken from underneath.

Paul demonstrating how to construct the curved piece to cover this construction, which will form the base for the plaster. Taking a strip of plasterboard, he has made a series of cuts at right-angles to the length, but not all the way through. This causes the strip to flex, and enables it to follow the curve. I have seen something similar done with skirting board, to follow a curved wall.

The curved strip of plasterboard in place, nailed to the small wooden blocks.

Paul finishing the attachment of the curved piece.

Forming the curved piece in this way obviously creates a series of flats, but these are obliterated by the plaster. Here is the first, rough coat of plaster on the inside of the arch.

Paul smoothing out the rough plaster inside the arch.

Working down the insides of the doorway.

The rough plaster layer complete. Once dry, the finishing skim of fine plaster can be applied, ready for painting.

A moment before the next photo was taken, Andy was also there, looking at it and smiling, and I said, “I’ve got to get a photo of this! A picture of Andy smiling in approval at an arch!!” At this, of course, he promptly vanished into the annexe, and nothing would persuade him to come back!

Paul said I should have said nothing, and simply taken the photo, and the only way we’d ever get a picture of Andy smiling underneath an arch would be to photoshop his head onto Paul’s body!! Using my Serif PhotoPlus photo editing software (which does pretty well everything Photoshop can do, at a fraction of the price) I have done just that.

Eat your heart out, Andy!! (Amazing – and somewhat disturbing – what you can do with a bit of photo manipulation… They can make you believe anything these days!)

To return to more serious matters… The next series of pictures shows Andy putting the finishing touches to the units in the annexe kitchen. Here he is glueing strips to the exposed cut ends of the worktops. He is not using those iron-on strips (which I find always come off eventually), but good old-fashioned Evo-Stik contact adhesive, which will attach these strips for life. He apologised for the smell, but I said not to worry, as this smell held fond memories for me. In the 60s when Formica was all the rage, my dad put it on everything and more or less built Mum’s kitchen for her, and the smell takes me back to the happy days when I was a child and used to “help” Dad in the workshop and always enjoyed watching him making things.

Evo-Stik looks exactly like Nestle condensed milk, something else that Dad loved. We used to give him a tin of this for Christmas and he used to eat it straight out of the tin with a teaspoon! (I don’t recall him ever doing this with Evo-Stik, though!)

Here are the unit ends finished, ready to receive the cooker and fridge when we move.

The sink in the annexe kitchen. Originally Andy was going to use the one from the old main kitchen, but it was too large, so this is now going in my ARTHaven. The sink he has used here is a second-hand one from his store, which was originally going in my ARTHaven. Sort of game of musical sinks around the house…

The next picture shows where the fridge is going. Mum is having my fridge from our present house, having left hers in their old house. As I am having a new fitted fridge freezer in my new kitchen, this is now redundant, and newer than hers, so she is having it. Tim has wired in a power point under the worktop for it, with a fused spur running up behind, so that it can be switched on or off without having to pull it out – this is the smaller of the two boxes over the worktop. Beside it is the double box which will house the cooker switch and a single socket.

We have bought Mum a small counter-top freezer for her day-to-day use (she will also share with us the chest freezer in the outhouse), and this will sit on this worktop.

The space to the left of the fridge will be occupied by the slot-in electric cooker, also from our house. She had a separate ceramic hob in her old kitchen, which has remained as it was fitted, and again, as I am having a new fitted hob in my kitchen in the new house, my cooker is now redundant, and Mum is having it. It is only a few years old and in good condition.

You can see the cable for the cooker coming through the wall via a plastic box. All this cabling was laid while the space between the annexe kitchen and the back passageway was exposed, at the same time that Jamie laid his famous pipework. To the left you can see the capped-off end of a gas pipe – a bit of future-proofing, in case anyone in future wants a gas cooker in this space. Much easier and cheaper to lay the pipes when everything was exposed, than to do it later.

We have taken the same approach the other side of the annexe kitchen, fitting plumbing for a washing machine behind the two single units. Mum doesn’t need a washing machine because I shall be doing all the laundry, but if any tenant in the future wants their own, they simply have to remove the two small units to expose the plumbing, and slot in their machine.

After all the pipework was finished and the wall created with plasterboard, there were a couple of pipes remaining, projecting down from the ceiling, and the finishing touch for Andy today was to box these in.

Andy completing the box. When this is painted white, it will not be noticeable. He has suggested installing a spotlight in this box to shine down on Mum’s worktop, which I think is a good idea – to keep the cost down, this will come on with the main kitchen light, and not be on a separate switch.

Major progress today – the scaffolding has been taken down at long last!!! It was becoming a sore point with Andy as it was so in the way, and preventing him from getting on and making the step from Mum’s new door to her patio. Speaking to Mr. Chappel, he explained that it suited them better to leave the scaffolding in situ until they were ready to use it on their next job, so that they just had to take it down and load it onto the truck and take it straight to the new job, rather than offloading it at the depot and then reloading it for the next job. I can see his point, but this practice does result in irritated customers who are forced into acting as temporary storage for their scaffolding for no charge!!!

In this picture you can see the roof of the outhouse, which Peter the roofer has cleaned off and sealed for us. It looks so much better than before! His work is now complete.

Now you can see the new roof in all its glory, without the scaffolding. We are delighted with how it looks.

My hubby was busy all day outside, tidying up and cleaning. Here, he is in next-door’s garden, clearing away the massive growth of ivy which is choking everything. Our neighbour is very pleased that my hubby is taking care of this boundary fence, even though it is really her responsibility – we are putting in taller fence panels (more privacy for both) and putting anti-cat spikes on top in an attempt to keep our kitties in the garden.

After lunch he sat down and started to repair the pretty little garden seat in Mum’s patio. The wood on the back is coming apart – it is a curved piece made up of several pieces of wood, and the joints have gone and the pieces have pulled apart. He is going to get a woodworking friend to make a new back piece. You can also see the bird table with the feeders that my hubby has put up in readiness for Mum’s arrival – she loves her birds! Also one of the tubs of flowers he’s done – we’ve got a load more at home ready to come over.

He has cleaned up the other patio outside our kitchen window. One day I hope to have lots of plants cascading down this wall. There is also a water feature just out of shot on the left, and we need to find out how to get it working.

Here is my hubby cleaning up at the front. He’s already put a fresh coat of paint on the tops of the walls, and he borrowed a pressure washer from a friend and has made a start at cleaning the front of the house, which was extremely grubby, making the house look unloved. Part of the problem is dirt caused by passing traffic. At the front door there is an old-fashioned brass doorstep and letterbox, both of which I intend cleaning up and restoring to their original shine. I love these original features…

Plans for the next few days: on Friday they came to measure up for Mum’s sitting room carpet and bathroom vinyl floor covering. They are coming to fit these on Thursday, and then on Friday her furniture is arriving. I shall be over at the house on both these days, and will be extremely busy from now on, trying to sort Mum’s stuff and getting the annexe habitable for her in advance of our own move, after which we’ll have our own stuff to sort out before we are ready for her to come down. Still lots to do – the en-suite bathroom has yet to be finished, and once that is done, work can begin on the garage, which Andy reckons will start in a couple of weeks’ time, which pleases my hubby no end! His man cave… Andy says it will be fully insulated, will have light and power, and he could live in there! I now know where to pack him off if he doesn’t behave lol lol!! Andy has now confirmed that we can go ahead with our proposed moving date of Monday 16th September, and my sister has agreed to bring Mum down at the end of the month, which should give us a bit of time to get sorted and recover ourselves a bit. Meantime, we are continuing to take boxes over, and over the next two or three weeks, I shall be starting to put things in our new kitchen. It’s great to be able to get ahead with some of these things in advance of the move proper, because there will be less to do afterwards, and I should be able to find the essentials!

Finally, a bit of fun! Remember this?

This was Chris’s artwork on an offcut of worktop placed over the hob to protect it while further work was going on. I loved the little face in the “O”!

This afternoon, I discovered that Paul had added to this work of art.

What a brilliant portrait of Andy! Look closely at the “crazed” look in his eyes. Note his signature curly-whirly orange glasses cord, and the sad droop of his shoulders. He’s desperate to get sacked so that he can have time off to work on his own house!

In my second post of today, you can see what I was busy doing. Soooo exciting!