WOYWW 505 Crochet and Kitties, Frostbite and Loos

Uploaded a day late because I’ve been having problems – again… – with Google not playing ball with Open Live Writer. I’ve been unable to publish any blog posts containing photos, until I found a workaround online.

Sorry to be AWOL for a few weeks folks. I’ve been very busy with other things and resting in between. I’ve not been feeling too well lately with my M.E., and my sleep patterns are very disrupted again which is a pain, so I’m trying to rest as much as possible. I’m going through a phase of getting a lot of headaches again, too, and it’s an absolute pain, because the only pills that really touch it have been unavailable everywhere for months, and I’ve run out now.

I’ve been working very hard on new material for the Bible study group which I am finding very fulfilling and interesting, and I’m learning a lot, which is all very exciting. My creativity has been devoted to designing lots of PowerPoint slides for upcoming sessions, which I really enjoy doing. Still nothing on the actual desk, but when I’ve had a moment, I’ve been making a bit of progress on the embellishments for the other scarf I made last year – the peacock one.

Here are the feathers so far. They are extremely labour-intensive unfortunately, so I don’t see this project getting finished any time soon!!

This is the scarf, just to remind you.

I am really enjoying wearing my striped scarf and have had some nice comments about it, my favourite being, “Oooh, it’s so YOU!!” Lol lol!

Plumbing

The plumber was eventually booked to come on Monday, which was great, because on Friday evening, the boiler broke down!!!!! The house was freeeezing so we wrapped for an arctic expedition and heated rooms as we needed them, but working in the kitchen, my hands kept getting almost frost-bitten! Out with the fingerless mittens and the hot water bottles, and really enjoying having kitties lying on me for mutual warmth during the day!

The plumber’s wife has been very poorly so he’s had to take some time off to look after her but now she’s on the mend, he’s back at work, and he said I should have phoned him over the weekend, and he’d have come, but I said I didn’t want to bother him when he had so much on his plate. We survived, at any rate!

The boiler was soon fixed. He had a look in the loo and agreed that the cistern was the problem. It is a very old high-level one. I like these because you get the benefit of gravity for a really good flush – the one in my bathroom is like Niagara Falls which is great for dealing with Kermit! Anyway, he said it needed replacing, but the trouble is, being so old, it’s incompatible with newer fittings. We’ve decided to go for a complete new loo, with a little sink on top of the low-level cistern for hand-washing – I’ve seen pictures of these and thought what a good idea it was. The room is tiny and there’s no room for a hand-basin, so we have to use the sink in the utility room. The room itself is pretty grim and in need of redecorating and smartening up – the pipework looks a mess. The plumber said we’d need to bring the loo forward and box it in at the back because the window comes down so low, so that there would be some support for the cistern, and this box would cover the bottom of the window, which doesn’t really matter. We’ll end up with a higher windowsill for putting stuff on.

Having seen some really whacky decorating in a tiny loo on a house renovation programme on TV recently, I’ve decided it would be fun to do something similar in our loo. We have quite a few visitors (including my Bible study group each week) and I’m rather embarrassed about the state of our downstairs loo at the moment as it’s pretty basic, and would like it to be nice for people to use! I’m hoping to do a jungle theme with dark green walls below the dado, and if I can find it, some nice bold rainforest wallpaper above! Possibly some stars on the ceiling? Waddya think? Would that sufficiently Shoshify it?

I’m not sure whether this idea will become a reality – my hubby pulled a bit of a face when I suggested it, but he’s always allowed me free rein where interior design is concerned, and anyway he’s colour-blind, and apart from that, he never notices anything haha!!

As this loo plan goes ahead, I’ll share some photos!

He also looked at our boiling water tap which has been out of order for several weeks after it caused a flood on the kitchen floor. He phoned the company and we’ve ordered a new tank, which should arrive in a couple of days, and the plumber will come back and fit it, and he’s going to bring me some brochures about the new loo as well. He’s a really nice bloke and we are very fortunate to have him – he was recommended by a friend from church, and they also recommended a very good electrician who we always use, too. We like supporting small local businesses and you get to know them. When we moved here and all the building work was complete, we had a housewarming party and invited all the builders and other trades, with their families! Some of them who’d only seen the early stages were really interested to see it all complete.

One of the garage doors has also broken down (electric up-and-over) and my hubby has booked an engineer to come and fix that over the next few days, too.

Then the car battery went flat. Fortunately it was just due to the cold and it’s been fixed now. The car needs new tyres, though.

Funny how everything seems to break down all at once, isn’t it. I hope this is the last of it!

Kitties

They’ve been out a few times, but one of the fence panels had got damaged by the storm and of course Ruby made an absolute beeline for the gap and my hubby had to grab her double quick! The panel is now replaced, but a combination of bad weather (cold, snow, rain and wind) and my hubby being out a lot, has put paid to any more excursions outside with them for a while. They are quite happy indoors. They’ve spent a great deal of time cuddled up in the hammock together, especially while the heating was off over the weekend.

Lily showing her pretty tummy.

Spending lots of time together keeping warm.

I do love my sister so!

A pair of spoons.

Finally, a kitty funny.

Hope you all have a great week with lots of creativity.

WOYWW 502–Scarf Embellishing

I know we always say this, but I can’t believe yet another week has passed… Half way through January already!

Remember last year I was working on some embellishments for the striped scarf I had knitted? I decided it was high time I finished that project so over the past few days I’ve been working on making the fringe and adding the felt and crochet embellishments. So far I have completed one end, and this is the result.

The other side.

Detail of fringe. You can see that I have incorporated the felt balls I made with crochet chains. I had made some white balls which I didn’t think I would use but in the end I decided to use them, and I added a bit of embroidery on them with wool scraps.

Detail of some of the embellishments.

Embellishments and fringe.

Closer detail shots of the fringe.

I also attached a few crochet chains further up the scarf, with felt flowers and leaves attached, and the whole effect has been to soften the bottom edge of the scarf.

The little blob on the end of each felt ball on the fringe is a crochet chain loop, through which I am planning to attach a tassel. If I don’t like the tassels I can always take them off again – the little loops look quite nice on their own!

Now all I’ve got to do is repeat the process on the other end.

Kitties

They’ve both been using the cat tree again lately, which is good. I was beginning to think I’d bought a large expensive piece of junk.

Lily exposing her tummy.

We had another session with them in the garden the other day and Lily was quite happy playing and just sniffing at things and running around, but Ruby spent the whole time going round the edge looking for ways to escape. We had to keep her under close supervision the whole time. We took them out in the late afternoon when they were hungry, in the hope that this would get Ruby in, but we had a terrible job with her, and she wouldn’t even be enticed with Dreamies. In the end I fetched the birdie toy (you can just see it in the above photo) and this proved irresistible, and after a while my hubby managed to get her in.

We got Lily in first, and I shut her in the house, out of the kitchen. I went through to check on her because she was crying, and she was sitting up on the flat kitchen windowsill looking out, desperate to know where her sister was.

As soon as we got Ruby in, I chased her into the house and she went into the flat. Lily didn’t see her at first but still went on gazing out of the window, and I called her and said “Ruby’s here!” and she immediately leapt down and went straight to her and kissed her – she was all over her and her relief and love were palpable! It was sweet to watch, and I wished I’d had the camera handy. She really worries about Ruby, but we wish she would just tell her to behave and be done with it – but we all know that Ruby never listens to anybody!!

This is what I’m always threatening Ruby with, when she’s naughty!!

Other news

No sourdough this week, but I made ordinary seed bread in the bread maker. I also did a roast chicken on Saturday which was delicious, with lots of nice cold meat to follow (easy meals!) but I was so wiped out on Sunday after all that effort that I spent most of Sunday morning in bed while my hubby went off to church on his own!

I’ve not been too well this past week, with a lot of fatigue and headaches so I’ve been trying to rest as much as possible, and have also been working hard on sessions for my Bible study group which resumes again tomorrow night. I’ve been learning a lot recently and designing new sessions and am excited to share what I have learnt with the group. The sitting room is a mess and will definitely need to be tidied up before the evening!

We’ve got the plumber and the roofer coming at the end of the week – the former to service the boiler and check out a possible leak in the downstairs loo which always seems to be damp, and also to fix my boiling water tap that has been leaking for ages, and recently caused a major flood in the kitchen. The roofer is coming to fix a leak in the flashing on the lean-to at the back which is causing some dampness on the wall. Oh the joys of living in damp old Devon… It’s much damper by the coast than where we used to live, further inland. Always something to fix on older houses, isn’t there. Hopefully none of these jobs will prove major.

WOYWW 358–Misc Decorating

Still nothing on my desk I’m afraid, because we’ve been very busy with other things this week. Gary finished decorating our sitting room last week, and then did some odd jobs around the house that needed attention, including some priming of bits that had never got painted when we moved and the builders had finished – you know how it is, there are those pesky little bits that you never get round to doing, that you learn to live with until you cease to notice them, until the decorating bug bites again and suddenly you say “enough is enough!” I have been doing a bit of gloss and emulsion painting and then sleeping for 2 hours because I was so exhausted from the effort!

We also have some lamps that weren’t working and I’ve been attending to those. The black Ikea uplighter ceased working several months ago and my hubby said it was the dimmer switch. I’m not fussed about whether it dims or not, so yesterday I replaced the defunct switch with a normal one and lo and behold it works again! Nice. The fibre-optic lamp’s halogen bulb had gone and you have to take the lamp apart to replace the bulb, so it’s now in pieces awaiting the arrival of the replacement from Ebay, promised to arrive today. It didn’t. The cable for my work lamp (LED magnifier) has mysteriously vanished when we moved everything through to Mum’s flat in preparation for decorating. It has yet to turn up. We are still awaiting the arrival of the new chandelier which has been on order, due to arrive this week, we hope.

Once the decorative lamps are all working again and nicely arranged on the side table, and I’ve finished bringing stuff back into the room, I’ll upload the blog post I’m working on, charting the before, during and after of the redecorating of our sitting room. We are now using it again and it’s looking great – so bright and fresh, and the stencilling has worked a treat and looks really stylish. Watch this space.

So – miscellaneous decorating. First of all, the bi-fold doors to the airing cupboard.

These, and the rest of yesterday’s painting, all require a second coat. This gloss takes aaaages to dry and it’s still tacky! My cleaning lady is here today so I haven’t attempted a second coat, and will do it tomorrow, energy permitting. The rest of the utility room really needs decorating because only bits were done when the builders were altering it, and I’m going to use up the remaining green emulsion from the kitchen so it all matches – there are no doors in the doorways and you can see right through.

Up to the en-suite bathroom. The builders penetrated the wall into the old bathroom and created a doorway using the architrave from the utility room. When they removed it, it was quite damaged and I managed to patch it up and fill it as best as I could at the time. It remained patchy with the old cream paint and filler. It now has its first coat of new cream gloss.

Viewed from the other side you can see the door frame and new architrave created by the builders. This was just raw wood, with filler in the screw holes. Now also with its first coat of cream gloss after Gary primed it for me. (You can see the other side of it, and the arch into the loo, reflected in the mirror opposite!)

The threshold – likewise. Masking tape to remain until I’ve done the second coat.

Under the basin, the plasterboard at the back was a mess, with scorch marks from the blowtorch to melt the solder in the pipes, and it was discoloured and patchy. It now has its first coat of emulsion to match that on the arch visible in the first bathroom picture, and I’ve also painted the pipes. This space is where I keep my trolley that contains all my stoma supplies. You can see that in the first bathroom picture, too.

Finally, the water pipe from the high-level cistern in the loo, beyond the arch. There was still some green paint below the last remaining piece of dado, and a messy part where the old lead pipe was connected to the new plastic pipe. The first coat of cream gloss doesn’t fully cover the green, but I’m hoping another coat will do it.

It all looks so much better and more finished already! I am ashamed to say that these jobs have been waiting 2 1/2 years to be completed. I also had 2 boxes in the sitting room which had also been sitting around for 2 1/2 years waiting to be unpacked, containing ornaments and some other bits and pieces, and these are all unpacked now.

A few more finishing touches in the sitting room, and then we’ll have the Big Reveal!

Also last week, while the decorating was still going on, the windows man phoned to ask if he could come in about an hour’s time to replace our cloudy double-glazed units – he had a slot. We didn’t want to turn him down so we rushed around clearing the relevant rooms in front of the windows. They took down the grotty Venetian blind in the kitchen and I nearly killed myself cleaning it, rushing through the job to be finished in time for them to replace it before they left! It was still covered with builders’ dust etc. because the window is so large and high that I couldn’t reach it. Phew. What a job. Never again.

Phoebe, our younger cat, had another fit on Sunday evening, the second in a week. We phoned Auntie Megan, the vet, the next day and she said that it would be a few weeks till the increased dose of phenobarbital (started last week) takes effect. In a month’s time she wants to see her again and take more bloods and check her titre to make sure of the dose. This was the first time my hubby had seen her having a seizure – I’ve always had to deal with it on my own until now. She was very distressed and disoriented afterwards and needed lots of cuddles and reassurance.

In between all this, I have been trying to slot in at least 1/2 hour each day to practise my singing and guitar!

After all this work is finished, I’m really hoping to get back to my studio and do some ART!!

Happy WOYWW everybody, and a fruitful creative week ahead, in whatever direction that creativity takes you.

WOYWW 273

For details of how to join in the world’s most famous nosey fest, please click on the WOYWW logo in my sidebar, which will take you to our hostess Julia’s site, where all will be revealed.

Are you ready for this?

My poor ARTHaven… I can’t actually get near enough the actual “desk” (main work area) because most of my office stuff has been dumped in my ARTHaven! Yesterday Andy and Paul (the builders who worked on our new house last year) came to finish off a few jobs that required attention, such as fixing my bath properly, to stop it moving. It is a free-standing one and came with no instructions for fitting, and I soon discovered that it wasn’t stable, so I haven’t really been able to use it, but have had to use the shower all the time. They also mended my ARTHaven sink tap which was broken, and put some silicone caulk around the sink, and around my bathroom counter, as there had been some settling over the months and the grout had cracked away. They also replaced the electric shower with a mixer tap shower in my hubby’s bathroom and fitted a grab rail for him (the poor chap is feeling his age since his retirement lol!). Finally, they added some more shelf supports for the long shelves in my office (small section off my main ARTHaven) as they were proving not man enough for all the stuff I need to store on them. Because of this, I had to move everything through into my ARTHaven, hence the chaos you see above!

We are going out all day today so I won’t be able to start visiting desks until later, or tomorrow. I cannot sort my ARTHaven till all that is over, and I’ve recovered after the day out, and also there is a spare rug in the loft which my hubby is going to measure, and if it’s suitable, I shall empty the bookcases in my office so that I can move them and get it laid down – might as well do this when half the stuff is out anyway! It will also give me the opportunity to clean the room, which is very dusty. Autumn cleaning? Why not!

You might just be able to glimpse over the chaos onto my desk, and see the bereavement card – I have made good progress on it and it is more or less complete now. I’ve finished the two-layered front section and have been working on the inside. The blog post about it shouldn’t be too long coming now!

Finally today, I’m taking a leaf out of Bridget’s book and posting a couple of foody photos – last night I made a rhubarb lasagne. Here it is ready for the oven:

and just out of the oven, being served:

The colour in the second photo isn’t that good because it’s in artificial light and even with some manipulation I can’t get it right! Anyway, you can see the layers in the lasagne in the dish. If you think fruit lasagne is weird, I can assure you it’s quite delicious! The middle layer consists of cream cheese and some cheddar, with egg and sugar. The other layers are the rhubarb, spiced with ginger, and on top is a sort of crumble, and I have added some flaked almonds. I have the equivalent recipe for apple lasagne, and that one is spiced with cinnamon. They are both absolutely delicious puddings and I served last night’s rhubarb one with Greek yoghurt. Yum yum.

Happy WOYWW everybody.

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–Gradually Getting Straight

My second posting today – it has been so manic here and even though we’ve been online for a week now, I simply haven’t had time to do anything much on the computer.

I cannot believe that we have been in for over a fortnight! The time has simply flown by, and lots has happened since my previous post.

First of all, I was beginning to get really stressed about the imminent arrival of Mum, because I knew I wouldn’t be ready for her, and my hubby phoned my sister and arranged a postponement. She is now due to come down on Wed. 9th Oct. (a week today) which has certainly taken the pressure off. The annexe is still not ready, but at least I’ve got most of my boxes out of there now and it will be a lot easier to get Mum’s stuff straight.

I have ceased camping out in there, too, which is absolutely great. I wasn’t enjoying sleeping in Mum’s bed much and couldn’t wait to get back into my own bed again, and eventually Paul said he could clear most of the bedroom and confine his tools and equipment to one corner, and my hubby and I assembled the bed. What bliss to sleep in it again! The rest of the furniture isn’t yet where it should be, and I can’t really get at the wardrobes, so there’s still an element of camping out, but at least the end is in sight.

Huge progress has been made on the bathroom, and it is all but finished. Last week Paul arrived coughing and spluttering with a cold, and announced, “I’ve got the grout!” Very painful. Andy said it was more likely too many late nights and too much to drink… As of today, Paul still has a small task to finish on the loo (there is a tiny leak in the pipe leading down from the high-level cistern to the bowl) and the silicone has to be applied around the shower tray, so I can’t use the area beyond the arch yet, but today he completed the drainage from the bath and basin, and on Monday Tim fitted the cabinet, and all the tiling and grouting is now complete, so great celebrations this afternoon after they’d all gone – at last I managed to get my hair washed and have a real soak in my fabulous new bath! We have arranged it so that I can reach the tap with my foot, so I can add more hot water without having to sit up! How decadent is that? It is utter luxury and I am more thrilled with the whole bathroom than I can say.

In the bath is Boris (my bath lift) lying on his side drying after my first bath! I am delighted with the non-slip floor tiles, and when the winter comes, I shall really enjoy the underfloor heating. On the bottom right of the above photo, you can see that Paul has constructed a small platform on which the tap is mounted. This was created from an offcut from the utility room worktop (a brilliant idea of his – it blends so well with the tiles, being a very similar colour and texture), and it is extremely strong. It covers the access to the plumbing and drainage for the bath.

The tiled counter with the basin and cabinet above. We had some fun with the cabinet. It has lights down the sides, and these are turned on by passing your hand over a sensor on the right hand side of the cabinet. It was a bit annoying, because when I bought it, I knew the exact size of the space, and chose one which would fit perfectly, and only when we opened it up and read the instructions did we discover that there was supposed to be a 150 mm gap between the sensor and the wall in order for it to function properly. There simply isn’t enough space to allow for such a gap, and there is just room to pass your hand between. Both Tim and Paul were able to get it to work (albeit intermittently) but I couldn’t get it to work at all. I did a bit of lateral thinking, and decided it was my rings that were causing the problem. We tried with a piece of card, which worked after a fashion, and when we tried a piece of black card, it was perfect every time. I have now discovered that my black hairbrush handle works just as well!

Under the counter, on the shelf, I have put my rectangular basket – this is only temporary, and I may eventually try and get some more of these, preferably a better fit, for storage of bathroom supplies.

The shower is now installed in the section beyond the arch, but not useable until the tray is sealed all around.

Both this shower, and the bath tap, have a secondary, smaller shower (I never thought I would end up with 3 showers in my bathroom!) – I tried the one on the bath tap today and it is very powerful. I was able to sit on Boris and wash my hair with ease. You can see it sticking up to the right of the tap in the next photo.

Looking back towards the doorway into the bedroom from the arch, you can see the towel rail radiator now in use. It is a dual function one; when the heating is on, it will come on with the other radiators, but when the heating is off, it can be operated electrically. Tim has installed a timer so that I can set it to come on and off automatically.

You can see that Paul has installed a grab rail for me over the bath. He is not happy that the supplied screws are long enough so he will finish the job tomorrow. Lying in the bath, I suddenly remembered that we haven’t installed the large circular mirror over the bath, and I have an awful feeling the grab rail is too high… If Paul moves it down, the upper holes will be covered by the bottom of the mirror, but the lower ones may have to be filled, but hopefully they won’t show too much. I have three more of these grab rails; one will go beside the loo and the other two in the shower.

Final house picture taken today – the Three Wise Monkeys in the man cave on their tea break!!

It was so nice having the three of them back on site together again. Both Andy and Chris have been off doing other work, and Andy was on holiday too.

I have not posted all the photos I’ve taken since the move. If you want to see them all, you can follow any of the photo links which will take you to my Photobucket site, where you can access the full set. I am afraid that the photos in each daily sub-album are out of order – I have been communicating with Photobucket about the problem of custom organising of albums since they revamped the whole site, to no avail; naming the photos is also a problem, so I am afraid they are just “as is” – all muddled, but at least the sub-albums are arranged in date order so you can follow the progress.

My hubby’s man cave is almost complete, and you can see that he’s installed some shelves. The garage doors were delivered yesterday after a fortnight’s delay, and today my hubby started bringing garage boxes over. Our old house is going to be let, and the new tenants are arriving on Tuesday, so the race is on to get all the stuff over before then. He has enlisted some help, and tomorrow when we go to Totnes we will be picking up a few more boxes.

Although progress is being made on all fronts (building work, unpacking, getting organised), everything is taking me three times as long to do as expected, because with every job I attempt, I can’t find half the stuff! Things have a habit of appearing and then disappearing again, too, which can be very frustrating!

My joint and muscle pain became so bad shortly after the move that for a few days I could scarcely put my left foot on the ground – it felt as if I had sprained it. Both ankles and knees have been very swollen and painful and I haven’t been able to get down on the floor at all until today, which has been a real nuisance with everything that needs doing. My ankles and feet feel extremely tender. This is what they look like tonight.

My hubby has made an appointment for me to see the doctor tomorrow morning, but I don’t expect him to be able to help much – I am sure this is all the result of being on my feet far too much, and with sufficient rest, as the pressure diminishes over the next weeks, I shall return to normal. My once shapely legs are looking like tree stumps at the moment! We’ve got to go back to our old doctors’ surgery in Totnes because we won’t be registered at the surgery here for another week or so.

My stairlift was eventually installed – five days late. All that time the understairs cupboard stuff was all over the hall and sitting room cluttering the place up, and I couldn’t progress with box unpacking during that time. I could have done with the stairlift earlier, given the state of my legs, but it has been extremely helpful since its installation. My one complaint about it is the incessant beeping it makes, which is driving me nuts! I spoke to the company (and mentioned my gripe about Andy having to drill the hole) and told them how I hated the noise it makes, but of course they were not prepared to do anything about either complaint. I am sure there must be a simple connection which could be disconnected to prevent the beeping, but it’s the usual nanny state stuff, covering their backs and dumbing down the equipment – I do realise there are people who are not able to understand the working of it and need the beeping to warn them when the lift is away from its charging point etc. but I wish there was the option of having a choice. Anyway, I shall just have to live with it, and hope the racket doesn’t wake my hubby when I come up to bed in the small hours – it certainly makes enough noise to wake the dead!!

My wonderful kitchen is now fully operational, and I have had 2 big Tesco deliveries since being back online, as I attempt to restock my food cupboards after firstly running everything down for the move, and secondly having reduced stocks anyway because I haven’t been able to cook for so long. The reduced height, easy-access worktops, sink and hob are nothing short of brilliant, and I can prepare food, cook, and wash up in comfort, and am enjoying beginning to cook again.

My first attempt at “real food” after so long surviving on takeaways and ready meals (my dear hubby has done his best and I am so grateful to him keeping us going all this time, but my time has come again and it is lovely to take the pressure off him, especially as he now has to do so much more driving) was a firm favourite with both of us – liver and bacon. I was a bit worried that I might have forgotten how to cook, but I stepped back into it after all this time, as if it had just been yesterday! The extractor hood over the hob is so powerful that I was able to chop onions over the sink, using my wonderful sliding chopping board which fits over the sink, without shedding a tear or even smelling the onions! Cooking them was the same. It is absolutely amazing.

Tonight I cooked a rice pudding (complete with lurvely brown skin!) and I am looking forward to doing some baking again, too. In today’s Tesco delivery was some stewing beef, and I am looking forward to doing a casserole. We have also had cottage pie, and I’ve got some salmon and chicken in the freezer waiting to be cooked. And pasta… sooo many lovely things to look forward to!

The kitchen is a dream, and I’ve got it organised how I want, with everything to hand. Once the utility room is finished (tiling still to be done around the sink, and finishing off around the airing cupboard), I will be able to get that area cleaned up and we can be civilised again! My airer in the back passage, and the airing cupboard, are now fully functional, although the bottom of the airing cupboard still has builders’ supplies being stored in it, and they will keep leaving the door open and wasting all my heat, despite a post-it note on the door asking them to keep it closed!

The kitties are settling in well, although they greatly resent being confined to my hubby’s bathroom during the day while the builders are around. Up until today, the garage has been open at the front, and the builders are in and out, leaving the side door open, so the kitties could easily escape onto the road. Phoebe is pretty freaked out anyway, having them around. As soon as the builders have left each day, we let the kitties out and they have the run of the house and seem quite settled now. They’ve been in the garden a few times at the weekend and in the evenings, and Phoebe manages to get herself lost each time – but always in the same place, so I said to my hubby he should look there first, instead of panicking and asking the neighbours if they’ve seen her!

Just a few odd jobs remaining to be done now – Tim the electrician will be back tomorrow to finish the power supply to the garage and outhouse (for the main freezer) – he couldn’t install the consumer box until the doors were fitted, because it was vulnerable to being stolen. He has also fixed a few more bits of cowboy wiring that we’ve discovered since we moved in, and all now seems to be well. He is going to fit a double extractor fan in my bathroom, probably on Friday – with a vent over the bath and one in the shower, being served by a single powerful fan in the loft and venting out through a soffit. I can then be as steamy as I like in my girlie bathroom!!

I shall try and get back into the swing of things online over the coming days, but there’s a lot to do and lots of catching up to do. I will be following up on all your lovely comments as soon as I can – I know there were some pending from before the move. You are not forgotten, and your comments are very much appreciated.

As for my poor ARTHaven, it is a massive dumping ground at the moment and I can hardly get in there. At least the office is workable, although there is a lot of sorting and putting away to be done. I’ve got most of the bedroom boxes out of the ARTHaven proper now, but I really can’t tackle the rest until we’ve done a lot more in the rest of the house, and got Mum installed. It will all come straight eventually – I’ve just got to be patient and keep plugging on with the unpacking, and try not to do too much at once but factor in lots of rest times. Hopefully this will eventually restore my shapely ankles and the tree stump legs will be a thing of the past!!

Our New House–Bathroom Tiling

First of all, many thanks to all my loyal followers and visitors who have commented recently on my blog posts – I have a stack of them to go through and I promise I will publish them all as soon as I can.

Today my hubby dropped me off at the new house and I had an extremely busy day, trying to prepare the place as best as possible for the removal men on Monday. It is a problem having the builders still around, but as they say, there have been a lot of extra jobs we’ve asked for, and having to make a start on the garage to make the perimeter secure for the cats has meant delays on the work continuing indoors. They also didn’t start very promptly after we’d completed the purchase and the whole thing has been delayed.

The bedroom is a mess. All Paul’s tools are still in there while he works on the bathroom. I accept that we have to use other rooms till they have finished (it’s a good thing we’ve got plenty of space and can even use the annexe as Mum won’t be down till the end of the month) but the furniture has to go somewhere, and they can hardly leave the double bed on the landing… I am sure everything will be OK in the end. The removal men are coming here at 8 a.m. on Monday (they wanted 7 a.m. but I drew the line at that – 8 a.m. is still too early in my book!!) and hopefully by the time we all reach the other end, Andy and the team will have had a chance to tidy up a bit more.

Today I unpacked about 16 boxes, including all our stuff from our old dining room – lots of china and other things, which are now all in the dresser in the entrance lobby. I unpacked a lot of kitchen stuff, too, but there are still quite a lot of boxes of stuff for the utility room that can’t be unpacked until the builders have finished. Andy gave up on B&Q in the end and bought the smaller unit we need for the utility room elsewhere, and it’s now installed, but he’s still got to fit the sink, and finish off the other two small wall units in the back passage, and complete the work on the airing cupboard before we can finish unpacking. I’ve already filled the two wall units that are up.

I told Andy at the end of last week that a few days after we move, I shall need to be doing some washing and will need the airer to be up, and also the airing cupboard operational, and he understands that. I hope it will be OK to plumb the washing machine in despite the absence of the sink… He can always pull the machine forward when he needs to access the plumbing for the sink.

The boxes I haven’t managed to unpack, I have stored in the annexe sitting room. It struck me that since Mum won’t be down for 10 days, there is nothing to stop us putting things in there temporarily.

I did manage to clean the sitting room this afternoon, and took great delight in getting rid of the cobwebs festooning the walls behind where the previous owner’s bookcases had been – they were offensive to my eye! It is all dusted and swept, and I washed the floor. I repeated the process in the hall, although that will soon get messed up again with all the traipsing in and out and the builders still in the house, but at least that part of the house is now ready to receive our furniture. I really don’t know what is going to happen upstairs!!

I also got things ready in my hubby’s bathroom for the arrival of the kitties. We have decided to keep them shut in the bathroom while the whole process of the move is going on – we don’t want them running out into the road, and the whole thing is going to be pretty stressful for them as it is. I have run an extension lead into the bathroom and installed a Feliway plug-in diffuser which should have a calming effect, and we’ve got the litter tray and cat litter, and some food ready over there. We have decided not to give them any breakfast before travelling, so that Phoebe especially is not sick in the car (although she is better with her travel sickness than she used to be), and also it will give them something to think about on arrival, to get stuck into some food!

There’s still a huge amount to do in order to make the place habitable for us all, and I just hope we manage it before Mum comes down! Part of the whole idea of not having her down immediately was so that I could have a rest and recover a bit, but I really don’t see that happening now.

Tomorrow my hubby will be going over on his own to do a few jobs. I have far too much to do here, on our last day in residence in this house, to be able to go with him, and I am so tired tonight that what I really want to do tomorrow is have a complete rest, but that is quite out of the question!

As a result of all this, this will be my last post for a while. The phone and internet are going off on Monday until 24th September, and tomorrow I shall be packing up the computers and disconnecting the network. I shall be continuing to compose draft blog posts as and when I get time and there’s progress to report, and I will publish these as soon as we are back online again. So for the time being, it’s goodbye from me. See you all on the other side!

Here are a few photos I took today of the bathroom. Paul has started tiling the walls and it’s looking absolutely great.

Here is a detail of the mosaic tile band. Andy and I spent some time choosing this when we had our famous trip to B&Q several months ago. You can see that it incorporates not only some beautiful natural stone-effect tiles, but also some sea glass – I have fiddled with the colour balance on these pictures to try and get the colour just right, but have failed to do it justice – this glass is a beautiful shade of subtle pale green. You can see the plastic spacers still in place.

The arch with the tile bead fitted. Paul, Andy and I had a long discussion about the best way to tackle the tiling of the arch – my brilliant idea of tiling the inside with mosaic bit the dust as being too labour-intensive and expensive, and eventually Paul hit on the idea of applying a tile bead about 4 inches in from the edge of the arch, and tiling up to this – with the curve there was the problem of what to do with the cut edges of the tiles. The tile bead provides a beautifully smooth finish to the edges of the tiles. The inner part of the arch will remain untiled, and will be painted first in while emulsion to seal the plaster, and then we are going to paint it with a brown shade to match the floor tiles, using shower paint as it will be exposed to heavy moisture on the other side. I like this idea because it finishes the arch beautifully, and gives a focal point to the room, and the colour will provide continuity with the floor.

A detail shot of the tile bead. Note one of a series of small ties to keep it in place. You can see what a neat finish it provides. To follow the curve of the arch, Paul has clipped into the perforated base of the bead so that it flows around the curve without buckling. This part of the bead will be covered by the tiles, which, as you can see from the photo, fit perfectly against the raised part of the bead.

So that’s it, folks. See you in a week or so!

Our New House–Going All Out on the Bathroom

The first of two posts for today.

On arrival at the new house today, I put some of my electrical equipment into the kitchen – my Kenwood Chef mixer, juicer and bread maker – funny to think I’ve made my last loaf in the old house! Then I went through into the annexe kitchen and put the second and final coat of paint on the door frame, and it’s all looking very nice in there now.

My girlie bathroom, as my hubby calls it, is now the focus of efforts at our new house. The studwork frame and roof are complete on the garage and the cladding is on order. Andy has been away on holiday all week and is due back on site tomorrow, when he will focus his efforts on the utility room and airing cupboard, and in the meantime Paul is happy to be back working on the en-suite bathroom – he understands that it was necessary to move all work down to the annexe for a while as Mum’s furniture was on its way, but he says he prefers to complete a job once he starts on it!

The shower pipework is now covered with plasterboard. You can see that it is mounted on the inside of the original wooden door into the old loo – I agree with Andy that it is a good idea to leave these two doors in place, to retain the appearance of the landing, and also, they form a firm base for attaching the shower – much stronger than the lath and plaster of the wall.

On the right, you can see the edge of the arch, complete with its arch bead, which will give strength to the edge once it is plastered.

Paul has now plastered the arch and it’s looking very smart indeed! In the next photo, Paul is preparing the floor ready for the underfloor heating. He has to drill a series of holes for its attachment in the plywood which has been laid over the floorboards to provide a good strong and flat surface for the floor tiles.

There is now some adhesive spread on the floor to hold the underfloor heating in place. The next photo shows the underfloor heating being laid. It consists of a long length of electrical wire winding back and forth and trapped in a mesh which is laid on the floor. There will be a switch with a timer outside the bathroom, on the bedroom wall. When we eventually have our solar panels fitted, I can set it to come on in the morning once it is light – we are also having a towel rail radiator, which will have its own switch and timer. This radiator is dual function; when the gas central heating is on, it will function as a normal radiator, but in the summer months when I need a heated towel rail, its electrical element will come into play, heating the water in the radiator. Clever stuff.

Andy was a bit concerned that the towel rail radiator might not be sufficient to heat the space – these radiators do not produce as much room heat as a normal radiator – but when we decided on the underfloor heating in addition, he said that would solve the problem, as well as providing a bit of added luxury! (My fear is that once they discover it, there will be no getting the kitties out of my girlie bathroom…)

The underfloor heating is only going down the centre of the room; the bath will be on the right, and on the left, there will be a counter with a shelf underneath for storage, with the basin mounted on it at the further end, above which will be an illuminated cabinet. In the photo above, you can see the pipework ready to receive the basin.

Here, now that the underfloor heating is down, Paul is beginning to plan the layout of the floor tiles. These large tiles have a wonderful colour and texture like natural stone, or like sand that has been washed by the sea. The slightly rough texture makes them non-slip. The wall tiles are slightly smaller, and lighter in colour, and there will be a band of mosaic tiles going around the entire room at about waist-height.

Finally for today: upstairs, all the doors have the most beautiful art deco door furniture which is clearly original to the house. Downstairs, it is a different story, with plain and rather ugly round wooden door knobs which do nothing for the beauty of the solid wood panelled doors, and I really wished they were the same as the ones upstairs. I had a good look on Ebay the other day to find something similar, but what I did find was either not very nice reproductions, or very expensive genuine 1920s/30s ones, and even if I’d have been prepared to pay silly money for them, there were generally not enough – I need 7 or 8!

When I was wandering around the house today, I found the spare one, together with its door handle, which had been removed from the inside of the original bathroom door… beautiful, isn’t it!

…and my cerebral wheels started turning, and then spinning!!What if I were to make a mould from it, with silicone moulding putty? I could make as many as I wanted, either from Friendly Plastic or polymer clay, or possibly from resin. The real thing is made of relatively thin metal, and requires no strength in use; it is merely decorative. With all the materials at our disposal today, I would have no problem making them look metallic and distressed… I have just signed up for Andy Skinner’s Timeworn Techniques online mixed media course and there are plenty of ideas there for reproducing extremely authentic-looking finishes, using acrylic paints and other basic materials, and am quite excited about putting some of these techniques into practice. Watch this space! It won’t be long before I am creating again, and I am suffering from extreme withdrawal symptoms now that my new ARTHaven is almost ready for use!

As for the doorknobs, I could not make these myself, but I may be able to find something suitable in brass online, and then treat them to match the door plates.

I just love art deco…

It is now clear that the work will not be finished before we move on Monday 16th. Paul suggested that we use the annexe bedroom until the en-suite is finished – it will only be for a few days, or a week at most. There are two other bathrooms in the house! He needs the space in the bedroom to store his stuff and materials while the work is being completed, and I can probably survive that long without the utility room, too – we will have two working kitchens to choose from! Anyway, we will be too busy sorting out all our stuff and getting the annexe ready for Mum’s arrival on the 28th to worry overmuch. The garage can be finished after we move.

On the home front, there is still a huge amount to be done before we are ready to move in a week’s time. I have made up a detailed schedule of my activities over the next few days, to ensure that everything gets done, and that I can pace myself and not get overtired. Goodness, is it only a week to go? We have been waiting so long, and suddenly it is upon us.