More bathroom progress...

The last two weekends have mostly been spent doing smaller but necessary chores and a couple of social things. Dave and I managed to ruin ourselves on Rum and sit up playing loud punk/metal/80's pop music till 2.30am wearing macabre top hats - I think we needed some escapism. Then I went to Hogging the Bridge (a charity bikers run) with my old mate Jenks & the kids.

The latest bathroom progress is as follows:
The loo cistern has been a condensation magnet so I'm trying a YouTube fix whereby you line the cistern with a yoga mat and industrial strength glue, this acts as a sort of insulation (and could be considered a cowboy version of cistern lining), so MAY stop the condensation. Dad was helping and he was convinced the glue wasn't sticking. We couldn't find and gaffer tape to hold it in place, so the cistern is currently filled with an array of heavy objects to hold it in place whilst it dries! Fingers crossed this will work. The knock on effect of the damp cistern, was that it blew the plaster behind it. So Dad has just chipped the shot stuff off, and we re-plastered that section along with the final wall to be done and above the door. The plastering was by no means quality this time, due to us being plastered the night before (is it ever??), but I'm embracing the rustic finish for my rustic house!

The toilet soil pipe didn't have enough of a gradient on it, so we are lifting it slightly to allow gravity to work it's magic in harmony with the flush.

Dad extended the flex pipes to both the sink taps and the loo, just to be on the safe side.

The radiator is now in and working a treat. It looks very lovely, again slightly raising the overall temperature of the bathroom.

I have pulled the old nails out of the window frame and Dave and I put some decent architrave around it.

We cut the wood for the larger window sill and screwed the toilet down. It's a bloody novelty to sit on a toilet that doesn't wobble, none of this gingerly lowering yourself down business anymore!! Yippee, I can safely wait until I'm really desperate again!

Last week we painted 3 of the walls and the ceiling.

This weekend I painted all of the final wall areas and around the windows. It took 8 bloody hours!!!! Although it does look gorgeous. I was very good and unscrewed the toilet cistern so I could paint behind it, then spent blooming ages trying to get the rubber washers back in place to screw it back down. Jenks came over and we drank tea and talked shit as I painted, which was a very welcome distraction. He also showed me how to adjust the flush handle, as the angle it was at was just all wrong (pointing downwards, meaning you had to shut the loo seat down before you could flush it), especially for splashy, messy little boys! I also tightened bits on the flush system and it's stopped dripping, mind you not before pulling the waste pipe off and splashing water all over the floor (at least I hope it was 'water'). The drip has moved, so I still need to address that at some point, for now it is addressed with a good old Tupperware box fix!

So there you have it, we are on the home straight with the bathroom. All that is left to do is:

• Buy and fix up skirting boards
• Fasten down the floorboards & fill the gap by the door
• Box in the sink and mount the shaver point
• Box in the soil pipe
• Build all shelving/cupboards and box in the boiler
• Fit new light & spot light
• Tile behind the sink
• Put architrave around the door
• Replace broken glass in the door
• Put shelf basket up in shower
• Put mirror and pictures up
• Sort the drip!

The carpentry may be fun, I have no idea how to do things like that, so will be my Dad & Dave's apprentice. I'm so looking forward to it being finished, it's been a massive task, but is starting to look beautiful and somewhat mature...Jenks thinks I've grown up finally! xx

Lining the loo cistern, using the every tool in the box method

Curtain pole up and painted

Removal of loo so that the blown plaster could be stripped back

Re-plastered  and other areas plastered

Painted and loo fixed back down

Sink is now screwed in place and back wall painted

Radiator in and wall painted.

Bathroom...sloooooooooow but ongoing progress

The bathroom left a lot to be desired, uninviting would be an understatement. It was the sort of room that left you feeling tainted, used and grubby even after a bath!

The entire room was tiled with white tiles and some sort of revolting 60's green patterned tile as 'accents'. The radiator was painted matt black, the loo seat was broken, flimsy plastic, but amusingly seemed to be a soft closing one, the pan repulsively stained, like the 'worst toilet in Scotland' from Trainspotting. The over the bath shower didn't work and was an electrical death trap, the bath was scrawled upon by a child with indelible ink. The sink was filthy, nesting in a built in corner monstrosity. Under closer inspection removing the panels from this built in carbuncle, revealed an abundance of cat shit. The whole room was so grimy no amount of cleaning could shift the dirt. The taps barely worked, we had one scalding hot water tap into the bath, and one very battered cold tap into the sink. Finally, the poor floorboards had sagged irretrievably south. The estate agent pictures were cleverly over exposed so it didn't look so bad on the advert!!

The first task was to smash out remove the old horrors. Dave demolished the tiles and managed to lacerate himself spraying blood up the wall! However, between us we cleared the room pretty quickly, with my steadfast Dave doing numerous tip runs.

Having delusions of grandeur, meant that I decided I wanted a roll top Victorian bath to luxuriate in whilst eating Cadbury's Flake and flooding the bathroom. We found one on ebay, complete with resplendent gold claw feet, for £100 collection only down in Wales. Dad and Dave nearly crippled themselves collecting it. It then took four men (Dad, Dave, Kev - the man mountain and Roger xxx), to get the thing upstairs, apparently Kev using ropes tied around his waist to haul it up was a sight to behold!

I was given an old porcelain French sink as a new wash basin, a second hand, but good quality porcelain toilet and a re-purposed shower cubicle. I bought and found various fixtures and fittings to tart them up, then Dave & Dad set to work. They made a new doorway, attached new joists, lay new straight floorboards down, drilled holes in external walls for waste pipes and plumbed things in. It meant showering at my parents and crossing our legs for a few weeks, but we got there....a functioning bathroom, with only minimal hitches.....of sorts (the toilet needs some tlc).

Progress then slowed over the summer. I learnt to plaster, so between my always amazing Daddy-o and I, we repaired and plastered three walls and a ceiling. We also tiled the shower, a task I'd learnt the previous year. This weekend the posh new radiator went in, as did the shaving/toothbrush charging point.

We are on the home straight with the bathroom, despite it taking seven months (and counting), longer than anticipated. I have all the bits and pieces for it now. the biggest expense was the light. I did have a vintage glass chandelier I hoped to use, but after the fifth person (Clive, my buddy and builder), warned me that it was unsafe, I relented. I have now ordered a beautiful cut glass Scandinavian flush light. It is zone 2 safe and has an IP rating of 44. It was my one indulgence,  I can safely say I will NEVER spend that much on a light again, even if I managed to pay less than half price by the time I used vouchers and so on. We also wont be eating for the next month! I justified this by levying it against a gorgeous pair of full length ivory textured drapes I found in a charity shop for £4.99, and a bargain sheepskin rug...well that's my purchase conscience nonsense anyway!!

We still have a wall to plaster, cupboards to build, boxing in to do, skirting boards to add, and lots of smaller jobs but the ETA is Christmas, so with a few more busy weekends we can get there I'm sure.

True to his beautiful self (spot the Sex Pistols reference) , Dave even found a vintage Flake tin and filled it with Flakes. All in preparation for the most beautifully ostentatious powder room I've ever immersed myself in!

I'll let you know how we get on.......xx

Obligatory over exposed estate agent shot of bathroom

Reality of hideous bathroom

Dad and Dave with bacon butties ready to continue demolishing things

Beautiful roll top bath, with Flake tin!

Wall exposed ready for plumbing shower in

Corner sink and bath pulled out, ready to move the toilet over

New sink and loo in place. With new floorboards also.

Shower cubicle in and plastered walls

Tiling being done in shower

Shower in place and ready to use

Pretty in Pink

My bedchamber, the boudoir, my sleeping quarters, the master bedroom...this room is my escape. Its the place that is just mine, where I can escape. Therefore, I wanted it to be calming, peaceful and a soothing place to be in.

Now a colour I would NEVER associate with myself is pink. I don't wear it, and don't feel a particular draw to it in general. So the fact that as an adult woman, I have chosen to have a fantastically feminine bedroom in such a flirtatious, captivating, aphrodisiacal, lascivious colour as pink suprised me a little! It all happened when I bought a painting in an auction. Initially I actually bought the picture for the frame. However, the more I looked at the painting in it, the more I fell in love with it, the brushstrokes and colours were exsquisite. So my whole room became designed around a picture I paid less than £10 for, because I initially wanted the frame.

You'll see from the photographs that the picture was a large painting, of what looks to me like, hydrangeas. It is beautiful even if it's slightly damaged.....more to the point, the flora was pink. I figured a white wall wouldn't pick out the different tones enough. I set about finding a dusty pink that I liked enough to do a feature wall in. Good old Annie Sloan's chalk paint in Scandinavian pink was the very tone. Not saccharine, bubble gum pink, and I could tone it down further with a coating of talc (I used imperial leather talcum powder as it was on offer)!...try it, it works a treat! As a side note, my Dad did ask if I had a womb complex, with the pink thing. But I think (despite no longer having a womb), that I am completely comfortable with my prenatal existence and have no desire to replicate my fetal existence..please don't take this musing seriously!!!

When I was a teenage girl my bedroom was messy...I mean REALLY messy. I always dreamt of having a pretty room, with a dressing table and a matching vanity set. In reality it was covered in Motorhead posters (partly to hide the vile 70's wallpaper), the bed was propped up with an old Tonka truck, I collected animal bones, had pet rodents and there were clothes and records everywhere. My best friends also used to come and hang out and we'd flick jelly and marshmallows onto the ceiling, then date them to see who's stayed up the longest. Mum said it made her despair, and pretty much ignored the state of it. So even if I had a pretty bedroom, chances are I'd have trashed it in due course!

The bedroom,had built in wardrobes when I moved in, they were discoloured yellow pine & pretty gross. Yet they had the look of shutters, which I thought if I could make more 'vintage' would look fine. I set about sanding and painting in a haphazard way to get an aged look, added new ceramic door handles & Dave added some structure inside.

I ripped up the carpets and found beautiful floorboards underneath, these needed a woodworm treatment, sanding and varnish, but they came up a treat. Parts of the room had black streaks running down. We were told there was a fire in that part of the house as the ceilings have been rehung (badly, that's a job for another year). Meaning all woodwork and walls needed a repaint. I kept all of the rest neutral as I wanted my other pictures and bits and pieces to do the talking.

We slept on an air mattress on the floor for around a month (which used to deflate during the night, resulting waking up on a hard floor), then used the kids mattresses, finally upgrading to a sofa bed. The curtains were an old pentagram scarf pinned up to preserve modesty! Eventually, after six months of this camping, I got my old bed assembled and put some curtains up....it was beyond bliss!

This weekend we put the final pictures up and got the dressing table in place. The room looks beautiful. I actually have an alluring, and relatively sophisticated boudoir, for the first time in my life and that makes me very happy!

Some of my favourite pictures

Hideous, yellowed pine wardrobes

Vintage shutter style paint job on wardrobe doors

My bed, and the painting the room was designed around (spot Behemoth lounging around).

Gold Lloyd loom chair, Lebus dressing table and wardrobes

Ostrich Egg, orchid and vintage mirror in window sill

Furniture recycling for the stony broke!

I've never really liked the more modern furniture. I have a blanket box from Ikea, a couple of crap pine chests of drawers, but other than all that the furniture I own is all older bits and pieces. Nothing matches. Some I've picked up out of desperation and necessity, some I've inherited, and others I've made a conscious decision to buy from furniture recycling schemes. I get lots of things given to me as well. I'm known for my love of recycling, or as it is called now, upcycling. I'm appalling at saying no, or throwing out things that aren't beyond repair. Although I did draw the line at a rattan commode that Annabel got for me (it just wasn't that pretty, sorry Bels xx)!! Had it been one of the famous 'Chippendale commodes', one of which was found in Morton-in-the Marsh in Gloucestershire, selling at Sotheby's for an astronomical price back in 1920, I would, of course, have given it house space (I do ask myself how I know this shit....pun intended).

I appreciate that these older pieces of furniture are made far more robustly- built to last I like to think. Some have a gorgeous patina just as they are, and require nothing more than a good beeswax or linseed oil finish. Others are just crying out to be brought back to life, with a lick of chalk paint, a soft wax and some new handles. Although I do worry about naffing stuff up, so try my best to be sympathetic to the piece rather than follow fashion...remember the rag rolled walls and black ash furniture that were so 'on trend' in the 80's? Ugh...just no!

I love it when a bit of furniture becomes grand, back to it's former glory. I also love it when it gets a little worn in, chipped on the edges or just looks a bit loved and used. That fits in with my house, my hoarded, no, I mean carefully collected, vintage bits and bobs, and my lifestyle too. Most importantly I love a bargain...who doesn't?

I have many 'ongoing' projects, and as you know by now a fondness for lists. Whilst I write down lots, I also have these projects in my head. Some I'll do quickly, others, like the welsh dresser I inherited from my Nanny when she moved, took me ages....around 4 years...to get around to doing!

I keep meaning to do a re upholstery course one day, so I can learn to do more things with chairs and soft furnishings. I'm sure it's not that hard and is just a case of deconstructing with the right tools,  then reconstructing... maybe that will be my next project.

Here are some pictures of things I've tarted up, and a couple that are waiting to be done:

Welsh dresser from my Nanny, this was pine originally. Painted, waxed and filled with vintage china Ive collected from charity shops and brocantes. 

Before. Lamp shade from France, stand also from France given to me by Dad, before - total 10 euros

After. Waxed and patch worked (note the lovely gold frames I also collected from junk shops)

Before. Sewing box, £6 with contents from charity shop in Gloucester

After. Using found material and gold rick rack edging

My beloved Victorian bed. Mum & Dad gave me this when I was about 14. Ive redone this twice as it was left in a shed for about 10 years when I left Bath to come back to Gloucestershire. I had to source the proper ceramic casters and put them back on - that was a job!

In situ, after a wire brush down, and lick of paint. Also a patchwork quilt I made from scraps of  Kaffe Fassett materials

Coco, my French mannequin - waiting to be restored. I found her covered in dust at the back of a brocante. The wooden top part is actually bits from stair finials that I found in the same place. Cost 10 euros

Before. A rocking chair from Dave's Mum. We had one like this when we were kids, so I have an affection for these.

After. With a crochet blanket I taught myself to make.

Before. Old sewing box from Dave's Mum.

After. Blue and funky!

Before - Lebus dressing table from furniture recycling scheme. Very scratched top. Cost £20

After. Cleaned up and painted and waxed

Before. I actually paid more than I like to with this, but I thought it had potential. £100 from furniture recycling scheme.

After, Painted, waxed and titivated!

This was for my cabinet of curiosities. I love it as is. Cleaned and waxed. £35 from Barnardos in Quedgeley

Old school desk bought from my lovely friend Trish. Waxed and given to my son, who wants to become a writer. (Spot the crap pine chest of drawers)!

A little lesson in flexible thinking & Mojitos

Something I discovered after moving in, is that the mental list I had been making of tasks that needed doing and in what order, would change on an almost weekly basis.

For someone who flirts with OCD and who can be pretty rigid in their ideas, this can be a tricky challenge. I am by no means a clean freak - far from it, I'm quite dirt blind. However, I do find too much clutter that isn't mine, or isn't in some kind of order can put me on edge. I tend to group things into piles, or sets, that way I know where things are most likely to be if they don't have a place just yet. I also like to do things in my own sweet way, it's probably deemed a little eccentric, I tend to live in my own time frame, but it works for me! I digress....

So, my list was not going to plan, and I slowly and grudgingly came to realise, that it probably never would. I diligently wrote down what I thought were the first jobs (all on the back of an envelope). This list then morphed into a new list (shortly after this I instated my 'list' book), as we discovered more pressing tasks to enable us to actually live in the property as a family. We also uncovered things I hadn't foreseen, or discovered that some tasks were far less urgent than we first anticipated. 

I rapidly needed to address my unwillingness to compromise, or risk being sectioned! I have a handy little trick I do in such situations now....I add things I've done to the list, then instantly cross through them! There... I've achieved! I have discovered that as long as I've done some things, I can be happy. Achieving nothing is what drives me bonkers, I like to sit down at the end of the day and gloat a little about how much I've accomplished. After all it means we are a few steps closer to living the dream. 

My advice to anyone thinking of taking on a renovation project is to BE FLEXIBLE. It is fast becoming my mantra and my sanity. Nothing will go according to plan. You will wildly under estimate timings, and run out of money. You will exhaust your supplies of paint; nails; screws; fittings and fixtures 20 minutes after the DIY store has closed for the long bank holiday weekend. You will pull a muscle, or crick your neck just as you are shifting your last wheelbarrow of rubble and be rendered useless for the next few days. It will never be straight forward, but if you think flexibly and have a bit of fun on the way (oh yes, sometimes it is f****ing hilarious)  then you will ensure at least a little bit of sanity remains. 

Oh and always have some of your favourite booze in the house. Mine is a damn fine Mojito. Here is a recipe for it:

Mojito is a traditional Cuban highball. Traditionally, a mojito is a cocktail that consists of five ingredients: white rum, sugar (I like brown sugar best), lime juice, soda water, and mint. 

Ingredients: A big old splash of white rum (this volume will depend on your stress levels), a few leaves of mint, soda water, some slices of fresh lime, 2 teaspoons sugar

Preparation: Mint sprigs muddled with sugar and lime juice. Rum added and topped with soda water. Garnished with sprig of mint leaves. Served with a straw.

Served: On the rocks; poured over ice, so it cracks nicely before you drink it in babeeee x

The Mojito of sanity & flexible thinking

Old boilers, new boilers and knocking down walls

It was alleged that the boiler and hot water tank were all in fine fettle, I even received an in-date safety certificate with all of the house paperwork. Theoretically, we should have been able to be toasty warm, and have lovely hot water, as soon as we moved in. It transpired that there was as much chance of that happening, as there was Prince Phillip visiting a foreign country and not casually insulting every aspect of the culture!

The water in the house was either painfully cold, or absolutely scalding hot (only a couple of taps worked also, but that's another story). The heating was the same, you couldn't touch the radiators without being scorched and for some reason they came on when you tried to get any hot water (not good for a woman of a certain age I can tell you)! When the boiler was 'working' it made a horrendous screeching and rumbling noise, and the flame would often just wither and die out. It actually really scared me, I had visions of the house exploding and the only thing being left standing was the wall that had the boiler rammed into it. Or us just not waking up one day, like those dreadful stories you hear about in cheap, badly maintained holiday complexes. The boiler was in the kitchen, it was VERY rusty and the flue hole was crumbling and letting in water around it. Upstairs in Barry White's sauna room there was an immersion tank. this just plain didn't work, dead as a Dodo. I had thought that perhaps we could exist with this system for a year or so, but I quickly realised there was no way we could safely live like this. I was worried the boys would scald themselves, and I really didn't want to have to wash my hair in cold water for a year! We managed like this for three months into the winter, and I received the biggest fuel bill I've ever had. I snapped, and decided we would get a combi boiler and have it moved upstairs in the bathroom. 

I called one of the big gas companies to have a chat about trading in my old boiler for new. The types of 'fantastic' offers they are always pushing on the radio or TV. They quoted me £9K, whaaaaa...how can that be???!!! We then met a 'far more fantastic' local plumber who came and looked at the boiler we had...just on the off chance it could be repaired. He took the front off to look at it and it fell apart in his hands, promptly dropped out of the wall and leaked rusty sludge all over him. That was that....the boiler was condemned! Despite this he quoted me just shy of £5K, Still high, but I could do that at a stretch and I would much rather pay someone local who had good recommendations, than some mega corporate thief! I also realised that there was no way that boiler could ever have had a safety certificate from a reputable plumber, so I'm not sure how they forged that! 

Our local plumber installed a beautiful new combi boiler (I called her Belinda boiler), moved it upstairs for us, and bricked up the hole from the previous rust bucket. It was a lot of work to install, as we had micro bore pipes. Luckily they held and all was well. It was bliss! We still only had a few working taps, a crap bath and no shower, but we had access to normal temperature hot water, and a beautiful, quiet, sleek new boiler... I felt like a princess!!!

By replacing the hot water and heating system with a combi boiler, it made the hot water tank defunct (well, more defunct than before). This gave us the opportunity to generate more space, so we decided to knock Barry White's sauna room through to the bathroom. Creating one much larger bathroom space. The twins had their first DIY sledgehammer & crowbar experience that day. I don't think they could quite believe that they were allowed to just lay in to a wall and demolish it...THEY LOVED IT! I was finding bits of wall for weeks after.

As usual all the building rubble and useless plumbing bits and pieces ended up lying about in the garden for weeks, before we eventually moved it to the garage dumping ground. On closer inspection I suspect that boiler was deadly. It was a very expensive, but very wise choice to evict it quickly from the cottage. 

The condemned boiler - note the hole in the plaster at the top of the boiler and the rust!

Grandad overseeing the demolition of the wall

Pro-cat-stination and other excuses....

On Sunday afternoon of September 11th 2016, we collected our new additions. Brother and sister gingers cats.  They are 11 and three quarter months old, and will have their first birthday on September the 18th. I have already discovered how difficult writing on a computer is with cats. The keyboard must have similar properties to catnip, as every time I sit down to type, one, or both, come and lie on it!

They are very beautiful rescue cats and unusually for rescues, they don't have a particularly sad back story either. Their previous owners got a dog that didn't get on with the cats. So they made a sensible decision to re-home them via the Cat's Protection League, allowing them to have a better family life. They were clearly very loved and handled a lot, as they are extremely affectionate moggy's.

I have had cats before and do enjoy the companionship of them (I must confess to being in the high risk category of being a mad cat lady. If I'm particularly annoyed or stressed, stupid cat and cute kitten YouTube clips always make me smile - goddamn I just typed that out loud didn't I)!! I like the fact they trip you up at the top of the stairs, shred toilet paper, knock things that interest them off the sides, misjudge leaps and try to steal anything you are eating that they think actually should be theirs.

You may recall in the previous posting that we were going to rename the cats.
The male, who is enormous and has white socks, bib and tip of tail, is called Behemoth. After a demonic, firearm and vodka loving cat character in one of my favourite books, The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.
The female, who is a dark ginger, with beautiful round amber eyes, is called Osiris, which could be considered a male name I suppose.... Osiris is the Egyptian God of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead, it is also my son, Jasper's, favourite Egyptian deity.

The cats have to stay in for two weeks to acclimatise to their new home, meaning we have to keep the doors and windows closed. Anyone that knows me, knows I was born in a barn, shutting doors and I just dont seem to mix well. If you're doing DIY and creating lots of dust, or lugging tools and so on around, the door needs to be open. Therefore since Sunday, and the imposed lock down, I've discovered a new noun related to my lack of DIY and more relaxed state. Pro-cat-stination. I walk by a cat, I have to smooth it, I sit down and a ball of fluff appears on my lap, a cat is sleeping on my bed - naturally I have to join it. This all takes time!

In my defense this is bonding, AND I did look up carbide drill bits on the screwfix website this morning.........

Osiris spying on the neighbours

Behemoth wondering if he can leap upwards safely

Behemoth on my bed

Beautiful Osiris

Chunky Behemoth