Back Bedroom Part 10

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand its done! Last coat of satin on the skirting boards this morning, while Sunshine did up all the electrics ... moving back in there today - just in time for guest to arrive. Whopee! Another room DIY-ed - and now we can concentrate on getting some decent furniture and soft furnishings ;)

Back Bedroom Part 9

Home stretch, home stretch! Sanded back skirting board; got second coat of paint on the walls and ceilings, and first coat of satin on the skirting boards (and had a massive clear-up session).

Back Bedroom Part 8 & Hallway Part 11

Oh my goodness another marathon day - finished the last bit of papering; started and finished ALL the caulking (needed to do a bit more than usual as we had to buy a different brand of lining paper and the edges were not perfectly straight; so needed lots of filling in the gaps); AND got the whole first coat of paint on!

And not only that, since we had the wallpapering stuff out, we managed to get this bit of hallway papered too ...

Back Bedroom Part 7

Edit: we were so tired that this photo was actually taken the next day.

Marathon wall and ceiling papering session today - all done except just this little yellow patch!

Back Bedroom Part 6

FINALLY managed to get all the filling and sanding and prepping of the walls done ... then went out for a Boxing Day walk with Sunshine's sister, husband and niece, then back and on to lining paper! We've done about two thirds of the walls - feels SO good ... on the home stretch now ...

Back Bedroom Part 5 & A DIY Christmas ...

Merry Christmas one and all! This was the extent of our "Christmas decoration" this year as we were too busy ... Filling and Sanding!

We also made Christmas fish pie and apple crumble .... mmmmm :)

Back Bedroom Part 4 & Lit-up-cycling

Its Christmas eve, and what have we been doing? Filling!

Whilst Sunshine recessed some plug sockets ...

But we also downed tools at 6 pm so we could go and join a group of about 20 people cycle around the Bristol harbourside in their lit up bicycles ... you can see us fairly clearly at about 2:25 - we're the only tandem (and yes, the cargo bike does have a Christmas tree!)



Then we came home and Sunshine made the best mulled wine on the planet ever! Yes, I am a bit biased ... who wouldn't be about their best husband ;)

Back Bedroom Part 3

Peeled back all of the wallpaper today and started sanding and filling. You can see the blistered wall after sanding now - we've had to sand back to the grey sandy plaster.

The window too needed work. We took off the funny looking bits of wood that looked like they were holding the window in place to find that the reason they had been put in there was becasue the window had been installed with large gaps either side. Sunshine took it all off then filled the gaps with expanding foam filler and we'll go round with plaster/caulk to make it all nice and neat again.

Back Bedroom Part 2

Almost all the wallpaper off today - also to find this strange yellow and blue corner by the window with blistered paint - obviously had some damp issues at some point. It's dry now but the last people to decorate thought they'd just paper over it! We're going to have to strip, sand and fill all of that ...

Back Bedroom Part 1

So, we have till the 30th to get our own bedroom done as we need to move into the guestroom while we do it - and on the 30th we have guests so we need to be out by then ... We've been quite busy this last weekend with lots of little things - but tonight we got ichy fingers and spend an hour and a half starting to peel away the textured wallpaper on one wall ... so nice to have finally made a start ...

Little bits...

Front Bedroom Part 12

Today Sunshine installed the new raditor in the front bedroom while I gave it a last coat of paint ... and we are now DONE in there! No more DIY - just the nice stuff of "decorating" ie "beautifying" :)

Bathroom Part 6

And after faffing with a broken shower for a few weeks in which we couldn't change the temperature - we bit the bullet and bought a new more expensive one and Sunshine installed it - its LUSH! Mmmmm.... nice whooshy showers now - with decent temperature control!

Lisbon day 4

Thank you Abbu and Ammu for a fantastic holiday (and some of the photos too...)

Lisbon day 3 (Sintra, Cabo de Roca & Cascais)

Happy Birthdy Abbu! Also the day Sunshine arrives ...

Lisbon day 2

Look at how each of us has a camera in hand ... ;)

Lisbon day 1

Family holiday with the rents ...

Hoola Flappers...

I don't talk about it often on this blog but I do teach quite a lot of swing dancing here in Bristol. Down the right hand sidebar there should be a list of stuff I'm teaching/have taught this semester with Swing Dance Bristol. Occasionally though, I get asked to do something different ...

Recently our Hoola Hooping friend Dr Emma (another one to have left the sciences to pursue their passion), asked me to teach at the South West Hoop conference or "SWHoop" that she organises. As I knew there would be not enough men to balance the numbers, I thought I'd teach some solo charleston instead ... also, its such a fun and happy dance that I knew it would go down well with the hoopers - and I wasn't wrong!

I taught a routine last Sunday at SWHoop 1 which you can see here (its a 12 minute review video of the weekend - but the link should take you straight to my class ... if not, I start at about 10mins20secs). SWHoop 2 today Sunshine came with the stills camera and got the only pictures I've ever had of me teaching - which, considering I've been teaching dance for about 10 years, is quite the achievement!

Out with the old ...

and in with the new ...

Doing all this DIY has also meant a bit of a re-thinking of the amount of stuff we've accumulated. Things are being re-gifted, charity-shopped, and even thrown away. Sometimes though, the things that need throwing away due to them being on their last legs (ha ha pun intended) are very difficult to throw away as they have no replacement.

I find it hard to find shoes that I like. And when I do, I tend to hang on to them for years ... even when they are barely wearable ... take the camper Mary Janes on the top left. I LUUUUUURVE them ... they are SO comfy - and the best thing for cycling in. BUT, their bottoms have split and water gets in. And even the threads have started coming apart.

I've spent months stalking ebay for them - but they just don't appear (and on the odd occasions they have, they have been the wrong size). I think I've found one online shop in Spain that possibly stocks them ... so the other day this other pair of Camper Mary Janes appeared on ebay. They're not the same; and don't have any nice red accents; but they they're cute enough.

Then my red Birkenstocks ... oh my goodness have I had them for a long time. Infact I think I bought this with Sunshine about a month after we started going out. Again, they have been worn to smithereens. Sunshine keeps threatening to throw them away - he even complains (albeit jokingly) to my mum about them! He's made me buy a new pair (the brown ones) which I've now had for at least 2 years .... but I still keep going back to my old ones. They are like old friends ... they have the stains of white paint from my degree show to remnants of the wallpaper that we peeled off in all this DIY stuck to them.

Anyways, the old shoes are going. The Campers are going in the rubbish collection this week; and I've promised to let go of the red Birkenstocks when the DIY is done. This is my homage to them... I had to take photos of them before I gave them up... I will miss you shoesies...

Kev Day

Kev was visiting again today to give us a bit of a push with the DIY ... So, you have:

Front Bedroom Part 11

I was shown how to mask off the wood from the carpet neatly, then Kev proceeded to paint the skirting boards at super-fast speed.

Hallway Part 10

This mess of wires really needed to get sorted - Sunshine was going to do it, but decided that Kev would be far better and faster at it ...

And while he was in the hall, he finished off papering the bulk of the left over walls and ceilings.

Bathroom Part 5

Unfortunately, even with all this moving forward, we had one room where things went backward ... there were two spots in the bathroom where the paint was not sticking properly. Kev pulled it all back and the reality is those two bits of plaster are not drying. He thinks he's dealt with one issue but, but we still need to look into what the issue is by the window. Anyways, it just means our lovely white bathroom has two blotchy patches again ... it needs to dry out before we can refill and re-paint.

At least everything has moved on a bit ...

Front Bedroom Part 10

Early evening push means the front bedroom has had its second coat of paint! Woo! We were so happy Sunshine had to do some posing while I did some exhaust-ing...

We even managed to go out dancing for a couple of hours after ... go team!

Front Bedroom Part 9

What a weekend...

Friday night we got through ALL the papering ... woo! The whole room, including this complex wall is done (I took the photo on Saturday morning as it got a bit too late and dark to take the photo Friday night).

Saturday, I got on with the rest of the caulking that I had started on Friday night.

Whilst Sunshine got on with the first coat of paint. After I was done caulking, I joined in the painting. We make a good team - I had the roller when he had the brush and vice-versa; and one of us would get on with cleaning and tidying whilst the other was busy doing something else.

Sunday we finished off the first coat of paint and now it looks like THIS! All beautifully white ... mmmmm...

We thought we'd get further and would have started clearing out the back bedroom so we could do that next week... but we hit a wall of tiredness so instead spent large chunks of today out in the sun getting some fresh (cold!) air; fixing our shower which suddenly decided that it was not going to give us hot water; and fixing the doorbell that suddenly decided to stop working. Still, it feels like this room is finally coming together. Yay :)

Front Bedroom Part 8

Ceiling doing ...

Ceiling DONE!

Three hour push tonight after work. We're shattered, but happy :)

Front Bedroom Part 7

Took these photos this morning as I can't get decent photos in the evening (when we usually finish our papering). This is what was done over all of Sunday and a bit of Monday night too. Yes, we are a bit slow - but we're being careful and thorough. All of the wall I'm backed up against (that you can't see) is done. And those 5 meter long ceiling lengths (and above the picture rail on the right and left) take a looooong time to do. It involves me pasting up a full 5 meter long length of paper; Sunshine then being up on a ladder with some of it stuck down and the rest being held up using a broom by me ... as we work our way across the room. And on the edge runs Sunshine then has to go back and mark and cut away all the paper that folds round.

We're thinking that maybe the next time we do this we set up a camera on timer with a tripod so you can see how its done. We're getting there though - and it feels like we're on the home run. Can't wait to paint it all white!!!

Front Bedroom Part 6

Solid day of lining-papering!

Front Bedroom Part 5

Weekend comes around and we start work again. Today was lots and lots of wall prep. Infact we started last night with sanding down the wall to make sure there were no rough patches; marking up deep holes; filling them in and then sanding them down again. Today was just more of that (much easier to do it in daylight!). You have to do several passes of this as its difficult to spot all the holes that need filling and sanding on just one go. You'll often find holes that need filling whilst you're sanding another filled one. Generates a lot of dust too so both of us ended up having quite salt-n-pepper hair and looking like old biddies ;)

To get to all the walls, we also had to drain and take off the radiator - man what a mission! There were lots of spanners and buckets and thumbs holding valves closed while one of us panicked and the other ran round looking for spare newspaper and rags to mop up the leaks. Got there in the end though ... as you can see, the radiator was inspected (and we assume installed) on 24th July 1972 - almost 40 years ago! I found some funky orange wallpaper behind the wall brackets - will have to take a photo of those soon.

And while we were at it, Sunshine decided that we might as well recess the plug sockets (they stick quite a bit out of the walls so we decided to get them inside the walls. Here is Sunshine doing the manly drilling-out-holes with a mega drill; setting in a new socket box, then plaster filling it into the wall. Three double sockets to do round this room. Also this room has only one light fitting (smack in the middle of the room) but I decided we need two. So we had to make two new holes in the ceiling; get into the attic and pull the current wire out; move it to one of our new holes; and fill the old hole. Eventually we can wire in to the second of our new holes too. I think that will work much better than the current set-up.

We wanted to start lining-papering today but all this prepping took a long time. We also had a 30th birthday party to get to that evening. So in the last hour we cleared everything up; vacuumed; put down dust sheets and brought up all the wallpapering stuff ready for tomorrow.

Rainbow ...

View outside our house this afternoon.

Amazingly confused weather in Bristol today - torrential rain with bright sunshine ... only one thing from that ...RAINBOW!!! Infact, if you look closely, you can see - DOUBLE RAINBOW! Thank you my Sunshine for running into the house and calling for me, "Mithi! Come see this! Good surprise!!!", and for the photo. :)

Front Bedroom Part 4

Day two of the weekend and we start by moving the shelves and sofabed so we can access the undone corner. On hand are the tools of choice - a thing to perforate the wallpaper to make the steam get in better; some scrapers to peel the wallpaper off; and some sponges as last bits mostly just needed a bit of soaking and cleaning off.


Once the final corner was done, I sat and slowly worked my way across that funny patch on the bottom right (of the picture below) of some strange glue residue that needed peeling away; whilst Sunshine got on with a first pass of plaster-filling some of the larger holes, dents and cracks in the wall. I must say the damage is fairly minimal and we are very lucky to have bought a house in very good condition. Our friends down the road whose steamer we keep borrowing, peeled their wallpaper off and all the plaster came of with it leaving bare brick!

Stopped before we got too tired - school night after all...


And as an aside - since I still needed to be able to work on my commission, we've set up a small studio/office in the back lounge (which is currently our living room) ... did all this only to realise we don't have easy internet access down there - so as you can see, the laptop (with wifi) is sitting on the chair on the right as I need to have web access, but I'm doing my drawing work on the desktop. Feels really roomy down there though- and I have enough space to set up the printer, scanner, wacom tablet and lightbox without constantly having to pull one thing out to make space for another ...