Hallway Part 6

Finally! PROOF! That we do do wallpaper (lining paper actually - its all going to get painted) pasting, hanging and associated tasks.

Hallway Part 5

Having taken most of the weekend off, we thought we should get back into it. We got so into wallpapering that we actually forgot to take photos of me pasting up wallpaper downstairs, whilst Sunshine pasted the paper to the walls upstairs. We had a neat little production line going. You can see here though that most of the upstairs hallway is done. As are some small sections downstairs. Those long drops to the left of the stairs are going to have to wait till we have a better ladder system.

Hallway Part 4 DevKev Day!

Early start today - Kev came ... and proceeded to dismantle one of our walls!

Then he and Sunshine filled in any dents/holes/cracks etc with plaster filler. You can see the white plaster all over the walls in patches. These then all required sanding down - for which I shut myself in the bedroom as it was too dusty - hence no pictures.

Then he helped wallpaper our ceilings (with lining paper) with Sunshine as his able assistant ... I just took photos and looked scared.... Aaaawww lots of photos of Kev's bottom - and doesn't Sunshine look smashing with his lining paper headgear???

Kev finally also did a bit of wall-papering so that we could learn how to do it. Sunshine and I are going to do the rest ourselves (although we might leave the ceilings for Kev for when we can have him back ...)

Hallway Part 3

More peeling/steaming progress on the hall today. Including the ceilings (or whichever bits of them we could reach!)

*Found painted on the stair walls - "BR. CITY O.K." - Bristol City ... just OK ... not great or anything .... just OK ...

Hallway Part 2

The last few days have been pretty much wallpaper removing. The bulk of the hallways (upstairs and downstairs) are done - my goodnees does the hall have a lot of walls!

The physical peeling though always seems to leave a thin layer of backing paper - or in some instances an even older paper; and for that - out comes the steamer. Thank you the Peskimos for loan of wallpaper steamer.

Hallway Part 1

The front lounge is not quite done yet - we have bought the insulation and stuff, but we're still a bit undecided about what to do about the floorboards - but in the meantime, our friend Kev is coming on Friday to help do the hall... so current priority is prepping all of the hallways/corridors - part one, peel off all the textured wallpaper. Oh so satisfying!

Front Lounge Part 4

Today I have been mostly making holes in walls (chasing the brick wall) so that we can house the plug sockets IN the walls rather than sticking OUT if it. Yes, mum ... the electricity was turned off first ...

Whilst Sunshine has bought himself a hammer drill (it worked out cheaper than renting one as we are going to need it a couple more times around the house), and has been bashing away at concrete. Lookie my scary husband! Lookie he demolish the fireplace hearth! I had to take that last photo from outside the front window as the noise and dust was driving me insane ...

Also have realised that the job I was doing would have been MUCH easier with the hammer drill. Well, now we know for the next time ...

Front Lounge Part 3

On the left - start taking off ceiling paper - on the right, almost at the end of taking off ceiling paper... It came off amazingly easily. And the board under is really smooth. We should be able to just clean and paint over. Yay to no more textured ceiling paper!

So, we've lost a little bit of momentum as we've got into a slight dilema about whether or not we want to buy new floorboards. There's nothing wrong with the old ones (no rot or woodworm); just that they are soft pine (meant to be under carpets), and therefor dent easily. Also we've inadvertantly broken a few in taking them up - so need to source replacements. Still undecided about what we're going to do.

Also, to get all the boards up, we had to get the skirting boards up, which meant that the radiator had to come off the walls. The radiator turned out to need a thorough clean out (it was full of the black magnetic rust that accumulates if you haven't got any inhibitor in the water). So we had to take half a day off to just flush out the whole radiator system in the house. We had to get ourselves a hose too - as we don't have an outside tap, so have never had a hose. Sunhine had to engineer a pipe under the washbowl in the back WC so we had somewhere to plumb the hose into. All such a faff! I wish the landlords had left the outside tap that was already there when we first came to see the house when we were looking to rent it. Outside tap has been included on the must-do list.

Brecon Beacons

Day off DIY to have a day hill walking with friends in the Brecon Beacons - Black Mountains, Wales.

*Sorry for the image quality - its a rather large image and it obviously doesn't like being compressed by Blogger.

Front Lounge Part 2

Today, with some help (thank you Ted!), the rest of the floorboards came out. Then we decided to get rid of the non-existant-fireplace-hearth. As it turned out, it was a block of polystyrene, covered in a 10mm thick layer of pretend-marble composite. Unfortunately underneath it is the most had concrete block on the planet. We've tried bashing it (need it flat so that we can put floorboards across where the hearth used to be); but it wont budge - looks like we may have to go and procure a jack-hammer of some sort...

Front Lounge Part 1

First order of the day - clear out the lounge and pile everything in other rooms in the house.

Then proceed to take off skirting boards - and then floorboards. As Sunshine pulled out the boards, I diligently hammered out all the old nails so they weren't sticking out waiting to poke the unsuspecting.

The plan is to insulate under the floor. Lucky for us we found that it was completely dry underneath and there was a concrete subfloor (these old victorian houses often only have dirt under - but ours allegedly had been re-built post-WW2 as it had been bombed; and this is turning out to be a great thing as everything is about 50-60 years old rather than over a hundred!)

Also, by the end of the day realised that leaving the sofabed in the lounge wasn't such a great idea ... thank you to Ollie for coming round on short notice and helping Sunshine maneuver it to the next room - I'm too small and weak for such jobs!

Bathroom Part 5

***** photo of finished bathroom to go here eventually *****

Just realised that we have no pictures of the finished bathroom. Second coat of paint has gone on and everything mostly cleaned up. Still a few small bits to touch up - and the skirting board by the shower to re-make - but we are done otherwise. Phew! next .... the front lounge...

Bristol Ballon Fiesta 2011

I love living in Bristol. Bristol Balloon Fiesta weekend ... watched the balloons go over our house everyday from Thursday to Sunday. Friday watched them with Paul from the harbourside. Sunday watched the Red Arrows from the comfort of the Peskimo's balcony. All photos by Sunshine ... I was too busy staring at the sky to take pictures...

Bathroom Part 4

Oops ... seemed to have got a bit lax in photo-taking/documenting. Unfortunately no pics of tiling ... but as you can see - tilling done, including grouting and sealing. Shower door back on. We've also started cleaning off bits of chipping paint from the walls. And plastering bits and bobs including re-building that bit of wall that was to the left of the shower door.

First coat of white paint going on ... whoopee! Home stretch now ...

*I'd also like to note that although it appears that I've not been doing anywork (Sunshine is always in the pictures), I've been doing loads too - especially cleaning and painting. It just so happens that photo-taking seems to have become my responsibility.

Bathroom Part 3

The correct boards to use behind powershowers - Aquapanel Cementboard. We did the bottom, then decided two days later that we were going to go another level up on the back wall (photo on left is 2 days ago).

Sand Point with Jeanine

Windy day out with house guest Jeanine and Sunshine at Sand Point.

Bathroom Part 2

Sunshine being sad that now there appears to be TWO walls of tiles that need replacing .... there's black mould growing up the back of the tiles! They used the wrong kind of plasterboard on the back and its soaking ... poo ... We later also realised that they had plumbed the hot/cold pipes into the shower the wrong way round ...

Bathroom Part 1

So the shower has been leaking for over 3 years. The old landlord's handyman has tried fixing it intermitently - but the problem has persisted. You can see how its rotted away the skirting board to the bottom left of the shower door. After some consulting with Sunshine's dad, we decided the problem was quite likely to be the door itself. So we set about taking it off. Yes - Mr handyman hadn't grouted behind the door - and had sealed bits that were meant to be left as channels for water flow.

On further investigation though - we find that there is masses of damp behind some of the tiles ... hmmm ... this is going to be a bigger job than we anticipated.

Homeowners.

As aluded to a few weeks ago, we have now become homeowners! Whoopee!!! Here's me (still in my convention t-shirt jammies) getting the call from the solicitors this morning telling us that it had all gone through ... hello 20 years of debt!

And the first thing we did as new homeowners? We insulated the loft! It already had 150mm old insulation, but we decided to add 200mm more recycled glass stuff that was subsidised under the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target. You can't beat 7 rolls of insulation for £21 ... It was even worth doing two trips to our local B&Q as we could only fit 5 rolls in the car at one time.


Anyways, now we are warmer homeowners ... next job, underfloor insulation - think that is going to be a bit more messy.