Best Projects of 2015

A quick round up of 2015 projects!

It's been a long but short year!  I know that sounds weird...  It's been a long hard year work wise, but in the same way, because I've been buried in work, I feel like I blinked and I missed most of the year.

As such, work on the house hasn't progressed as quick as I would have liked, but now that I look back I can see that we did in fact get a few good bits done.  And progress is progress anyway.

1. Lintel fitted above Living Room Window

Does it make the house look better? Nope.  Did it cost lots of pennies? Yep.  But will it mean we can now open the living room windows and the window frame won't get crushed?  Yes.

Had to be done - but really not very exciting.

2. The Hallway

We started this project in the first few days of January this year.  We had some delays with sorting the heating system out, and waiting for the plasterer, so this one has dragged on a bit.

The above photos were taken within hours of us getting the keys, hence all the junk everywhere! Textures everywhere, smashed mirror pieces on the windowsill, peeling wallpaper and green threadbare carpet! Vom!

So, we aren't finished yet.  But the amount of progress is huge:

I don't to post all photos yet,  I'll leave the final reveal for early 2016 when it is done :)

3. Vegetable Patch

We have had great success with our first proper year at growing veg. We have also had some downs and learning experiences, but we are geared up to give it a go next year too.

4. Radiator Update

This project was an unexpected one that was a result of the hallway project.  But I'm so glad now that we did it.  It has refreshed so many of the rooms (especially the bathroom), it's given us a decent heat source in the living room, and allowed us to get the hallway plastered properly.

Lots of progress but lots more to go!  Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a happy new year!

How did you get on with your projects in 2015?

Motivational Monday - Be Silly

Christmas Bunny

Christmas is a week away!  We've had the decorations up since the beginning of December, but honestly they look a bit rubbish.  We upgraded our tree from a 3ft to a 6ft artificial tree but we haven't yet upgraded the lights so they are a bit sparse.  It's also in the room that I currently hate - the living room!   I'm too ashamed to show you a picture of the tree in place, but he's a sneaky snap I took - somebody's a fan of the tree!

The loft hatch is finished... finally!

Well it's only taken an age, but the loft hatch is pretty much finished.  And man does it look nice a smooth!

I documented my progress so far here and here, after a less than perfect plastering job around it.

I sanded down the filler around the hatch and topped up in a few places where the first attempt hadn't been quite right.  After another sand, I was ready to paint!  (We won't mention how I managed to filler the old loft hatch in place to the point I had to chisel some of the new filler out so we could open the door... oops!)

I painted the ceiling in white emulsion, the same emulsion we used for the rest of the ceiling.  A mini roller on the go and it was a 5 minute job.  You can re-coat in 2 hours so I got three coats on in one evening.

After one coat

After three coats - looking better already!

I also had to sort out my double blooper with the bar on the inside clashing with the loft ladder.  That was a quick fix with the drill. (You can see the two lines of holes - one the original, one from when I moved it the wrong way - doh!)

Another lick of paint was also required:

I put the new hinges in the same place that the old hinges lined up to be, but drilled them in slightly lower into the wood, as the new ceiling was a few mm lower than the old ceiling would have been.

Now for the cath on the door.  We re-used the old one, but to fit it, I got in the loft while the hubby stood on the landing underneath.  I'm so glad we did it that way.  The first time I tried to fit it, it got stuck! The only way to release it was to unscrew the hatch from the inside.  If I hadn't been in the loft, it would have been stuck shut!

The only flaw with the catch is that it needs a bit of space to enable the door to be pushed up in order to release it.  This leaves a small gap at the front of the door which has an obvious shadow around it now.  I'm thinking of filling it with a piece of white draught excluder as it would be compressible but would also fill in the gap to prevent the shadow.

Either way, I'm darn happy with it, and it's soooo smooth!

Before:

And after!

Do you think it looks better?

Buying New White Goods

I have been looking for a new washing machine and tumble dryer since the day we moved in.  We negotiated all of the appliances into the cost of the house to save us the upfront cost of all necessary white goods, at a time when we were already flat broke.  But the appliances were terrible.  The only good thing, touch wood, is the fridge freezer which works just fine.  The dishwasher was broken when we arrived - a bit cheeky really, so we had to replace this as soon as we arrived.  But whilst the washing machine and tumble dryer functioned, they were less than perfect.  They were SOOOOO loud!  The bearings on the washing machine were going, and there seemed to be so much crud build up in the washing machine, that no matter what I tried to do (soda crystals, special washing machine cleaners...), nothing seemed to get the crud out.  And then the crud just ended up on the clothes, that clothes seemed to come out dirtier than they went in!

I've been keen to get appliances with a good guarantee, and I am happy to pay for quality if it means a long life.  I had a look at some of the Samsung appliances which came with 5 year guarantees and are pretty nice looking too.  But at £500 a pop respectively for a washing machine and a tumble dryer, they ain't cheap!  I also looked into AEG appliances too as these come with a good guarantee (2-5years depending on appliance), and I'm 99% sure that John Lewis use AEG appliances for their own brand appliances but put their badge on them.

I've been looking and looking, waiting for the right deal.  And then, Black Friday happened.  I didn't mean to get sucked in by the hype, but it was a really good deal.  I've been tracking prices and models for months and months, so I knew it was a genuine good deal and not an artificial good deal.

I just so happened to go on ao.com (Appliances Online) that day and I saw them.  I had to go to work though, so in fear of them selling out, I had bought a washing machine and tumble drier all before 7am!  The hubby wasn't so impressed at me waking him up so early to discuss the pros and cons of a large house purchase - he got the sales pitch...

So, I went for AEG in the end as they had the best deal on.  Each appliance came with £100 cashback from AEG, off sale prices of £499 and £469 for the washing machine and tumble dryer respectively, plus a further £20 cashback from ao.com for purchasing more than one appliance.  So a saving of approximately 25%.  The sale prices were also cheaper than the RRPs. They were both high spec machines too - my mum has always told me to go for a 1600 spin washing machine as it means the clothes come out dryer, so whilst you shell out more for the machine, you save money on drying. And long guarantees in the grand scale of white goods guarantees.

I could have got them delivered the next day but there would have been a £9.99 charge.  The first day that offered free delivery that I could do was the following Sunday, so just over a week away.  As both of the existing appliances were working this was no problem, and free delivery on a Sunday too - fab!

On the Sunday, I got a call at 8am to say they would be with me between 8.30-9am - which they were. AO had used 'Expert' delivery services for the delivery and they were good and prompt.  They were great and carrying the appliances into the house (the communication between the two guys was amazing meaning no scrapes on my new hallway walls!).  I signed for them and off they went.  

But as I started unwrapping them, I noticed the washing machine was dented :( Like really dented. And really obvious.  The packing had been fine so I was quite surprised.

You can see the whole of the left side has been pushed in, and because the metal has needed somewhere to go, it's all pushed out at the front.  The detergent drawer shows where the machine should line up - but it's way off, especially in the far right hand side of the photo.

I got straight on the phone to AO, who took my call at 9.20am on a Sunday morning - no queues either!  The woman on the phone was very good.  She understood the problem, as was very keen to make sure I was happy.  She offered me £50 to keep the machine as it was, but when I said I just wanted a new one, she was very keen to oblige.  She said she could have a new one with me the following day, i.e. the Monday.  Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to be in, so I scheduled the replacement to be delivered on the Wednesday, and the old one to also be taken away then too.

I thought that was pretty good of them.  A lot of places would have argued that because I had signed for the goods, that I should have checked the condition before signing for them.  So it was refreshing to not have that argument thrown in my face.

On the Wednesday, the AO delivery people turned up.  I noted it was an AO van this time and not an Expert one.  The guys were lovely and came in to see the damaged one.  They said this was likely damaged in the warehouse with a grappler and took it away.  They bought the new one and unwrapped it there and then to make sure the new one was fine, and they even took the packaging away for free too (a service they usually charge £2.99 for).

I was meant to receive a form to claim my £20 cashback from AO.com (the £200 cashback was from AEG direct, which I have applied for separately online), but this never arrived.  I didn't know if because I technically had my new appliances delivered on separate dates whether that had messed up the automated service, so I sent them a quick e-mail inquiring about the form. Within 24 hours I had a lovely e-mail back from them. Basically apologising for the damaged washing machine, and not to worry about the claim form - upon receiving my e-mail they instantly refunded the payment card with £20. Great!

I will cover the installation in a separate blog post later in the week (which didn't go quite to plan - obviously! When does anything ever go to plan?!), but I wanted to sing my praises of AO.  I'm not being paid to say nice things, but when a company genuinely provides such good service, I think it deserves to get talked about.  I'll definitely be using them again.

Did you get any fab Black Friday deals?

Motivational Monday - Smallest Step

Where should the flooring of one room stop?

I never really pondered the question before of where flooring should stop in a room.  When we did the bathroom floor, I just blindly followed what had gone before.

I try really hard not to assume anything, but in the manic three weeks that we did the bathroom and the re-wiring and everything else, I didn't really have the brain space to question what had gone before.

It wasn't until I came to do the hallway flooring that I really thought about it.



It makes sense when you think about it.  It should lie directly under the centre of the door, so that whichever room you are in (with the door shut) you can only see one type of flooring.

So this meant a little trimming of the bathroom floor I installed way back when.

Tools I used:

• Steel ruler
• Chisel
• Hammer
• Pen
• Utility knife
• New door bar, trimmed to size with a hacksaw

The floor was a layer of vinyl flooring on 6mm ply, so I started with cutting through the vinyl with a craft knife.

I then used a chisel and hammer to score the plywood.

Using a screwdriver as a pivot point, I placed this under the chiseled line and pressed down on the overhanging plywood until it snapped.

And that's when I discovered this beauty of a hole! Doh!  I've since filled this in which I covered in Tuesday's post.

I then finished it off with a silver door bar simply screwed down.

So there you have it, a question answered that you probably never asked!

Preparing and Priming the stairs

Progress has been a bit slow on the hallway as of late, so I really needed to do something to give myself a boost.  Little effort for maximum benefit.

The stairs really needed painting as the old yellow and mustard coloured paint look was really starting to get tired!  But first a little prep...

There were some big old gaps between the steps and the steps had taken a battering with the amount of staples and nails that had been put in them over the years.

So, I started by filling them in.  Some of them were really quite large so I started with Gripfill, hoping that might do the trick.  Some also needed some stripwood to fill the gap as it was that large.

Unfortunately, even in areas with a small amount of filler, it shrunk quite a lot on drying and it all cracked up.

Round 2 of filling.

I went back to my trusty deep gap filler from Toolstation.

There was one particular hole which wouldn't retain any filler.  So I got a little crafty.  I cut out a small section of foil from a foil tray (narrow enough to just be able to fit through the hole) and pierced a small hole in the middle.  I then got a pierce of string and knotted it underneath.

[It just happens there was a big hole in one of the stairs, and one hole in the floorboards on the landing - the following photos are of the landing, but I used the same technique for the stairs]

I then put some gripfill on the upper side of the foil (the side with the longest length of string), and carefully poked it through the hole.

Once I had poked it through, I used the string to gently pull the foil up  and make contact with the underside of the floorboard.  I used a piece of tape to secure the string just whilst it dried, and then added a little more gripfill to try and fill the gap a little bit to start with.

Once dried, the string can be cut.  The hole on the landing I topped up with wood filler as this would be stained to match the floor, but the hole on the stairs, I filled with deep gap filler as this would be painted.

I intended to use Johnstones Acrylic Eggshell Paint in Brilliant White as it claims to stay white and not yellow over time.  I will see how it lives up to those claims in time.  But to use this product it advises you use Johnstones Joncryl Acrylic Primer.  A bit of a sand of all my filler first and I was good to go.

What a difference a bit of paint makes!  I also LOVE the contrast between the white and the wall colour. Yum!

I also discovered the joys of masking tape, specifically yellow Frogtape (for sensitive surfaces).  It has paint block technology to give a really clean edge.  I'd never really had much success with masking tape and it always bled paint underneath.  Confession - I always figured it was for people without any skills to paint a straight line.  That is until now! I LOVE it!

It saves so much time.  Rather than faffing about - just tape on, paint (not even taking any particular care), tape off. Done. I'm sold.

That's only the primer on the steps, I still need to prep  and paint all the spindles and banister on the stairs (a job I'm putting off as I know it will take ages!), as well as properly paint the steps with the top coat, but progress is progress nonetheless, and I'm chuffed.

Motivational Monday - Stop Underestimating Yourself!

I passed!

Completely unrelated to the house, or baking or gardening for that matter, I passed my exams!  The e-mail came in on Friday and I had worked myself up for weeks with thoughts of failure.  I re-lived the exam in my head so many times, replaying and replaying all the stupid things I wish I hadn't said.

Well, I worried for nothing!

I've now gone and got myself some extra letters after my name: CEng MICE.  That means, I am a chartered engineer, as well as a Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers. Yay!

I was so happy I cried.  Not the dainty little tears rolling down ones cheek kind of crying, but full on ugly sobbing.  The whole process of preparing for the exam took so much out of me.  It was six months of my life, of evenings and weekends, and nothing else. Work, studying, sleep. Repeat.  My body gave up sleeping, my hair started falling out at an alarming rate, and I was miserable.  And then another 2 1/2 months of worrying between taking the exam and finding out the result. So, you can kind of see why my sobs were justified!  I couldn't bear the thought of putting myself through that all over again, if I had failed and had to re-sit.

I sat it pretty early in my career, so I'm so proud of my achievement.

Now that's done, let's get cracking with some DIY!

Making a new loft hatch

The old loft hatch was pretty gross. The trim was coming away and it was covered in bumpy artex. By leaving it as it was, it was ruining the ambience in our (slowly getting there) hallway.

I had my dad kindly cut out a piece of 18mm plywood months and months ago using his jigsaw. (My dad is a bit of a badass with a jigsaw, and I know I'm most certainly not! This was also in the days before my circular saw became a big part of my life). But alas, it sat in the spare bedroom for months, waiting for me to do something with it. The piece of board I used was actually a bit warped, but was the straightest piece in the pile at Wickes so determined as I was, I decided I could make it work.  We used the old loft hatch as a template.

I started by trying to make it as flat as possible by attaching two battens across the board.  One of the battens (the one at the edge) would be used to help attach the hinges, but the one further in from the edge was just to try and make the board straight.  There is no reason why one of the edges of my battens is at 45 degrees. It's just that was a scrap of wood I already had in the garage and I couldn't be bothered to cut it straight!

I pre-drilled through the batten, but not the board.  I then had to use screws that would just go into the board without popping through the other side, as the other side would be visible!  I managed it though.

The trim was also an important part of the whole thing.  I had bought some D-shape pine moulding for the job.  I also dug out my mitre box and hand saw, as whilst I LOVE my circular saw, I don't think it was quite up for this job. One of the trim strips was completely on the board (so that the door could actually open and not impinge the hinges!), but the other 3 sides were half on the board and half covering the dodgy bit of plastering.

 I secured the trim to the board with some small nails, and used the nail punch to sink them into wood. I then covered the nails with a bit of filler. My 45 degree cuts weren't quite perfect so there was a bit of a gap between the pieces of trim.  More filler required!

Once the filler had dried and I had sanded it, I put on the first coat of paint which was the primer. I used the same paint as I would use for the stairs, Johnstones Joncryl Acrylic Primer.  It's very quick to dry and the odour is minimal so it was quite nice to work with.

I tested the hatch out to check it all fitted, but came across a small problem with the loft ladder.  The batten I installed to keep the wood straight was hitting the bottom of the ladder legs so I needed to move it. (I actually moved it and then realised I moved it the wrong way -doh!)

I've bought some new butt hinges, and the plaster patch up is almost done - so not far off a finished product now. Stay tuned!

Staining and varnishing the hallway floor

It's time to finish the floor!  We went for dark teak in the end, which in the samples looked great.  But the sample had been watered down so I had a bit of a test run to see how much to water down.  I went for 1 part stain and 1.5 part water.  As it is a water based stain, the instructions said that you could dilute with water.

But still...

Eeek! So dark!  At this point I panicked.  But I had done too much to go back, so onwards I went!

I started under the stairs which would hopefully be hidden long term to figure out how much to water it down and how to apply it.  I also tried wetting the brush as well as already having the stain watered down, but it was too hard to apply consistently.

It's not incredibly environmentally friendly, but I mixed up the stain in a foil tray.  It was just the right size to hold as much as I needed, but also small enough to be portable.  It is a bit lightweight though so I did have one incident where I accidentally knocked it over :-s

This was after the stain had dried, and you can see it has mellowed a heck of a lot since it first went on - phew!

Next up was varnishing.  I used the complimentary Manns Extra Tough Floor Varnish, to go with the Manns Pine Floor Stain I had used earlier.  It comes in Matt, Satin or Gloss, but apparently 3 coats (the recommended number of coats) of Matt is roughly the same sheen as 1 of satin, so we went for Matt.  We are not a high gloss family!  I find gloss things just show up so many imperfections, so if I could avoid that if possible (knowing there are plenty of imperfections on the floor) then that would probably be best.

I made sure to de-nib (rub down any raised grain) between coats too, with a pad that had been recommended during checkout of buying my supplies.  I'm not sure if it made any difference but I did it anyway.

The stain has made the floor go slightly darker again, which is a slight shame as I loved the colour it had dried to after just the stain.  Saying that though, I still love it a heck of a lot more than the original laminate that was there when we moved in!

The stain and varnish only took an hour to dry per coat so very quick really, but it has still been super tricky to try and get all the coats done!  If it was a spare bedroom you would just paint yourself out the rrom and shut the door.  As this is the hallway, it's so hard as you need to use it all the time!  I ended up varnishing myself to bed, or varnishing my way out to work, so that it would have ample time to dry before I needed to walk on it again.  There was one morning that I was up at 5.30am varnishing the floor before I went to work - nuts!  I still have one more coat to do on a small area downstairs, but the rest of the hallway and landing have had the full 3 coats so I think that's pretty good going.