Packed and ready to go!

We’ve had a day out! Agy has been on tour, it was such a beautiful day and out we went across to the middle of the island (ish). It feels so naughty when we are in lock down.

The island is looking beautiful, and we feel so lucky to live here.

However there is a reason for all this adventure. Rubbish. Lots of rubbish. Offcuts of plasterboard, tile offcuts, wood offcuts, random left over plastic piping, metal piping, you name it, building materials galore… all little pieces, all really bulky. We have reached the stage where we have a full garage, but not enough for a skip. We also had some garden rubbish, but I will write about that another time.

This is where Agy steps up and becomes a van, just a normal van. We have our permit to visit the recycling centre (you can’t just rock up in a van, you have to have a special permit unless you want to pay commercial rates), we have a plaster board disposal permit (who knew such things existed?),  and we have a booking, as numbers of people need to be controlled to comply with restrictions and social distancing. We planned our route, all 15 minutes of it and off we went. 

I have to say it is a bit more exciting in a van, and if you have plasterboard, even more so! We did the normal drop off of all the bits in different containers, but then we had to do the plasterboard. First, this meant entering the commercial area, hand the permit to the man in the office, and then swing round onto the weighbridge. We are weighed in, and he records our weight.  Once we have dropped off our plasterboard we are supposed to come back and be weighed again; under 20Kg and it’s free, over 20Kg and we have to pay. Luckily we were well under!

While we were out we popped into B&Q for more supplies – this time for the garden. The old fences need some protection, so the creocote is stocked, and somehow a few solar fairy lights make their way into the trolley. Who doesn’t need a bit of fairy light twinkle in their life? 

Up’s and down’s!

We have had a planned up…….and an unplanned down!

The ‘up’ was a raising of the curtain hem (oh, it seems so long since we were at the theatre with a real curtain raise). Our living room curtains were far too long but it was one of those jobs that needed doing, but really wasn’t urgent. However, with the urgent jobs done, the cotton arrived, so snip snip…..

They are big curtains and not a lot of spare space to measure and cut them, but in the end it’s a good job we didn’t go by tape measure. You see, the pole is attached to the top of the beam that runs right across the back of house, it’s painted, but you might remember me sanding it way back. However that beam isn’t straight, so the curtain height isn’t either. It’s higher at one end than the other, a fair  bit actually. When you look at it, you don’t really see it, but when you measure, you do! So pinning the curtains up while hanging to aim for the same length from the floor was the best way to go. Great unless your back hurts, when in hindsight it probably wasn’t the best way to go!

We re-pinned, cut and stitched and they look so much better! Another job done.

They are also blackout curtains made of a strange synthetic, very easily meltable fabric, so pressing is not and option; even with a damp T Towel, it was touch and go! However, once our steamer arrives back from storage, they will look better.

The ‘down’ was a little less planned (totally unplanned!) and more…. Dramatic. Ian had popped to the local shop for urgent supplies; I was making tea. Pealing the veg, and making use of the waste disposal unit. I absolutely love it. Any food waste goes down it; it is brilliant. No rotting food waiting for the recycling collection, smelling awful as we wait, nope, straight down it goes, ground up and away. Perfect. 

Until…. I have just finished grinding, switch it off and am flushing it through with plenty of cold water and there’s a strange bump and a huge hole appears in the sink. There is a gaping hole where the little plastic guard used to be! I’m in total shock, what’s happened? I quickly switch the water off and peer down, but it’s a black hole, nothing to see. My first thought is the guard has fallen into the grinder, and then I see the floor – soaked, water everywhere! AHH. Open the cupboard door and clearly there is something wrong! Now, Ian in his quest to keep everything tidy has built a shield around the under sink paraphernalia, so I can’t see what’s wrong. Out comes the torch on my phone, I peer down the hole again, and instead of grinder I see cupboard, white cupboard and water.

To get the shield out you need a screwdriver. As you know these are generally all over the kitchen worktops, but we have tidied up, so no screwdriver in sight! Just as I go in search of one, Ian arrives home and for the first time ever experienced the ‘voice’ every nurse will recognise. A calm, but firm and fairly loud. “Ian, I need help now.” For nurses, it is usually to summon help as someone has been found very unwell, but not in cardiac arrest. Fallen, sick, or something else, where you don’t want to alert all the other patients, but all nurses will recognise the urgency. Clearly it works with husbands too! He was in like a shot. By this point I’d worked out the waste disposal had come off, and for the first time ever Ian knew exactly where the screwdriver was (he’s always looking for things and can’t find them despite them being where he is looking), a quick whizz of the screws and the cupboard is revealed. One Insinkerator, dangling, held up by another pipe, so it hadn’t thumped to the bottom and broken anything, but dangling unattached to the sink! Whoops. Fortunately nothing was broken and Ian swiftly reattached it. This time giving the clips a good bash with a hammer to tighten them, and a cable tie or two for good measure. That won’t be coming down again!

You won’t be surprised to hear there are very few photos of the incident itself. But once it was back in situ, I was calm enough to remember to take a shot of it where it should be. 

   

Normal life?

It’s now Sunday morning mid February, the first Sunday since September when we don’t have renovation clothes on. In fact for Ian, the first day at all since September without renovation clothes on. We don’t have jobs we ‘have’ to do however tired or sore we are. We can have a real coffee and relax, we aren’t snatching a quick instant coffee between jobs. There are jobs to do, but none are urgent, except maybe dusting, oh the dust! There is so much. I know it will stop falling out of the air soon, as we are no longer creating it, but it’s clearly happy to be here as it keeps returning in copious amounts!

We have a taste of what normal life will be like; we have started making beer and wine again. We used to make almost all our own before we moved, so it’s fabulous to start again, it’s fun to do, is tasty to drink, and saves a fortune!

I’ve also been baking; I don’t yet have all my baking things back from storage. We need to make space in the garage for the last load of our possessions. Ian forgot when he was sending back garden and garage contents, that container also had most of the baking equipment too! It’s a bit of a guess in terms of weights and I have tried using the American cup system, as we have some as part of a stacking bowl set, but I am thoroughly confused when trying to convert recipes. 

1 cup of sugar, is not the same in grams as 1 cup of flour, so how on earth do you bake using cups? I have not attempted a Victoria sponge... However, rustic scones work well, as does bread. I even managed to make some for the neighbours who have been so welcoming to us.     

One of the things I really love about living here is that every shop, even the big supermarkets have local produce. Local milk, butter, bread, and it is delicious. It is hard to explain, but the butter is so different to mass produced butter. It has flakes of salt you can see, it’s a rich colour, however warm it keeps its butter texture. Not great for spreading on bread, but an amazing flavour, so worth the holes. Fab for scones and pastry!  

We have also purchased (well I say purchased, we converted Avios points from all my copious former work flights, that are unlikely to be used in the foreseeable future, to Nectar points and got them for free!) bicycles, so we can increase our exercise levels and explore bits of the island not accessible by road. Hopefully we will soon be able to cycle to the farm shop across the bridleways and cycle paths, and try out more local goodies. 

I know I have said this before, but normal life here really does seem to feel like being part of a community, I know some of the people we have met will become friends, real friends. One of the first people we met, who lent us the tool to remove the kitchen wall, popped by recently with a gift he had made us. Never before has a neighbour made us anything, and this is perfect. A door stop, in our colours, for our new home. 

I have a feeling it will be well used, propping open the conservatory door in the summer as we (hopefully!) share a laugh and some good times with neighbours and friends.

There’s always one

Yesterday, I think we finally did it; we completed the last major job before we start on the garden.

We tiled the conservatory floor. It is mid February and it is cold out, very cold, but if we want our living room back, we need to finish the conservatory. The living room currently has all the conservatory furniture in it, as well as a lot of tiles and it would be good to move it out again.

“What did we learn?” I find myself saying this a lot at work, and so I thought I’d share with you what we learnt doing this in February. We learnt that porcelain tiles are considerably colder than concrete. Kneeling on the floor was cold, but just about bearable when Ian was putting the tiles down. 

We learnt that once the tiles were laid it was not bearable! It was freezing. Grouting became painful, warm water was needed to stop our hands going numb, and cutting tiles outside was positively arctic. 

We also learnt there is always one. One tile that didn’t bed down. Not so bad with an uneven floor and frozen fingers. So here it is, tiled. A beautiful window to the world and will a reminder that summer will come and we will have time to just sit, read, daydream and enjoy our new home.    

We learnt that February is not the best month to do a job like this, but with determination it can be done. 

I leant that a hot bath is the only way to warm up after a day on the tiles.    

It’s coming together

“It’s coming together” is Ian’s most used phrase in the last few months. But, I really think we can say it now with confidence. For a while it kept us going as we coped with a mountain of things to do and no real end in sight. Then as things gradually got done, it cheered us on as exhaustion took over. Now it’s more of a reality than an ambition or motivating thought.

We have however, been busy. The conservatory had a thoroughly good clean, huge amounts of wood dust, plaster dust, and anything else you could imagine related to building work, had gathered in there and the UPVC was filthy along with the windows. It took a whole day, but looked sparkly. And then, Ian casually reminded me we needed to cut the wood for the bath panel.  AGGGHHH. Of course he was right and it was the conservatory or the house, so out came the track saw, and away we went. More tiny particles of wood everywhere. I cleaned again! Then we needed to scrape up the remnants of underlay from the carpet that had been previously laid to prepare the floor for tiling.  I can tell you that concrete floor is cold!  

However, having done that, we can finish the bathroom, in truth I say WE – but Ian did it all. The bath panel is fitted and tiled, the new shelf went up and the flooring issue resolved. Finally the blind goes up and it’s done. The last room in the house finished.

The blinds also arrive for the conservatory, so they too go in. I suspect in the summer we will need them to help shade us from the sun, but that seems a very long way off, as it is more than a bit chilly here. 

I’m really looking forward to the day when this kitchen doesn’t look like this. I don’t think it will be too long.

   

Warmth and privacy

I’d almost stopped seeing the ‘old wall’ in the living room as we have been waiting a few months for the news that the patio doors have arrived from the factory. But now we know they are in the UK and can be fitted very soon. It’s really the last big job in the house as along with the doors comes the trimming for the window’s that will mean fewer drafts all round.

However, before the glazing, the fence is being fitted. We have a perfectly good fence, it is strong and sturdy, but it’s tiny. It’s waist height, and to be honest however lovely our neighbours, we really don’t want to have a window into our lounge exposing our daily life for others to view over the garden fence.

The fence man suggested adding a top to bring it up to normal height which makes sense, so that’s what happened this week. Suddenly we are private, nobody can watch us mooch around in our PJ’s and dance like nobody is watching (when they could!). It’s going to be even more important when the patio doors go in, for now the house wall blocks most of the view, by the end of the week we will have a wall of glass with a much better view to the garden and vice versa.

Now, coping with Teams video calls while you have a wall being removed is interesting, and to be honest, challenging. My work colleagues have been very understanding and the mute button is well used, I have learnt a lesson in only speaking when I really need to, and if you know me, you know I love to talk, so it has been interesting! However, the guys from Stylish Windows arrive and the dismantling commences. To be honest, taking out the wall didn’t take too long, with a big window and only a bit of wood and boarding it wasn’t exactly back breaking. Mind you they did an amazing job at getting the new one in. It’s a big gap and by lunchtime the new frame is there, ready for the glass.

Not too long and the doors are in, the whole room looks so different. The garden really is part of the living room, we can see it all as we sit on the sofa along with the trees and beautiful birds that visit the garden. We knew we wanted to do work on the garden, but now it’s essential. It is part of our room, as is the conservatory. The conservatory really is a glass extension of the house now, not a strange add on you had to go out of the back door, thorough the breeze way door, into the garden and finally into the conservatory to appreciate; that although lovely, really was a strange add on,. Now it is a window to the world, and very obviously needs a thorough clean. But that’s for another day. I need to take the curtains up, but now at lest I can measure the correct length and we can celebrate our warmth and privacy.      

Washing

Over this week the bathroom comes together, the bath goes in, the tiles go on. Damien (the plumber) put the sink on.

We grout overnight (who doesn’t want to be grouting and washing it off to get beautiful lines at 11pm on a Thursday night) so the shower can go up before the weekend. Damien has done all the tricky bits, and done an amazing job, so he fits the radiator and then leaves us to it. The least contact the better with others over lock down, so now it’s over to us. 

Ian’s doing well, and although he has to be really careful, he can paint and do most things, so he does. I’m really busy at work, so can’t do anything to help, except tidy up in the evening, but it really is looking good! I know I have said this about most areas of the house, but we love it. The bath, the tile colour, the fancy cupboard where you wave your hand and the light comes on, as well as the waterfall taps. They all make it feel very special.

One thing we have learnt is that the extractor fan and the pesky tubing we refitted doesn’t work well. Basically as the loft is cold and the house warm, water just drips from it into the bath all the time as it gathers the condensation. The reality is, we have a window, so we decide to take it out and use the window. The bathroom really doesn’t get very steamy, so we think it will work fine. Better than a dripping extractor anyway! So back to the loft I go to detach the hose and fill the gap with plasterboard, leaving the hose as further ventilation (that is clearly working well up there, it’s freezing with a breeze).

Once more there is filling to be done, so Ian sorts out the hole left behind and also fills a big crack in the living room wall, and one in the hall where rather enthusiastic tile removal in the bathroom impacted the other side of the walls. It had to be done and at least we are a dab hand at filling these walls.

We struggled to decide what to do with the flooring in the bathroom, we wanted to ensure we have vinyl in key areas, but are also thinking about making a sort of ‘fitted shower mat’ our floor tiles are rubber backed and OK for bathrooms, so we could use them, but we don’t want them everywhere in there. We may do a hybrid, like the kitchen, for now we have vinyl, covering most of it. There isn’t enough for the whole floor, so something magic will happen I’m sure. 

The house is covered in dust again, so more cleaning, wiping and washing, but now we have a beautiful almost finished bathroom we can shower in, and it’s heaven! Washing Heaven.

One thing I have noted on the washing front is that after weeks of blue sky and sunshine (cold, but sunny) Ian put my new washing line up in the garden. It has rained ever since. Seriously, every day! I may remove it.