Once More Into the Fray Dear Friends!

Yes, I know I've been unusually quiet for the past week or so, but I've been hoping for exciting news.  So, our thought for the day is 'pressure and stress are what you feel when you don't know what the hell you're doing' and our song or songs for the day are 'Roar' Katy Perry, and 'Tubthumping' Chumbawamba. I thought I'd treat myself to two today, but they both have similar themes!

So what's been happening since I last wrote? Well, we were all very fed up after the burglary.  Phil, the plastered was more upset about losing his DAB site radio than his drills, so in the spirit of consolation Deb and I bought him a new one.  He couldn't believe it!  His little face was a picture to behold. His wife wasn't so impressed, mind!  We're also going to help John replace some of his stuff as well.

Most of the plastering has been completed now. With the exception of the back hall, where the on going saga of the shared water supply is threatening to cause some very bad cutting off type behaviour from me.  I am trying to resist but, as many of you know, my resistance to bad behaviour, together with  resolve to be sensible, is very low this year.  In fact it has slipped so many times this year that is now almost acceptable behaviour!

The rain stopped play on our adventure play equipment for most of the week, but the impressive hole in the roof has been fixed, as you can see, and I've painted the guttering and first and second floor windows on the outside.  John has done a fantastic job of restoring them.  He's even managed to preserve some of the lovely original glass. All of the stained glass windows are still in tact, you'll be pleased to hear!

Don't you think the view from the attic is lovely? You can see right out to the Beacon. Fabulous!

I think Deb and I have hit that 'mid-project depression' stage.  You know the one, it looks worse now than before we started, and the end seems along way off.  To be fair, we've both had quite a lot of other stuff thrown at us aside from this.

I have now successfully knackered three cars this year. The Izusu - it's brain died so it had to be scrapped, the white van - one attempted write off, second spectacular, complete and utter write off, and now the Alpha. You know the one, it's red and makes me drive too fast, so I have accumulated more speeding points than I've ever had!  So what have I done to this lovely car? I merely took it to the garage and filled it with unleaded, as you do. It said unleaded on the pump.  It said unleaded on the receipt. Sadly nobody had told the tanker driver that's what it said. He filled the pump with diesel.  Did you know that petrol engines don't run terribly well on diesel?   What a saga.  Hopefully it will be back to normal soon! Murco are footing the bill.  Thank God for the Land Rover, with it's new low-profile tyres (?!) it's even safe to drive in the wet! If a little damp!

Deb and I have had some very good ebay purchases, and we found a beautiful cast iron fireplace by the side of the road (as you do!), so that will do nicely for the bedroom.  We did put 30 quid through the letter box of the house nearest the fireplace - just so as you're all clear that Deb and I haven't turned into tinkers!  We are struggling a bit with the style we want for the kitchen, but today I marked it all out on the wall and floor so I think we've sorted it now.  Just got to buy one!

I find the rain particularly difficult at this time of the year, together with the dark mornings, so to cheer myself up I've indulged in some retail therapy.  Yes my guilty pleasure (or should that be secret?).  It lies beneath these very attractive work clothes and sturdy boots. Lurking. Ready to surprise the unsuspecting. What is it you cry? That's right, really lovely underwear!  I wasn't sure at first about this particular purchase, it is really rather red.  But is does have both sufficient crane-age and scaffolding to meet my requirements and preferences. The knickery type things are a wonder to behold! As tights are not my thing (aren't you glad I told you that?!), every time I wear stockings I have to go through the whole 'suspender under the knickers' (for speedy exit) versus 'suspender over the knickers' (for the dying for the loo challenge) conundrum. But these knickers combine the two! Knicenders? Suspickers? The suspendery type bit is attached to the knicker itself, so no dilemma. Marvellous! I have yet to see if the result is similar to the 'tight slippage and migration' problem known to all us girls.  Could be very unpleasant for all concerned. However, both bits also go rather well with some other very patriotic underwear that I have in my possession, so I can mix and match!  All rather splendid I thought!  But enough of that, don't want to give any of you palpitations.

I also thought I deserved a day off from all the hard labour (???!!). So Alf and I booked into the Snowdome for an intensive (and very expensive) 'Learn to Snowboard in Day' thing.  I wouldn't say I was a natural snowboarder.  I don't think the instructors would say that either.  I can go forwards down a slope. Going backwards (why?) makes me crash into a wall, gracefully, you understand, and I feel that turning is strictly unnecessary!  Having spent 8 hours (8 hours? I ask you!) attempting this feat, I was told that I'd only reached level 2. That's one above the lesson that starts 'This is a snowboard, you stand on it and slide'.  I rather feel that Apres Ski is more my thing!  Alf was quite good though.  We were both absolutely exhausted by the time we'd finished. Standing and walking have been a bit of a challenge ever since!

Anyway, look, back to the house! Stop distracting me with irrelevant detail and tales of other things!  Today we started painting inside, ceilings and walls. We've chosen the paint colours. No prizes for guessing. Gauze. Sense of deja vu anyone?  For those pedants amongst you, yes the plaster is dry. We have a excellent heating system.  Have you heard the joke about the pedant who was on trial in court? He got off on a technicality!!  HaHa! Just thought I'd throw that in. We've bought the tiles for the bathroom.  Chris will be back next week to lay them.  Hopefully I'll get a kitchen tonight.

Other news (can there be any more?), contain yourselves now!  Beat My Build is due to start airing on 4th Nov, 11 am Channel 4.  Has anyone from Lion TV or Channel 4 told me that? No. Communication is possibly not really their thing, but twitter is quite reliable.  That and the TV listings.  Possibly they've also joined the 'Let's not communicate with Sue' club. It's a small (possibly only two members so far, that I'm aware of), but rapidly expanding club. Let me know if you wish to join. I'm excellent at inadvertent enragement, it's a skill I'm very proud of. Or mild to general irritation.  I can also do direct pissing off if I try hard enough. You have to choose one as your initiation to join.  Those of you who are already members, which would you say I'm best at?  For others considering joining, let me know which you'd prefer!  I am also aware that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit. It is the highest form of intelligence though.  And that is the correct rejoinder.

Any way, at least the sun has temporarily come out.  We are beginging to see the light at the end of the tunnel. My mojo is returning. It's on it's way, it told me so.  Until the next time, keep smiling!!

P.S Thanks to all of you for reading this, does anyone know why some one in Ukraine might be looking at this? Let me know what you think of it. Constructive feedback is always useful!

The Long March Continues ...

Well what a week its been!  But before we get to that, our thought for the day is ' You cease to be concerned by what people think of  you once you realise how little they actually think', and our song for the day? 'Hold on (for one more day)' Wilson Phillips.  You'll see why in a minute!

The week started quite well, lovely and sunny despite the weathermens' forecast.  I arrived to find that the troublesome holly tree had been partially 'addressed' by John, our carpenter and part-time daredevil.

Over the weekend he had single handedly taken down enough of the bush  to allow the reluctant scaffolders to put up the rest of the scaffold, so they were duly called. They deigned to come on Thursday. I should perhaps add that John is 63!

The garden, sadly, has been rather comprehensively destroyed, and is now full of debris.  The reason we haven't been very diligent about taking stuff down to the tip is because the land rover has required a new propshaft, amongst one or to other minor details.  But it's back on the road now and we will soon be clearing the rubble etc.

The electrician also arrived to wire the central heating in so we can now start to dry the house out in readiness for the plasterers. He also helped me put a hole through the chimney in the kitchen for the extractor fan. We were hoping to just drill into the stack and to let it vent up the chimney itself.  However, chimneys are never straight forward, and we managed to drill into one of the three flues which had been capped and very kindly filled with rubble. Yes, we've cleared it all now and have a lovely vent all they way through the wall to the outside world. I was very grubby by the end of it all, and there was yet more rubble in the garden!

The right sort of electricity man turned up and changed the main fuse.  Sadly he wasn't really the right sort of man for either Deb or I.

The plasterers arrived on Wednesday as promised, and started boarding out.  They are over boarding in the new bathroom where we've take a wall down, and to hide all the pipe work.  Due to the arrangement of the bathroom and the fact that we have concrete floors throughout the house (commonly called pub floors I believe - see got all the lingo now!), the waste pipe from the sink has to go about half way round the room. So I thought it would be a jolly good idea to put part of said pipe at a angle to increase the flow.  I also thought it'd be a good idea to put this pipe in the partition wall where it would be hidden once the overboarding was done.  I removed enough of the old lath and plaster so that I could see what I was doing.  Ah-ha! I thought I need a 40mm drill bit now to drill though one of the uprights.  I asked the gentlemen on site if they might have one I could borrow for a few minutes.  Big mistake.  The job was deemed too complex for me. I was dispatched to screwfix for essential supplies. I had a list.  Lots of measuring, deep breaths and general uming and ahing went on whilst I was gone.  No actual action though, you understand. It was far to soon for that. I arrived back with supplies, to find that a great deal of looking and measuring had been done, no actual drilling.  I wasn't allowed to contribute. I had to make tea.  That's what was needed. Eventually the drill was brought out, the parts required assembled, and tentative advances made.  This is the result

Can you see it? The grey bit of pipe with two angle pieces - not 90 degree angle pieces you understand, they had to be 92.5 degree pieces, and two brackets. They were the complicated bit that I wasn't able to deal with.   4 hours that took. 4 whole hours. Several people nearly died.  Patience, I believe, is a minor form of despair dressed up as a virtue.

To add insult to injury, there was no sign of the scaffolders.  Unless you can count a drive by, no stopping of course, because the tree surgeon who had arrived to redress the holly bush, was in the way.  I had to go home. It was all too much for me. I needed a lie down,  Sadly I had to go to an illuminating meeting on Dyslexia and Binocular function, followed by a lecture on Paediatric Neurophthalmology.  Just what a girl needs on a Thursday night!  Still at least Anita was there, so we didn't learn a lot!

On Friday the scaffolders appeared, in fact they got to the house before I did.  Unfortunately they decided that we were also fixing next doors roof, and so put scaffold up all across the front of the house. When I got there, I asked them why they had done that, only to be met with a torrent of abuse.  I'm afraid to say that my diplomacy skills deserted me at this point.  The boss was called, who tried to blame me for the lack of clear communication.  Shall we say that by the time he left he had a very full and clear idea of what communication is.  The scaffold is now in the right place, all be it without any ladders.  It's been raining every since so we've not had full use of it yet as an adventure playground.  Friday continued in the same vein all day. I was a very tired and grumpy girl by the time I when home. So was Deb.  Not much else could be sent to try us this week could it?

Oh yes it could!  We were burgled on Friday night.  All the plasterers and carpenters drills were taken.  The bars were wrenched off the cellar window (according to the policeman, that wasn't sufficient security).  A whole day spent loitering about, policemen and SOCO came and went. They explained what MO meant, in case we'd missed that episode of NCIS. But all to no avail, apparently there's no prospect of getting any of the kit back.  Were any of them insured? No. Looks like Deb and I will be footing that bill.

We were both very disheartened by Saturday evening. Tired and Weary.

So, I'm very sorry to confess girls, but at this point I could do with the attentions of a Pictish warrior, even if he does turn up on his mates knock-kneed Shetland pony and hasn't recovered his powers of communication!

But tomorrow is another week!  It may have stopped raining! and I will be back in sparkling form!

Best Foot Forward!

So what a lovely day I've had today! Beautiful warm sunshine, good music - can't tell you how much I love my ipod, bit of a random (I prefer eclectic!) selection of music but it keeps my happy (if not out of trouble!), and nobody to bother me. I've spent the day up the scaffold.  Before we begin today's diatribe our song for the day is 'Black Sheep' Gin Wigmore, and our thought for the day 'A goal is a dream with a deadline'. Off we go then!

Yes that's me, what a sight!  The scaffold and the roofer were supposed to arrive around the 16th Sept.  However, on the 13th, yes the same day as I discovered there were at least two more of the wrong type of man in the world, the roofer texted me to say that the scaffolder was unable to put all of the scaffolding up. Why? I hear you cry! Because he couldn't get his poles through the giant holly bush, silly!  At first I wasn't sure if that was some sort of euphemism, but if you'd met the roofer you'd know that he'd be unable to even spell it.  He is a good roofer, she hastened to add whilst extracting her self hurriedly from the hole she'd just fallen into.

Anyway, when the scaffolder came to price the job, he'd failed to notice our enormous bush (now, now, behave!) and hadn't alerted us to the need to trim it to make way for the poles. Perhaps he needs his eyes testing, does anyone know an optician??!!  Ah-ha! you cry! The saga with the council, the permit and the tree surgeon!  Yes that's the one.  As we didn't have the permit at that point,we had to settle for just having scaffolding round the back and along some of the side.  Anyway, after a great deal of huffing and puffing the scaffold was erected, but with only one lift. At gutter height. With no obvious means of access.  The scaffolder was called. The roofer was called. 5 days later a second lift miraculously appeared. Still no obvious means of access, but because we are both agile enough and have superb climbing skills, combined with no fear of heights and a complete disregard for Elfin Safety, both Deb and I are able to access both levels.

So the roofer has repaired the back of the roof, repointed the chimneys and mended the impressive hole.  Simultaneously, Deb and I have painted the windows on the back of the house, the guttering and the down pipes.

Chris, the builder has put the helibars in to repair the cracks and has repointed most of the walls. So things are moving on!  The attic window has been repaired and put back in. John and Denis have done a fantastic job.  The front window should be back with us tomorrow.

Sadly, around this time I was not at my best.  That's what looming life events do to you.  It was my birthday.  Something I've been struggling with for a while. I've been convinced that I've lost all of the limited mathematical ability that I may, or may not have ever had.  I just don't seem to be able to do take-away any more.  I just keep getting the wrong answer.  Poor Lynne asked me for coffee the day before the big event, and I spent the whole time in tears. That was after I'd spent all morning in tears with Deb.  Its such a trauma to loose your mathematical ability!  Then Deb gave me a card that explained it all.  I'm 18 in reality, I just have a lot of years of experience to go with it!  Problem solved, life goes on. My friend Charles says that I should now be able to take a more nuanced approach to age and life.  I'll give it a go, but subtlety never was my strong point. Same as Patience isn't my middle name. Tact and discretion have little place either. But there we go.

Anyway, back to the house.  Let me see, so I've told you it's a two-up-two-down, that it needs everything doing, we're cracking on etc,etc. What else? Oh yes, Deb has made some fantastic purchases on ebay.  Complete shower enclosure, brand new £100. Roll-top bath £16.14.  We're hoping for a fabulous maple kitchen tonight.  We've yet to track down a sink, but we'll find one.

Sadly we're still waiting for the right type of man!

First foray in to the unknown!

So now there is no turning back! We have to see this though to the end, it'll be great, a really fun ride, nothing that cannot be overcome!  My theme tune for the day? 'Life is for Living' Barclay James Harvest. Thought for the day? 'Reality without imagination is only half of reality'. Are we all set now? Ready for the next instalment?

So I've not really said much about the house itself, although it is probably fairly self explanatory.  Its a Victorian semi, within the conservation area, close to the endowed schools and town centre.  That said, it is a very quiet, leafy area.  Some of the original features of the house remain, namely the windows, deep skirtings, doors etc.   Many have sadly been lost and replaced with  items of little, or no, architectural merit and are a crime against both taste and decency.  Most notable in this category is the fireplace in the lounge.

Lovely isn't it?  Chris (the builder) helped me to 'loosen' this, and between us we managed to remove the hearth, so that it could reside in the garden until such time as I break it up and take it to the tip.  The main body of this had to rest gently against the wall until  a huddle (is that the correct collective noun?) of plumbers (4 of them) was available to wrestle it into the garden to be reunited with the hearth. There it remains in repose. Should anyone wish to remove it, you're very welcome!

As we are in a conservation area, I thought the best approach was to speak to the conservation officer at the council before we did anything, to find out exactly what we were and weren't allowed to do.  I have to say that they have been very helpful, and as it turns out, we are allowed to do pretty much anything without planning permission.  That is except remove, or even trim the very large holly bush in the garden (just look at the photo in the previous post!).  So, I have spoken to several different men, filled in a form, been visited by the tree preservation man, and the forestry man, spoken to another lady, received several emails and phone messages and witnessed a great deal of angst about this bush.  Nonetheless, we have eventually received permission to trim it and thus avoid the £20,000 (???!!!) fine should we have felt the need to cut off one single twig without said permission.  We now await the tree surgeon with baited breath.

Deb and I have stripped the house from top to bottom, and been frequent visitors to the local tip. The lads there know us quite well now, but they are great about helping us to unload and telling where to put everything.

The house has massively high ceilings, and as both Deb and I are slightly vertically challenged, some rather tall ladders are required. Luckily neither of us are bothered by heights. It's the falling we're not so keen on!
We had a real debate about whether to replace the windows with UPVC or to get the originals restored. The cost of UPVC is unbelievable!  Well in fairness, the most basic ones are not too bad, but they look awful. The ones that look decent are prohibitively expensive. So we're restoring.  The house is now looking worse than it did when we bought it, as it's now boarded up!  So the beautiful stained glass windows are staying, and it's my job to try to rescue them.. The sashes have all gone off to Johns' workshop for Denis to work his magic and hopefully they should be back with us soon.

We were advised by an electrician (not the one we are using) who came round to give us a quote, that we 'absolutely must get an isolation switch put in' before any work could be done. I thought this was some bit of new Elfin Safety legislation that had to be complied with.   So upon completion I arranged for British Gas to come and do this. £43 it cost. They were due on 13th Sept. A Friday. Very brave man I thought, messing about with electricity on that particular day. Let's hope he's got his rubber boots on. Well rubber everything really. So I duly waited. And waited. Did he show up? You guessed it. NO!  So I have now been compensated £22 for the inconvenience, and a very large man turned up on 25th Sept.  I have now repaired the cellar floor, which buckled under the weight.

 Anyway, having managed to fit the isolation switch he the decided that some other bit of the supply needed replacing. But he couldn't do it as he was the wrong sort of man.  In more ways than one I thought!  The right sort of man was called ( I wasn't convinced!), and lo and behold! he arrived two hours later. But he wasn't the right sort of man either (told you!), as the mains fuse was what really needed replacing. The right sort of man hasn't arrived yet.  We'll not hold our breath will we girls?  The best of it is that the electrician (Darren) who has already completed first fix electrics, said that we didn't actually need the isolation switch.  How many times have we been told not to believe everything a man tells us? Still, we fall for it every time don't we?!

I have discovered plumbing skills that I didn't know that I had. I'm great at removing things, and am a dab hand with some grips, a wrench and a compression fitting (even the plumber was impressed!). So I removed the bathroom (such as it was) and the water heater thing all by myself, so proud!

 I had to get the roofer and the electrician to bring the bath down stairs though. I think I'd have broken my nails if I'd have tried it myself! The scrap yard is an experience I'm saving for another day!  The central heating system is in now, it took 3 plumbers and an apprentice half a day to put it in and do all the first fix for the new bathroom, kitchen and out house.  Quite impressive I thought, especially as a different plumber told me that it would take a good 10 days just to do the heating!  We did have to start at 7am though. Those of you who know me will be crying with laughter at this point!  I am not known for being particularly joyful or eloquent first thing. In fact I can barely do speech until I have had at least three cups of very strong black coffee and enough time and space to come to terms with the world.  Luckily the plumbers do know me reasonably well, so took pity on me, bought me a bacon roll and sent me to sit quietly in the garden with my coffee until I was able to be civil!  That was about 10.30, by which time they'd just about finished!

So where are we up to? The house is stripped, the windows are under way, the electrics are done, the plumbing is done.  Well almost. Another little foible of the house is that our mains water supply also feeds next door. So every time we turn the water off in our house, the water goes off next door. Joy! I have been trying to contact the next door neighbour since we completed to get it sorted out. Obviously, as a university lecturer she's far too busy to be concerned with such trivialities, even though I have said that we need to move her mains pipe from our back hall so that the plasterers can make good.  The plasterers start next week. Do you think it might suddenly become a little more important when the water is cut off?!!  We shall see!!

So enough of my rambling for now! I will continue soon!

In the beginning!

So here we are! August 30th 2013 and Deb and I have just collected the keys to our first project together. We are now the proud owners of 8A Park Street, the worst house on one of the best roads in the area.

 As you can see from the photos, the house is in need of some TLC - that could be the understatement of the year!  Neither of us are builders (can you tell?!) but are up for the challenge and have loads of enthusiasm.

It has been no mean feat to actually buy this house, as the agents seemed very reluctant to sell it - mistakenly I thought that was part of their remit! I first saw this house in March, but it was far to expensive to make the renovation worthwhile, so we left it. Then in May it came back on to the market at a reduced price so I had another look and thought that it could be a goer.  So I asked the roofer to come round and have a look at the hole in the roof (quite an impressive hole don't you think!).

He could only come first thing in the morning, so I rang the agents to arrange access.  At this point the agent reliably informed me that they didn't do viewings in the mornings, and that even if I were the queen there would be no exception to this rule, and that they were not prepared to work round a builder.  Indeed, if the builder wanted the work he should be prepared to visit at the convenience of the agent!  I was a tiny bit taken aback by this, especially in view of the fact that the house is about a 2 minute walk from the agents' office, we were cash buyers with no chain and we wanted to complete in three weeks!  But this counts for nothing!  So we walked away.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, in July I was waiting in the queue for the London Eye with two French girls and my youngest son (I was a child bride!) on the hottest day of the year, but that's a tale for another day, when I got a call from the very posh lady in the agents' office. She wondered if I would still be interested in this house if the price was reduced as they had just had another offer fall through. I felt the need to be slightly off-hand and not very helpful at this point, and told her I would think about it and get back in touch if we were.  So Deb went to have a look, we made an offer way below the asking price and said it was conditional on us completing in 3 weeks.  A month later we finally completed, but only after the agents had mixed us up with some other buyers and sent the wrong solicitors details to the vendors solicitors. But hey ho! Here we are complete at last!

Yes, sorry about the photo! The legs fell off my jeans after the last project which I finished in January, the land Rover is a Series 3 for those of you who are interested, ex-MOD, 30 years old, and I can barely get in unaided as I'm only 5ft tall!  It has a five mile turning circle, top speed of 50 on the flat with the wind behind you and stopping distance of about 2 miles! But it's the most fun one girl could possibly have whilst driving!

Anyway, back to the house. So what does it need doing to it? Not much really! Roof repair, obviously. Then there's the cracks in the front wall, the windows, the electrics, the plumbing, the heating, the bathroom and the kitchen. A bit of decoration, the garden and I think that's about it. Time scale? Finish before Christmas, put it back on the market in the New Year.  Do I hear you gentlemen scoffing?  Perhaps I should confess that I have done something like this before.  Last year another friend and I bought a similar house not far from here, and renovated it whilst taking part in a new Channel 4 programme called 'Beat My Build', which is due to air at the end of October. The premise is that two renovators compete to increase the value of the house by the most.  Did we win? You'll have to watch the programme to find out!  But we did complete the project in 3 months, so it can be done!

Anyway, enough for today, I shall be back soon with the next instalment of our fantastic girls adventure!