in da house 1 Dec 09

Sunday was office day – we lifted the revolting pink and white blotchy carpet, which came up surprisingly easily, as it was laid on paper. perlmonger gave the room a good seeing to with the Dyson, then I washed the skirting boards with sugar soap; little wipes – lazy, but quick. I did the walls up to where I could reach, and Pete did the rest. Begone, foul lilac walls! We knew it needed a second coat, and inevitably we ran out of paint, so had to hurtle down to Wilkos to get another can. (aside; why did nobody tell me about Wilcos? – it’s wonderful!). Slapped the second coat on on Monday morning, and the carpet fitter had been and gone by mid day.

We also got the curtain rail up in there – if I could only find the curtain for it, that would be splendid.

We made a good start on the study after that – got my desk set up yesterday, and a wall mounted bookcase beside it and Pete is doing his now. It’s smaller than the one we had in LA, but it’s workable and we will just have to be more ruthless with the rubbish that we hang on to, or (more likely) at least put it up in the loft.

Have booked a Polish builder to fit the loft hatch and ladder at the end of this week, and I have just organised someone to replace the bit of the front double glazed unit which has a damn great crack on the inside, and thus is full of condensation. I went with someone who can do it, and move the living room radiator under the window, for £215. I’m now keeping an eye out for gas fires on eBay. This house is *freezing* and we’re spending what little spare cash we have on getting it warm – so loft insulation (which requires the loft access being done, and we need it for storage anyway) which we can get for £75 on a grant, I’ve just got some of that secondary double glazing film for the upstairs windows, and I should get the rugs down today.

British Gas are coming to fit a credit meter tomorrow – we’ve been using a PAYG since we arrived, which just eats money, and ran out this morning just as Pete was about to run a bath. Gavin had it put in in 2006, when he ran up arrears, and didn’t either ask our permission, or tell us, which is irritating.

Karoo (local telecoms) told me that our broadband might be running slow because it wasn’t plugged into the master socket. Now we have cleared most of the boxes, we find that we don’t *have* a master socket, the telephone wiring here is that old. So I rang them this morning, and they are coming out to fit one tomorrow, FOC, which is quite impressive.

By the end of today, I plan to have taken a load to the tip, started some wine, made some soup, and painted some of the kitchen so we can put up the triangular shelves. And cleared the dining table (that I bought for £1.40 from eBay, including four chairs) so that we can actually eat a meal off it.

Onward and upward.

One thought on “in da house 1 Dec 09”

  1. Assuming that by Wilko you mean Wilkinsons, yes it’s a fascinating place! I’m never quite sure how much of their cheap stuff is actually any good, but it makes a decent-ish hardware store.

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