Tag: home-improvement
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Layers
It’s always the little jobs that seem to take an age. After previously filling and sanding the skirting in the lounge and part of the kitchen, I thought I’d do the quick job of painting it. However, the cheap and cheerful wood paint we’d brought was thin as water, and four coats later the small…
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Time off?
We’d booked off two blocks of time, a Thursday/Friday on week 1, and Wedsday/Thursday/Friday in week 2. We’d hoped long weekend number 1 would get the kitchen floor finished off, but as week 2 rolled round there was still plenty to do. First we moved the furniture off the final area in need of treatment.…
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The Grind
Grouting and regrinding the concrete floor in the kitchen was not a job I wanted to do. Chris had decided on it from the moment we’d finished grinding and polishing it last time, feeling that grouting would fill in some small holes and strengthen the concrete. Having lived through the dusty hell of the first…
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A little Carpentry
With the long weekend we thought we’d get a decent amount of work done. Of course things never go as quickly or as smoothly as we’d like but a few jobs got moved forwards despite a number of delays. We decided not to bother trying to straighten the lounge windowsill, and just stuck it down…
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Cork
We’d ummed and ahhed about the lounge floor for a long time. My preference would have been carpet, but Chris wanted hard flooring. While I’m happy with wood or tiles in other rooms, the lounge is a room where I like to lie on the floor and I wanted something warm. In the end we…
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Working it out
While in theory building the windowsills shouldn’t be too complicated, we’ve been delayed by lack of the right tools. Having held off on buying a biscuit cutter (which cuts holes for the small wooden biscuits that help join the wood together) in the hopes of borrowing one, we finally gave up and purchased one second-hand.…
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Small but Essential
There are a few big jobs on our list still, but there are a lot of smaller finishing jobs. Despite being small, however, they usually require taking everything apart to get to them, adding a significant amount of hassle. Chris has been keen to treat the kitchen island. While the actual treatment doesn’t take too…
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Slowly….slowly
It’s been a busy time, these last few months, with lots of travel, lots of visits, and very little DIY. Sitting down to work out what we have left to do inside the house, the list looks tantalisingly short, yet since writing it we’ve not ticked much off. A few week ago we took our…
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Katie’s Big Fortnight
Switching from one job to another I took a fortnight off, both to free up time for some IVF appointments and to push on with some DIY projects. Unexcitingly, I spent good amount of time filling the edges around the wall on the stairs. Still it was nice to tidy up a rough edge. There…
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Stairs
The very dull world of installing skirting kept me busy for a good week. Even once it was attached there was the filling, sanding, second filling, second sanding, caulking and of course first coat and second. It’s done anyway, aside for the doorway, which is complicated as it currently catches on the door. With the…
Ruined 