Tag: sustainable
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With a little Help from our Friends
Having originally thought we could keep the existing open fireplace, Chris eventually realised it was too rusted to save, and found a replacement. We started by chipping out the old fire, which went surprisingly easily. Next we needed to sweep the chimney, but this was easier said than done. The chimney was unfortunately not entirely…
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Trip hazard
I’ve been meaning to paint the utility for ages. Being one of the rooms I plastered, Chris wasn’t happy with the smoothness of the finish, so post first-coat I filled in the worst of the bumps, with the plan to cover it up in the second coat. There was also the plasterboard around the new…
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Second coat
Sometimes things take an age but at the end you don’t seem to have much to show for it – that’s very much true of the second coat of paint. The second coat on the study/baby room wasn’t too bad except shifting around the various bits of bobs currently housed in there. Having filled and…
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One down…
With a hectic Christmas over, I think both of us just wanted to collapse on a sofa and not get up until it was time to get back to work. But with very few weekends left till the baby arrives, it seemed wise to push through and get on with some DIY. The floor in…
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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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Inside – outside
We spent half a day sorting through several moving boxes currently living in our study, trying to remember why we have so much stuff. By the end we managed to relocate many of the items to elsewhere in the house, or offer them up to charity. What remains is a box of pictures and another…
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Still Windowsills…
Time keeps ticking away, and the baby is getting bigger and bigger. At 25 weeks into the pregnancy we still have plenty we want to get done before the due date. So despite not having much time, with busy weekends and dark, uninviting evenings, we still tried to get a few jobs done, to move…
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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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Fitting
Having had an evening out at a local beer festival, Chris didn’t have the energy for DIY, so I decided to crack on with the windowsills on my own. I had the theory down, however, the practice was very rough. I took the previously cut pieces and joined them together with a set of clamps…
Ruined 