Jenny jenny, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

... as long as you are asking about the front garden quite well thank you. I think it is best to show it in images.

How not to wallpaper a bedroom

So this weekend was due to be the weekend we finished our second bedroom (bar woodwork) by painting the ceiling, painting two walls and then wallpapering thee other two walls. This is an example of budget constraints helping the artistic process, we had skimmed two walls in this room but we had left two walls as they still had flaky paint on them. We had planned to remove the paint and then paint the walls but it was becoming increasingly obvious we would need to get these walls skimmed too. I had bought two rolls of Laura Ashley years ago because I liked it  but also because they were four pounds instead of thirty six. I suggested using them on the walls which needed skimming. Sam was a classic Yorkshire man and agreed immediately without more than a cursory glance at the wallpaper.

So thinking we might need more wallpaper, the plan was to use my batch end on one wall and then if there wasn't enough we would use new stuff on the other wall, total cost of new rolls fifty pounds. Still quite expensive but better than skimming. So having checked with our local Laura Ashley that they had it in stock we set if to pick it up along with the matching paint. Unfortunately they did not have any so we ordered some (which will take up to two weeks to arrive), that put a slight downer on it but we thought we would go ahead anyway and do one wall. So we did the painting on the Saturday and then woke up to glorious sunshine on the Sunday. All thoughts of staying inside went out the window (to sit in the sun) and we decided to do the front garden instead.... (To be continued)

The offending wallpaper:
http://www.lauraashley.com/wallpaper/kimono-willow-floral-wallpaper/invt/3443081

Grimm's tales of Alexandra road

I realised talking to my colleagues recently I have house amnesia with regards to some household tasks. Several days after doing the horrible tasks I had completely forgotten they were necessary and had already moved onto the next thing.

I thought to remind myself how grim it I would write a post so that if I ever consider moving I can read back and decide not to!

Grimm task one:
The house has some adaptations to help disabled people, there was the dirty chair in the shower, several ramps, a toilet that flushes when you lean back and a front door which was electronically operated. Most of which weren't a problem, the self closing front door was a pain though as if it decided not to open then you would have to shoulder barge it open. Sam decided it had to go but unfortunately it was very reluctant to leave and it took an hour of swearing to remove the arm so it would no longer work. We still have the entire box attached to the wall and it leaks bright red lubricant which looks exactly like blood!

Grimm task two:
We have had to steam wallpaper off five rooms as far but none had been as bad as the room we are affectionately calling doom room. The room appears to have belonged to a teenager who liked very dark blue and purple and badly painted silver woodwork, not so bad so far but they also liked to smoke. It took me awhile to work it it out as I am not a smoker, the cobwebs were a strange brown greasy colour and texture and some cables in the room looked the same. It was when steaming the wallpaper off it became particularly obvious, as I steamed the paper off round the window the steam hit the cold glass and condensated ... into horrible orange brown water.

I think I will keep adding to this post as we find problems, I am pretty sure removing the rotten shred and bike shed are going to be delightful.

Bank ?Holiday? weekend

Second post woohoo, go me. We used the bank holiday weekend to complete and start work on the house.  We started to strip wallpaper which sadly was hard going.  In our last flat we stripped the walls and found out that the time taken to strip wallpaper can vary immensely. It looks like this wood chip is going to take a looong time, on day 1 (actually half a day) we managed to make a good visual dent on the wallpaper in two rooms.  Day 2 was more stripping with a trip to the tip thrown in for good measure, we also got more paint samples. I have bought lots of samples, in fact lots more than last time. This time however Sam was happy for me to go sample mad, he remembers too well the stress of me eventually disliking the paint chosen in the living room of the last place.

Day 3 found us on repeat, more stripping!  This time we weren't taking off the large bits, we were down to the fiddly little bits, this part is so frustrating. The room looks the same before and after but to get a good finish you need to get rid of it all.  Finally on day 4 we had one room completely clear of wallpaper, holes filled in and walls sanded. It looks like the plaster in that room is so bad we will need to get it skimmed. Hopefully we will get that done while we are on holiday, we are already having all the ceilings skimmed on the second floor.  We also have a room clear of wallpaper but that still needs to cleaned and sanded.

The "doom room", as described by us has been partially cleared, we also removed a cabinet from close to the windows. It was amazing the difference removing it made to the light. So much better!

Also helping the light in the front room we removed a hawthorn like tree in the front garden.  I left Sam at the property for ten minute alone and found him clipping bits off the tree, somehow that turned into sawing off whole sections until the thing was gone. It was so nice to see out of the house, now we just have to remove the buddleia.  It is in full bloom and so pretty, covered in bees and butterflies,  I think we will wait until it stops flowering and then remove it.

Now you see it....

Now you don't.

Rendering me speechless (how spend a lot of money)

So this is my first blog post and maybe my last.. I will have to see if I have the commitment to keep this up.  The idea was to use this a sort of scrapbook of our home renovation.

We will be transforming a three bed (heavily extended) semi-detached with my husband and partner in crime.  We have a little form already having updated/renovated a two bed ex-council flat in North London.  A change in job enabled/required us to move out of the big smoke to Hitchin and also allowed us to get a house instead of a flat.  I am very excited by the idea of having a garden...BBQ's/Garden chairs/flowers and herbs. They can't be that much work right?  I guess we are going to find out.

The house we bought is in dire need of an update.  The previous owners were getting older and although the house has been a much loved family home not much work has been done on it for awhile.  We are hoping to have a lot of fun and create a great home for us in the process.  This brings me to our first big challenge, the rendering, we knew it was a problem when we bought the house. But the estate agents had a quote form a local tradesman to say that the repairs would be in the region of 3,500.  A lot of money but doable with our budget.  Unfortunately we are now getting quotes which are a lot higher, like twice the amount. Ek!  First big scare.  Fixing the render is a must so we will have to stump up the cash.  And that isn't even touching the cladding which is also a must...  For now I will end with a shot of our fugly house, hopefully one day it will be less fugly.