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.