Steve from John Lewis arrived as planned and laid the carpet today. Magic! Now it’s just a case of positioning the new furniture! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), …
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Category:DIY
Home for Chrome!
It’s almost ‘job done’ so we’re putting the finishing touches to the office/bedroom conversion – and it seems that chrome fittings are the current trend. The headboard and ottoman arrive tomorrow and the the bed should be here in a few weeks. Currently the bedroom furniture is ‘living’ in the second bedroom whilst we wait …
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Bedroom Redecoration – The Final Phase
We can now see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel’. The wallpaper is up (thanks to Honor), and the room is beginning to look more inhabitable! So, all that’s left to do now is: – Reinstall the new radiator – Site the new furniture – Position the bed – Replace all the brass …
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Flat-Pack Frenzy!
And so it begins – The final stages of the office/bedroom conversion! Honor arrived bright and early to begin the painting and wallpaper-hanging whilst David and I got on with the manly task of assembling the flat-pack furniture! Five hours later (and no spares bits left over) we’d assembled the filing cabinet, desk (almost!) and …
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Market Harborough
Nicki stayed overnight and with a complete change in the weather compared to yesterday (today – hot & sunny, yesterday – rain, rain and more rain!), we decided to head over to Market Harborough to look for some more bits and pieces for the office/bedroom conversion. Result! We managed to find some suitable glasses, two …
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Steve and David do the Ivy
A full-on day today! David popped round and we spent an hour or so removing the ivy from the front of the house (a job I’ve been putting off for ages!!!). Then it was off to The Trading Post for lunch. David hadn’t been before, but Ann and I went there around 10 years ago …
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The Temptation of Teal
With just over two weeks before the decorators weave their magic on the office-bedroom conversion, things were getting a little tense at this end as we still hadn’t found the right wallpaper! You know what it’s like – there’s a particular colour that just works with everything else, but nowhere seems to have it. We …
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Holey, Holey, Holey – See the Light!
Today, the ceiling was sorted in the ‘new’ bedroom. I’d like to say it was all my own work – I’d like to, but the hard work was sorted out by Chris and Shayne! If you look carefully at the picture above, you’ll see the rather fashionable artex look (well, fashionable in the 90s anyway!). …
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Scarify and Convert!
Probably the only disadvantage of the now, lighter evenings, is that it’s a lot easier to see how much work there is to do in the garden! With the sun (almost) shining, and no sign of snow, we spent significant time in the garden today, picking-off the jobs. The big one was to scarify the …
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That Sinkin Feeling
There was a time (not that long ago!) where the high point of my week would be working with a new group of managers on skills, where they needed to improve. These days, as the DoDO, I’m now content with much simpler things – and today is one of those days. It’s ‘Sink Day’! We’ve …
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Broadband Satellite Comes of Age
In these parts, we need all the help we can get with our broadband connection. The pitiful speeds offered via the big players may be OK for the occasional download and checking of emails, but if you want to do big-boy stuff like watch iPlayer, download movies and maybe even upload data to websites, you’ll …
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Garden Blitz!
It’s now that time of year, where the garden is shouting for attention to get it ready for Winter! Luckily, the sun was shining, making the task a little easier. Ann took on the cutting back back/cutting down part, whilst I repainted the side garage …
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The Only Way is… Tooway
OK, after years of constantly below-par broadband speeds here, I finally ‘bit the bullet’ and did something about it. For as long as I can remember, it seemed like everyone else (apart from the rest of the neighbours in our immediate area) were getting faster connection speeds than us. When the houses were built 20+ …
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Website Makeover
I spent some time this week giving my personal website a bit of a makeover. Nothing too drastic, but I haven’t touched it since June 2010, and it deserved a bit of a tidy-up. The major changes included: adding links to my LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts removing some crappy graphics enlarging the page …
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Out and A Grout
A rather satisfying day here. As we waited for Noah and his Ark to turn-up :-), we passed the time by refreshing the bathroom – the major part being the re-grouting of the shower cubicle. Knowing my natural ability with DIY, this was a surprisingly good result! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in …
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Great Grouting, Shiny Knobs and Sky Anytime+!
A very productive and satisfying day here today! First stop was ASDA for a few shopping essentials and then to Wickes the necessary DiY bits. Next, the big task of the day was to tidy up the grouting in the kitchen – a job we’ve been planning for ages, but we just needed a period …
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No Pressure Then!
When the Wet-Room was completed a few months back, we soon realised that the whizzy-tap-with-no-knobs-on-you-just-hold-your-hands-near-the-tap-and out-comes-the-water was going to be a pain in the a** to live with! The problem? Unbeknown to any of us, it was only suitable for high pressure systems, and being upstairs where the water pressure is very low, the water …
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Wet Room completed
Ralph completed the conversion of our old en-suite shower-room into a Wet-Room today. It’s been a long complex project, but Ralph: “you done great mate!” Can’t wait to get home to try it out! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! …
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Wet, Wet, Wet – The Final Shower
Ralph’s been here all week and things are really coming together now with the Wet Room. We reckon another final trip to hook up all the plumbing and it’s ‘job done!’ Boys and their Toys – Now that’s what I call a shower-head! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing …
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The Wet Room
It’s grouting day for Ralph! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of writing seemed to be the perfect combination to contribute a …
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Ralph and Karen’s for Lunch
We drove up to Matlock today to join Ralph and Karen for lunch. On the way to lunch, we visited the Leawood Pumphouse between Cromford and Lea – and it was one the few days it was actually operational – super stuff especially as it’s maintained and staffed by volunteers. We tried The Bear in …
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Wot, no girls…
Ralph’s here to carry on with the Wet Room construction whilst Ann and her friend Nicki have gone to Ragdale Hall for a few days. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all …
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Lunch with Denise
I dropped the car off at Forest Gate just before 8 to have the tyre sensor looked at again, and they kindly gave me a lift to the station. I took the train down to London, quickly followed by the short tube journey across to Holborn. Denise is now more-or-less full-time in London with her …
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The Wet-Room
Well, the Wet-Room is in its final stages now. Ralph is in the process of tiling it all (after a slight blip due to some serious colour variation on the tiles we originally bought), and it’s all going very well. Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until …
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Wet, Wet, Wet – Floor down
The Wet Room project continues. The floor is down – yay! Thanks Ralph!!!!! Quality job!!! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My lifelong love of technology and communication (in all its forms), together with a fondness for the art of …
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Wet, Wet, Wet/Cats Away
Ralph’s here again this week working on the Wet-Room. We’re now at the ‘pretty’ stage with hopefully the floor tiles being laid this week, and time permitting, starting on the wall tiles too. The rather fancy tap we’ve ordered should have arrived at the Plumbers as well, so it’ll be interesting to see how that …
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Wet, Wet, Wet – ‘A Night on the Tiles’
More like a day and a night… and another day! With the temperatures into the 30s here yesterday, Ralph’s efforts to lay the initial tiling on the floor turned into a nightmare, as the cement went hard far too quickly! The result was that this part of the project took far longer than he imagined. …
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Wet, Wet, Wet
Ralph’s here this week. We’re now at the ’pretty’ stage of creating the Wet-Room that’s painting the ceiling, tiling the floor and wall – and on Friday, with Mick’s help, installing the lighting Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until 2004 – well into my 40s! My …
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Wet, Wet, Wet
Ralph’s here for most of the week, continuing to convert our shower-room into a Wet Room. This week, we’ve been mainly looking at lighting designs and getting the floor prepared (and I use the term ‘we’ in its broadest sense!!!!) Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my first post until …
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Ralph and the Wet-Room
Ralph’s here with us for the week continuing to convert our shower-room. It’s really starting to take shape now, we just need to source some dark tiles for the inset piece – but that’s currently proving to be a bit of a challenge! Steve PalmerI got into blogging quite late in life, not publishing my …
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