The electrics in the bathroom cabinet were fixed today and door put on. This meant that I was able take some photos. Both of my daughters enjoyed testing out the shower last night and said it was really good.
There are just a couple of little tweaks which the plumber is coming round to sort out in the morning. He’s been so quick to respond to anything we’ve noticed. We’re very lucky.
I haven’t done much else around the house today, firstly because I was busy all day with work, and secondly, I’m purposely putting it all off as I am on leave next week and can potter about as much as I like. I am so looking forward to it.
Outside lights
Outside light fixed
Whilst the electrician was here we asked him to have a look at our outside lights that haven’t been working for years. Both my husband and I told him that we’d checked the bulbs and they still didn’t work. He tested the bulbs in there and said they were dead. He then asked me if I had a bulb he could test and I got the one out of my daughter’s new lamp by her bed.
You’ll never guess what…. both lights worked! It was quite embarrassing that we had to get an electrician to change the light bulbs. Luckily for us, he didn’t charge us.
My daughter and I were quite excited that we now have lights outside. I think it makes the house look more inviting when they are on in the evening. We’ll also be able to easily see to put our key into the front door.
What I did notice was that the front door, garage door and light covers are really dusty due to the building work. I’ll give them a good clean one day next week.
The evening
After a quick dinner, I decided to relax with the family and watch a film called Non-Stop with Liam Neeson. It’s an old film from 2014. It was really good!
So, all that’s left before I go to sleep is to have a nice bath, de-stress and think about nothing.
I was only supposed to work half day today but I was so busy that I ended up working until almost 3pm. I really wanted to get outside and see how much room was in the skip and then start filling it. This is how it looked before I started…
A full skip
Not much room at first glance, so I decided to take out the cardboard that I could easily recycle in our normal bins. There was also a lot of space being taken up with polystyrene that I could throw in bin bags, so that came out too.
I needed to get all of this in the skip…
Stuff to put in skip
Above left is a pile of wood and plasterboard from when our bedroom wardrobes were knocked out by different builders a few weeks ago. Above right is some stuff that I purged from the garage today.
I did ask my husband to help but he had a meeting, and he also said it was too cold outside. So, as I couldn’t wait and just wanted to get it done this afternoon, I made a start and got most of it in the skip apart from the black sacks containing rubble, some large pieces of plasterboard and a few wooden doors.
En-suite and other jobs
The plumbers came round this afternoon after they finished another job and did the following for us:
Replace the noisy central heating pump
Finish installing new pipework under kitchen sink
Finish off the en-suite bathroom (still waiting for electrician to wire up the lights on the mirrored cabinet – he’ll be here tomorrow)
Add some silicone sealant to our other showers as a free of charge favour to us so that we didn’t have to do it ourselves
Take the protective plastic off the stairs and vacuum bedroom, hallway and stairs (I’d forgotten what the stairs looked like 😀)
When they were leaving I asked if what I’d put in the skip was ok and then showed him what was left to go in. He said that I could put the plasterboard in and then did it for me which was good of him.
When I got back into the house, my husband was making the girls and I pancakes. They were delicious!
Busy day but very productive. I’m also managing to go to bed before midnight tonight!
I bought a new candle which smells amazing and I am just about to use it in the bath this evening and enjoy a bit of me-time.
Mulled wine candle
The house didn’t get much attention from me today as I had a busy working day. On top of that I had to do both school runs there and back including waiting in the car for an hour between each of my daughters finishing (it was after school dance class). That gave me some lovely time with my youngest though and allowed me to relax for a bit.
The en-suite
The electrician has been postponed until tomorrow to sort out the mirrored cabinet, so no pics yet until he’s done that and put the door on. The plumber turned up late afternoon as planned after another job and fitted the toilet seat, radiator and added some more silicon sealant.
He’s asked me to go round the bathroom tomorrow and create a snag list of any issues. He’ll then come back and fix it all. It’s looking pretty perfect to me so far but I will inspect when I have more time tomorrow.
I only did what was important this evening… dishwasher, dinner, washing… it’s neverending.
When I got back from the school run, I found a toilet outside my front door. It made me laugh. Our builders were here working hard all day apart from a short break at lunchtime to pick up the shower screen. Toilet, shower and screen are now all in place.
Decluttering morning
I had the morning off so decided to use the time to continue some decluttering… popping into the garage to put things in there and taking other items back to their places around the house. The sun was shining, which meant that I could hang out the washing. It was all going well.
Insinkerator Troubleshooting
On one of my trips into the garage, I brushed past the box that the Insinkerator (food waste disposer) came in.
I’d destroyed most other boxes but some reason I’d kept this one. Maybe it was because I didn’t know how it worked and there were a few diagrams on the box, and plastic piping and instructions inside. I took it into the house because there was a phone number on it. I thought that I’d take the opportunity to call the company and see if they could help me fix it as it was making a loud grinding noise the other day and had eventually ground to a halt.
The lady told me about a reset button which at least got it running but it was still making a grinding noise. She then asked me to get a 6mm allen key. I always have allen keys in the utility room but didn’t know if I had a 6mm one. I tried the ones that I had but they didn’t fit, so I went upstairs to ask the plumber who loaned me his.
I started turning the allen key from underneath the unit and when it had done a full turn, she asked me to try and switch it on again. It still made the sound so she asked me to see if anything was lodged in the chamber. She didn’t suggest putting my hands down there (which I’m going to confess that I have done before!). It was at that point that my husband came into the kitchen and I asked him to help.
Between us we couldn’t find anything lodged. Then he noticed a couple of tiny screws lodged in the blades. We said to the lady that we’d continue to find ways to get them out and ring back if we were still struggling. My husband ended up disconnecting the whole waste disposer unit and and trying to open it up. I was wishing that I’d never started the job. The kitchen was a mess, the cupboard door was off, all of his tools were all over the hallway upstairs, and everything from under the kitchen sink was on the floor.
The good thing was that he got one tiny screw out and then the other one got lodged and when we tried to get it out it went beneath the metal plate.
There was no way of getting it out. In fact we even rang the company back and they didn’t know so they gave us a number for a service engineer.
We couldn’t use the sink for the rest of the afternoon. We had two options (1) completely get rid of the unit and put in a normal sink strainer or (2) Put it all back to how it was and pay to get a qualified Insinkerator service engineer in (and put up with a slow draining sink for a while). We went for option 1 as the disposer unit has caused us so many problems over the years snd we didn’t want to spend money getting a replacement one. We put all of our food waste in our small lidded bin now anyway.
Our plumber sent me a link to the exact sink strainer that I needed to get from B&Q. As he needed to get on with our bathroom, he said that if I picked the part up, he would fit it this evening. I ordered it via click and collect and picked it up after I’d finished work.
This evening he fitted the sink strainer and connected it to the main bit of piping and got it working. He said that he’d come back tomorrow and connect it to the overflow and finish it off.
I have extra space!
The most exciting part about all of this is that without the large disposal unit under the sink, I have more room to put all of the cleaning stuff. It was always crammed in and I couldn’t buy those shelf units that I see other people using to organise their cupboards. Watch this space for a tidy cupboard under the sink one day!
The en-suite bathroom
I know that I said this yesterday but the ensuite bathroom is nearly finished. Just a bit more silicone sealant and other fittings. The electrician is coming back with them tomorrow to wire up the mirrored cabinet and radiator. We’re nearly there and I should be able to share updated photos with you tomorrow. Apparently the shower is ready to use in the morning if we want to.
I felt so exhausted after the afternoon we’d had and still had lots of work to do which I’ve been doing this evening. I didn’t have the energy to cook so I went and got fish and chips.
Tomorrow is just as busy, so I’ll try and have a relaxing bath and go to bed.
The builders were here when I got back from the school run this morning and one of them had made a start on the silicone sealant and painting and the other one was building the sink unit and installing the sink.
By the end of the day, they had almost finished the bathroom but they need another day so that things dry. Tomorrow they’ll be adding the toilet, mirrored cabinet, shower screen and so on. It’s looking really good.
New sink being installed
Before dinner this evening, I found myself with a bit of time whilst I was watching Boris Johnson’s update regarding the news about the Covid-19 vaccine, so I sorted out the papers on the kitchen counter. It was quite satisfying seeing it clutter free again (when things get back to normal around here, I’ll be able to get back to my routines).
The carpenter turned up late afternoon to finish the cupboard, adding the frame and a hinged door. He also replaced the wood panelling so that it all matched along that wall.
He didn’t have a handle for the cupboard door, but I remembered that I found a pack of handles in the garage last week and new exactly where they were. He added that on. The plasterer will be finishing off around the edges tomorrow but here’s how it looks so far.
Unpainted wood panels and door
We will be painting it at the weekend to match the rest of the room.
Around 6pm this evening I just wanted to freeze the moment. My husband was cooking and the carpenter was vacuuming. I was assisting with getting things that they needed but I wasn’t the one responsible for doing what was being done. The moment didn’t last long but it made me smile 😃.
At 7pm I realised that I hadn’t emptied the bins and put out the recycling… oh well, back to reality. Whilst I was outside, I took the opportunity to throw a few things in the skip.
Clearing by using a skip is new to me
So far this year, I’ve got rid of things by donating, selling, throwing or recycling. There’s now another option for me, as we still have the skip at the side of the house that the builders have been using since they started our en-suite renovation.
You may remember me mentioning around a month ago that I have a fear of skips which is why I haven’t got one myself. Ever since it’s been here I’ve been nervous about the rest of the family putting stuff in there that I want. I was worrying about nothing of course because no one ever did put anything in there, and now I’ve completely changed how I feel and want to put things in there myself. It might be because there’s not much room left in the skip so I know there’s a limit to what can go in there, ha ha. Nevertheless, I’m feeling proud of myself.
I noticed yesterday that someone had put an old carpet in there which doesn’t belong to us. As the job is almost finished, I thought that I would throw the small trampoline and old garden chair in there. I want to put more in tomorrow before someone else does. It’s a good way of clearing stuff in the garden and garage. I’m quite looking forward to it.
This morning I woke up naturally without an alarm, feeling quite refreshed. I looked back at the data on my fitbit app and realised that the last time that I had as much sleep as I did last night was in May! I got a sleep score of 91% with a total sleep of 8 hours and 14 minutes. Also, the deep sleep portion was 1 hour and 43 minutes which is pretty good. I must make a conscious effort to get to bed earlier more often.
Autumn colours
The first thing I did when I woke up was my usual morning stretches and then I looked out of the window and was drawn to going out for a walk. Everything looked calm and peaceful and I knew that doing a bit of exercise would make me feel energised for the day. I do love autumn walks with the different coloured leaves. It’s so beautiful.
I had toast and tea when I got back and then started Sunday lunch which was roast chicken. I do love pottering about the kitchen when I’m cooking and it’s so easy to do that when doing something like a roast.
I wanted it to be one of those days where I got things done but I also rested, so after we’d eaten I really felt like watching a film. Then my youngest said that she’d never seen Harry Potter before and asked if I would like to watch it with her. We carried the large TV to her bedroom (as you do) and snuggled up on her bed with cushions and a blanket and watched it together.
More sleep
Typical! As soon as I sit down and relax, I tend to fall asleep. Next thing I knew it was 4.45pm and I think I only watched half of the film. I hadn’t realised how tired I was. My daughter said that I didn’t even make it half way through the film. You would have thought after all the sleep last night I wouldn’t have needed it. My body must be trying to catch up. It felt good though.
Some tidying up
I always try and skype my mum and dad on a Sunday, so carved myself out a little bit of space in the new but untidy study. We had a good chat for over an hour and afterwards I felt motivated to make a start on clearing the desk, moving the chest of drawers and putting the sofa in a vertical position (it’s been lying on its side for a couple of weeks). Success! I can now sit at the desk.
There’s still more to clear but I’m waiting for my eldest to move the rest of her stuff out which she can’t do until the bathroom and cupboard have been finished in her new room (fingers crossed that will all happen this week).
I’m not going to sleep quite as early as last night, but it will be before midnight.
I thought I’d start the day with some exercise as I really haven’t done any for a while. I’ve not even been for any brisk walks! Not sure why. I got on my cross trainer machine for 12 mins whilst catching up on my Instagram feed and then the tiler turned up.
My first challenge that I was given this morning was to choose between a white grout and a gunmetal grey grout. The latter being easier maintenance apparently, so I’m all for that. My daughter and my husband were leaving the decision up to me so I chose gunmetal grey. He let me look at a couple of tiles first before he did the rest and I was happy. It looks amazing now he’s finished all of the grouting. The grey grout really brings the tiles alive.
Grouting complete
The silicone sealant will be added on Monday when the bathroom is installed.
Then the carpenter turned up to finish the cupboard in the main part of the room, and to install the missing wood paneling, but half way through he broke his saw so he’s got to finish it tomorrow.
Clearing leads to gardening
This afternoon I was clearing the corner of the dining room and came across some bulbs that I bought but hadn’t planted.
As it was a mild and sunny afternoon, I thought I’d spend a bit of time in the garden. I really felt like being outside rather than stuck in the kitchen tidying up.
I first did a bit of weeding where I planted the dahlias and fushias earlier in the year. I also weeded a couple of the pots and planted some winter pansies seeds (that arrived a couple of weeks ago and have been part of the clutter on the kitchen counter). I then put the bulbs in various parts of the garden using my new little bulb planter.
I could hear one of the neighbours mowing the lawn so I decided to do mine. Hopefully that’ll be the last time I’ll need to do it until the spring. The garden looked a little bit tidier once I’d finished.
The evening
I cooked pie this evening and when it was in the oven I cleaned and mopped the dust on the stairs and hallway. Then the shopping arrived and I was struggling to multitask so I got my youngest to help put the shopping away.
After dinner, I was determined to rest so once I’d cleared up, I sat down for a bit and now I’m having an early night.
The tiler has completed all of the tiling including the floor and just has the grouting left to do in the morning.
Tiling so far
The above picture shows a few slices of the bathroom tiles so far. The first slice shows the floor tiles which are a light grey, the middle one is of the cubby holes with the white tiles and the chrome trim, and the last one is a close up of the feint sparkly bits in the grey tiles.
Now they’re laid, we’ve noticed they there’s not as much of a contrast between the white and the grey (on the floor in particular) but we’re really happy with it.
A little bit of tidying
Our boiler was making strange noises in the night and just in case the plumber needed to look at it, I tidied one corner of the utility room counter. It was very satisfying wiping it down and seeing the surface again.
It turned out that the noise was just air in one of our radiators (the one in our bedroom that they didn’t spot when they were bleeding it because there was so much clutter in front of it!)
A relaxing evening
I feel a bit achy and have a bit of a stiff neck after sitting at the computer all day and then sweeping and mopping from the tiling work. I need a rest again this evening.
I’ve just had an early bath with bath salts to ease the aches and now we’re settling down for the evening to watch something as a family. I’m determined to get an early night tonight.
The car was frosty this morning which was an unexpected. The girls were in a rush for me to take them to school and I couldn’t find my ice scraper so ended up using a credit card (as you do). I’m sure there’s a scraper in the garage somewhere.
It’s day three of tiling. When the tiler left at 2pm he said that he’d not got much left to do and that he’d left the easy bits for tomorrow. I really didn’t think that tiling would take this long. It’s looking good so far though.
Don’t panic… the floor isn’t going to stay yellow. It’s just some sort of underlay that he appears to have put down.
I’m looking forward to the plastic carpet protector stuff coming off the stairs as it’s becoming loose in places and very dirty. As soon as the tiler left, I had to give the landing and each step a brush down and I even ran a damp mop over each step after sweeping and mopping the whole of the downstairs again. The dust gets everywhere. At least I’ve prevented the bits getting carried all over the house, at a time when my vacuum cleaner isn’t working properly (I keep forgetting to look into the warranty and get it fixed).
After work, I had to pop out to pick up our prescriptions (necessary trip during lockdown) and I bought a loaf of bread in Asda. Considering that it was just after 5.30pm, there weren’t many people around which means that everyone is being good and staying at home.
I feel like I’ve pushed myself too hard this week and I’m feeling so tired. I tried to watch something on the TV with the family but fell asleep so at least I’ve had a short nap.
I don’t have much else to add today, so I’m going to make this post a bit shorter. I’m about to have my usual bubble bath with candles and go to bed a bit earlier.
I could only fit in a short trip to see my mum and dad in Herne Bay today as I had other commitments in the afternoon but I had such a lovely time and wished I could have stayed for longer. We just walked and talked (with my face mask 😷 on) and enjoyed the sunniest day that we’d seen for a few weeks. It was a cold 10 degrees, but no wind so it felt okay.
My aunty and uncle also visited and met us down the seafront – I haven’t seen them since the middle of last year so it was nice to catch up. Unfortunately I only got to see my brother and his fiancée outside their house for five minutes, but as he said in a message this evening “Micro visits are just as important! Lovely to see you”. I totally agree.
It was a long drive back but the roads were quiet – I then had to get to the school by 2pm so that I could take my youngest to the orthodontist. Timing was crucial today and everything went to plan. I even got a space outside the orthodontist which is rare.
When I got home I was shattered from all the driving and the fresh air and ended up falling asleep on the sofa for an hour before dinner. I could easily have stayed there until the morning but needed to cook dinner and clean up the dust from where the tiler had been working. He only did half a day today so not much additional progress to show you.
My shark vacuum cleaner isn’t picking anything up so I had to brush the stairs and floors downstairs and I’ve now mopped everywhere. It feels much cleaner but I can still taste dust in the air (if you know what I mean). I’ve decided that I’m not doing any more work this evening… just got to hang the washing up to dry when it’s finished.
I’ve really enjoyed my day off and now I’m going to finish it nicely with a bath and candles and hopefully I’ll get to bed a bit earlier. Looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Sandra Madeira 