So the weekly house update thing went well, with me totally forgetting to update last week. In fairness, we hadn’t actually done a lot because we were waiting for the plasterer to sort out the walls so I think it would have been overkill. I did write this nostalgia post instead, so hopefully my tardiness can be forgiven.
You can see all house updates here
We have walls back!
The plasterers came this Wednesday, and the space has gone from this:
To this:
It should be ready for the paint next week – fingers crossed it’ll dry out well in this hot weather and we can do a mist coat on Monday. I can’t wait to get some colour on the walls and find out once and for all whether we made the right choice.
The flooring has arrived, albeit without the underlay which has somehow gone missing en route.
After this tense twitter poll, we decided that we’d go for it and buy the parquet flooring.
Now all we have to do is lay it. How hard can it be, right? I’m sure it wasn’t at all a terrible idea which we will live to regret bitterly. Not at all.
Finally, to round off this exciting section, we’ve just got the tiles delivered for the fireplace. I’ve borrowed a tile cutter so that could well happen over the weekend. Or it might not. Don’t hold me to it.
Getting rid of the horrible raised bed
Outside, a good day was spent digging up and disposing of this breezeblock monstrosity, previously mentioned when we decided to set fire to it.
No, I don’t know what, or why. I don’t think it was a pond, or anything interesting. It appears to just be a deeply uncared-for raised bed. Hopefully it’s not some kind of tomb because that would really shit all over our plans.
My role in its demolition has been largely supportive. I pottered around and removed a lot of brambles and said things like ‘would you like a jaffa cake?’ and made approving sounds. When it comes to smashing stuff up, I like to leave that to the experts.
It seemed to be going fairly well until the last wall, when we discovered that whoever built the ugly thing probably finished with a lot of concrete to spare and dumped it there. Those buggers did not want to move.
But they did, eventually, with a lot of angry smashing.
You’d think from there it would be fairly plain sailing; remove the excess soil, level it off and ta-da! No weird grave-looking-thing making the lawn entirely unusable any longer.
You’d think. We even had a drink to celebrate the hard bit being over.
I guess I should learn that celebrating too soon always comes back to smack you in your stupid face.
In the middle of the damn raised bed, hidden underneath the soil were two flint walls. Utter c*nting bellends, whoever did that.
So my partner has been merrily working on that most evenings. I won’t even say watch this space; it’ll be bloody ages I imagine.
In other garden news
My smallest went climbing through the bushes and discovered a very rusted side gate to the park which we’re going to investigate at some point. I’m very excited to have a garden where mystery gates can remain hidden for so long.
Also, the dead acacia which we cut down (and then started to build a treehouse – or ‘stump platform’ – on) has somehow done a Jesus and risen from the dead. Maybe it enjoyed being chopped down and sat on. Who knows.
I also got myself some flowers, seeds and a little plastic greenhouse for the patio, mainly to give me something to do and spend all my money on while my partner is busy smashing stuff.
The little plastic walk-in greenhouse was only £40 from Wilkos, and although the instructions to put it together were wholly inadequate and almost made me cry, we got there in the end.
The reviews of these say you have to make sure they’re weighed down properly or they’ll fly away. Fortunately I know just where to get a metric fuck tonne of breezeblocks.
Anyway, my plants are all watered, so now I’m going to log off and read a book in the garden while the sun is still out.
I hope you all have a lovely sunny bank holiday weekend!
