Things are really about to start happening..

Nothing really to report, except that we had an underfloor heating guru come visit this week, and now the underfloor heating works which means we may have the first warm winter in years..

I have spent a great deal of time on the phone organising the logistics of scaffolding the house, and commencing work on the exterior. Among the things we will be attempting:

Replacing the gutters (yes, that is sky visible through the gutter there):


Painting the exterior (we are going to try removing all the ivy remnants ourselves with waterblasting and a paint scraper):


Re-puttying the windows (and replacing a few sashes which are well rotted):


Re-tiling and waterproofing the sills (and removing what may be some type of asbestos lining in the process):


And while we're at it, we're going to put in a new sliding door in the living area - one that actually opens, and doesn't have a rotten frame.


We have had three weeks of uninterrupted sunshine which has come to an end today, and I fear this will stymie some of our plans for the next few weeks as everything seems to be 'weather permitting', but I guess we just have to see how things go.

First things first - we need to remove all the loose tiles from the sills and clean them up in preparation for the tiler's visit on Monday... there goes my Saturday morning.

A bit more water blasting..

Sunday was just as warm as Saturday, so Matt got back into the water-blasting.

This is our back courtyard a few weeks back:


..and Matt yesterday, being oh so manly:


And our fresh new clean courtyard today:


That thing is amazing.

The rest of the cork tiles..

Over the past two weeks I have been slowly replacing the cork tiles in the laundry and toilet downstairs, and the upstairs toilet. Although it's not something I have previously aspired to be, I am now a total pro at cork tiling.


Obviously, this is the floor before we moved in.



Unlike the bathroom, the laundry tiles were laid onto concrete slab, which proved a bit more time consuming to prepare...and more disgusting.

Many of the tiles simply lifted off, and there was dirt and dust underneath. Some tiles were almost unrecognisable as cork:



Once removed, I had to scrub the floor with a wire brush. Twice. Then sand down the concrete. Twice. Then wash it all with sugar soap. Three times. Then it was just smooth and clean enough to lay the tiles.

I know it's not obvious, but the photo below shows the floor after this process...


Because we were a bit silly, we didn't embark on this before moving, which meant I had to work around the fridge and washing machine. I ended up doing one half of the laundry first, then moving everything over on to the completed half, then doing the rest.

The photo below shows me half way through the second half.


A few coats (three actually) of polyurethane later (no, I didn't do that bit - not good for growing babies apparently), and we have a new (improved) laundry floor:




It's not perfect, but it's a MASSIVE improvement.

And finally, the upstairs toilet - just a quick before and after photo to sum that up:



Voila! We can walk comfortably around the house without feeling sick! And Maatt has almost finished the quarry tiles downstairs too.

Water action..

Unlike the rest of the summer, this weekend we managed to have some fairly fine weather. So my lovely Uncle took the opportunity to bring his waterblaster up and start having a go at clearing the ivy residue off the exterior walls, in preparation for painting.


It was a pretty powerful piece of machinery..


Once Donn had left, Matt took over, and managed to find a whole new garden path underneath the one that was there prior.

My "before and after" shots, don't really show what a remarkable difference it made.

Here's a photo from last weekend:


And the photo from today:


Yeah, it doesn't really look that different here, but trust me, it is a whole different colour. It looks like freshly poured concrete, and is lovely and rough again so we can say goodbye to the prospect of heavily pregnant ladies slipping on their bottoms during descents in rainy weather - hoorah!

The spare room cupboards: Part 2

While Matt was getting stuck in to the undercoat for the cupboard doors, I took off all the handles and got to work with some Brasso.


They were pretty black and grimy beforehand..but a bit of elbow grease got things moving:


And now we have four shiny handles to put back on when the doors are painted.

The spare room cupboards: Part 1

This weekend we started on the lemon yellow spare room cupboards. The first job was to remove the sticky labels that some silly person put on the drawers..

With patience, some warm water, and careful use of a blunt scraper, Matt managed to get them all off..

We have started painting - a layer of undercoat has gone on, hopefully the job will be finished in the next few days.

ps. We have chosen Resene's Beryl Green by Karen Walker for the doors...if it works well we might use it in the other spare room too.

Pot inspects today's outdoor work

...she thinks there's still at least another couple of tonnes to go...