Sunny outlook

This photo was taken on a cloudy afternoon to show how quickly the outlook has changed. From a few spindly, naked trees it's now a lush green mess. As far as the eye can see we're looking across other people's gardens. Pretty much all other properties are obscured by foliage. And no-one can see into the glass extension, which is just as well given how exposed it is.

The photo doesn't really do it justice, but trust me, living this close to urban London life and having the feeling that you're in the countryside is a bonus we hadn't considered when we bought this house. It's not even proper summer yet so the trees will only get denser in the next few weeks.

Another job done

A classic before and after for your perusal. This is the lacquer on the concrete counter top. Not long after we started to use it, the lacquer began to peel and lift and as you can see after 18 months of usage looks pretty rough.

The quote we had to sand it back and reseal it was astonishing - and that's when we finally found a company who would consider doing it. Apparently concrete companies are of the belief that if they didn't install the concrete, they won't do any maintenance.

Fortunately, the guy who did it in the first place came back from his holiday and was only to happy to swing by and sort it out for the cost of hiring all the bits and bobs, plus a very reasonable day rate (thank you Isaac!). He ended up coming round on three consecutive days and the sanding created the mother of all dust storms in the house, but hey ho, check out the 'after' photo below.

While concrete looks the business I'm pretty sure I'd get Corian next time. It's just too painful to get concrete fixed when it starts to look shabby, and inevitably, it will look shabby.

Next step is to get the glass company to show up to sort out the kitchen splashback. It's been 8+ days of fairly continuous phone calls to remind them to show up...

In plane sight

It was the Queens 84th Birthday celebration this weekend. We were alerted to the fact by the rumbles of fast approaching low-flying aircraft. I'm sure most people in Hackney could claim that the planes flew right over them, but in our case, they really did - as you can see from this snap of the sky taken from inside my kitchen through the (grubby) glass.

According to The Times: "After taking the salute the Queen and other royals returned to the Palace where they watched an RAF flypast by 13 different types of aircraft, including World War II Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, modern Typhoon fighters and the Red Arrows aerobatic display team. The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight led the formation to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Britain’s defeat of Germany"

It sounded like 13 types of aircraft. I wonder if the elderly residents of London's East End felt nostalgic or terrfied when they heard the racket.

Green fingered fun

This little plastic addition to our garden was a birthday present from some Dutch friends. It's called a cold frame and is meant to assist seedlings burst into something useful, whilst keeping creepy crawlies out.

I've managed to sprout a selection of chives and lettuces, as well as some weeds, but I can't quite tell what's a weed vs lettuce at this point. Slugs and snails have managed to bypass the corrigated plastic and infiltrate the frame. I've poured table salt around the edges to deter them and if that doesn't work will try sinking a plastic cup of beer into the ground as that's supposed to kill them (or at least make them tipsy and lose their motivation?)

Am hoping that we'll end up with a selection of healthy lettuces soon as it tastes so much better to eat fresh leaves than something that's been kept in a plastic bag and washed in bleach. I've never had much luck with plants (now down to just one house plant indoors actually) so I'm not holding out much hope. Plan B if the lettuces don't survive is to buy some ready sprouted seedlings and plant those out.

(Tips on keeping them alive would be gratefully received!)

Reviving the outdoor furniture

Last month I wrote how Ronseal had ruined our wooden outdoor furniture by aging it somewhat prematurely. I wrote to their customer service team who offered to refund the cost of their product and replace with something else from their range. I accepted their £15 but refused the freebie as I was so annoyed with Ronseal that I didn't believe that a different product from them would be any better.

Rob found a Garden Furniture Revival kit from Cuprinol, no, I'd never heard of them either. We paid £24.99 (though right now it's on sale for half that from godfrey-diy.co.uk). As you can see from the photo, half an hour of sanding with an electric sander and two coats of Cuprinol and viola, good as new. Just in time for some lovely spring weather...

Clean as a whistle

We had a plumbing situation last week. The downstairs loo was starting to take ages to drain and occasionally it would make hideous gurgling sounds, which would travel up into the hand basin.

There's nothing more scary than a sink which gurgles in a threatening manner, especially when it occasionally regurgitated soapy bubbles. After two weeks of gurgling and nervous flushing I called up a drainage company to come and work their magic.

It turns out most houses will need their drains unblocked at some point owing to a combination of Victorian era drains and the amount of paper that goes down loos. Toddler wet wipes for example are marketed to help kids get motivated about dealing with their own business, but unfortunately they don't break down - even when wet - and subsequently build up and cause a blockage.

The company I used was called Invincible Drain Care (Tel 020 7428 7755). They charge £95 + VAT for the first hour. Our job took 90 minutes and ended up costing £162. Both bathrooms and the kitchen and washing machine flow systems were all checked and the the actual blockage was dealt with relatively painlessly. They came the day after I phoned so no complaints there.

The next time you're sitting at work hating your job, try and be grateful that at least you don't work for a drain clearing company.

(PS photo at top is a general snap of the house last weekend - I didn't publish the photo of the inside of our drain as it would seriously put you off your lunch)

Splashback and dull concrete

Ages ago I mentioned I'd photograph all the outstanding things in the house. But after a few photos I got a bit despondent. It feels like it'll be a year before all the little niggling things are taken care of, and that's before phase two gets a look in. Anyway, here are two of the most noticeable.

At top is the kitchen wall without a splashback. It's in a pretty strong shade of green - I forget the details (Lime? Chartreuse?) but I've definitely gotten used to it. It's meant to be covered with glass, which would be terrific given how many messy meals and explosive espresso accidents I've endured in the last year.

The holdup has been because of our concrete counter top, pictured below. The finish has peeled in places and looks really dull in others. The whole lot needs sanding back and refinished with a stronger lacquer which will make it look super glossy again. Once this has been done we can do the splashback - if we did it the other way around the glass might crack when the concrete is being sanded.

The guy who did it orignally is back from touring with his band and says he should be able to do it in a couple of weeks. It's been virtually impossible to get a concrete specialist to quote for this job in the last year as most won't touch surfaces they didn't install themselves, as they can't - or won't - guarantee the workmanship. Catch 22 anyone?

Re-mortgage merry-go-round

Two months ago we came off our crazy low mortgage rate onto the standard variable rate, which meant an increase of 6.5x on what we'd been paying. We had our broker on the case to try and sort an improved rate and had a bank valuer over. Long story short - the valuation came in £9K below what we needed it to be. The goal was to prove that the mortgage we'd borrowed was 75% of the value of the house. That magic 75% meant a drop in the interest rate so it was worth pursuing.

£9K isn't a massive discrepency and I'd met a valuer socially who said all banks have a £10K margin of error anyway. Just to be on the safe side we got two local real estate agents to provide comparables - which are examples of similar properties under offer or recently sold in the same (or very near) postcode. We ended up with five comparables plus a statement from the agents that our property was worth at least £40K more than what the valuation came in at.

The bank wouldn't budge and took a leisurely five weeks to let us know. NB we are not borrowing any more money, we have the same sized mortgage as before, we just wanted the better interest rate.

Sod that. We went to another bank. Despite the hasty patch up job on the ceiling the new valuer was a true gent. We showed him updated comparables and a recent quote for our house from Keatons and his valuation came in the very next day £45K more than the last guy.

I can't thank Debby from Keatons enough: we bought this property (and our last one) from Keatons and despite not being able to earn a penny from this transaction she provided comparables twice, and wrote a letter stating her professional valuation of our house to help us. It's not often you can really recommend real estate agents but here's one to contact if you're looking to buy or rent in Hackney!

Oh and with our new valuation, this means that we're able to get an even better rate of interest as our mortgage is now 70% of the value of the property - result :)

A seeping problem

I have what is technically called an ensuite bathroom that I've been using as a shoe storage facility. The water pressure was so dire it was pointless using the shower, but I could stack six boxes up to the roof. In December we got a new boiler installed and at the time the plumber had tested the shower pressure in the ensuite.

Two days ago I noticed that one of the plastic shoe boxes was half full of gungy coloured water. The shower head had been dribbling for the last four months. I pulled out all the boxes, the one pictured below was the worst of them: 18 pairs of shoes were water damaged, 10 were so far gone that they were unsalvageable. My £300 pair of suede Christian Louboutins - which are so uncomforable I've worn them three times - were mouldy. Of all my shoes, these are the one pair I wanted to save (£100 per wear is ridiculous, regardless of comfort).

Unfortunately, moving the boxes meant that the water was able to seep into a broken wall tile and within hours the ceiling in the TV room AND the spare room had both developed ugly brown watermarks.

Rob has now blocked off the leaky shower attachment with a special plug. He's going to do an emergency paint job tomorrow night. We have 48 hours to get it looking reasonable as the bank valuer is coming over for another round - the last valuation was so ludicrous we decided not to pursue a mortgage with that particular bank... great timing, but these things never seem to happen at a good time. It really is never ending isn't it?

What does it say on the tin?

In September we bought our outdoor furniture set from Ikea. It consisted of an acacia wood table and six matching chairs. I wrote a post about how we found the perfect set, and the driving required to secure it right here.

Within a fortnight of purchasing the table and chairs, I'd covered it with three coats of Ronseal Perfect Finish Garden Furniture Oil (£15 inc delivery). Ronseal's advertising slogan is: "Does exactly what it says on the tin". Upon peering at the packaging on their website it looks like it says "The quickest and easiest way to enhance and protect garden furniture".

As you can see from the photos, it doesn't actually protect or enhance garden furniture. In fact, we probably would've been better off NOT using this product. Within four months of winter weather, the surface started to bubble and lift. The constant rain during February didn't give the wood a chance to dry, so we bought a massive cover for £20 off Amazon. Despite being protected for the last six weeks, the table looks even worse for wear now that the Ronseal has lifted off completely, taking the wood stain with it. The table looks bleached and ancient.

I was expecting to get at least a couple of years before having to treat it again, so having really no more than five or six months is unbelievable. My neighbours (who have the same table and also used Ronseal) have the same problem, though theirs isn't quite as bad as ours. Our chairs are also suffering though not as bad as the table, yet.

We'll be sanding the table down and putting a new finish on it, none of Ronseal's products will be used though. As the table is available in Ikea again for £125 it was tempting to buy another one, but a few hours of elbow grease will sort it out...