Boxes and art

A few weeks ago we were visiting friends in New Zealand who'd moved into their new home around the same time we moved into ours. They haven't undertaken any major renovation work but the house felt more finished and welcoming. A few days ago we were inside our next door neighbour's place, again, no major renovation just some cosmetic improvements. And yes, it felt more finished too.

The difference with both of these homes was that they had no boxes piled up to the ceiling and their walls were adorned with artwork and photographs. We've been so busy focussing on all the "big" fixes that we've ignored the little things that make a home, well, a home.

I don't do New Years resolutions, but if I did it would be sort out our house this year. I am delegating the concrete counter fixes and splashback ordering to Rob, and I'm going to start dejunking the rest of the space. Those boxes have to go!

Rob and I don't have the same taste in art at all, but he did like the print I bought for our wedding anniversary last year from Etsy (pictured top) - the colours aren't the same as the one in the photo, but with any luck it'll be up on our walls shortly and I can post an actual photograph of it.

Office, boiler & outdoor furniture

This is the office nook with the desk and computer back in place. As you can see the boiler is kind of... dominant, and while a lovely bit of kit, it does make some odd noises. We've had a quote in from the Polish builder to house it in a cupboard with shelving underneath. This solution will muffle some of the gurgles and clicks. Not sure exactly when that's going to happen - we need to have the discussion about whether hiding the boiler in a cupboard will add value to the house in the first instance (to get through the mortgage valuation). If not, it can wait for a couple of months.

We arrived back in London on Sunday at 5am and got home a couple of hours later to find our garden was covered in snow. We knew it'd been snowing thanks to the panicked round-the-clock news coverage, but as it happens, the snow was beautiful and despite coming from a tropical climate, we didn't think it was particularly cold.

Annoyingly now that the snow has melted, I can see that three coats of Ronseal hasn't saved the wood on the table (which we only bought this summer) - the wood looks absolutely knackered and swollen with moisture. I'd think about swapping it with our lovely neighbour's identical table but I suspect they might notice. Or worse, be reading this blog!

Making good the wall

The weeks leading up to Christmas were crazy. Not only did the boiler get replaced (and relocated) but we had a lovely and efficient Polish builder over to make good this gaping hole that was now in the downstairs wall. Here it is pictured above, with newspaper covering to try and keep in the polystyrene balls which filled the wall cavity.

A week before Christmas we left the UK for a three week holiday to New Zealand and Malaysia. Three weeks is the longest holiday we've had since moving to the UK over ten years ago.

The dust and debris and suitcases (and cost!) seem like a distant memory as I write this from the Tanjung Rhu resort in Langkawi, especially reading that it's snowing in London this week.

The photo below shows the results of "making good" the wall after the first day, more pics to come of the wall after the plaster has dried. In the meantime, I'm off to try and find a sun lounger that hasn't been reserved by some over enthusiastic visitors from Germany...

Cosy...

Aaaah. Toasty warm house. I am writing this (literally) underneath the new boiler. It's making a comforting humming sound and the occasional rattle as gas or water moves through the pipes and vibrates into the hole shown at the top of this page. The new boiler is going to be housed in a cabinet (yes, another excuse for a bespoke cabinet) which should muffle the sound a bit. The lovely Polish builder who is "making good" the various holes and cracks around the house is popping back in the new year to sort the cabinet.

This photo above shows our sliding door solution - it's hung from a runner which is attached to the ceiling. I am so digging the sliding door action that I would recommend them for any room, preferably pocket ones if you can get inside a wall though. Unfortunately while our hung door looks impressive, it's quite heavy and the builder had to sort out a ceiling crack which appeared recently near the runner. The photo also shows the teeny hole made in the ceiling to accommodate the pipes into the new boiler.

And the photo below shows the boiler in it's new position in the spare room. It cost around £2,800 all up and took nearly three days to install, but by golly, it was worth it - we have OK water pressure in the shower and the heaters are all working better. Result.

Boiler update

I bet you've been wracked with nerves wondering what's going on with our boiler haven't you? No? Oh. Well I'll tell you anyway. Our mortgage is up for renewal early next year and in order for us to get a remotely agreeable interest rate we need the house to be worth quite a bit more than what we paid for it. We've done the sums and they stack up, but unfortunately our next door neighbours sold a few months ago for quite a lot less than what we paid for ours two years ago (because of a chain they needed a quick sale blah blah blah). This means that the value of our house will probably be lowered so that the postcode is all lined up, or whatever the excuse of valuers is.

So, we're going to bite the bullet and move the boiler up a floor into the spare room and box it in there, as having it on show in the dining space is an eyesore. This means my bespoke cabinet is getting further and further away, but it should mean the valuer sees a more streamlined - and expensive - looking property.

As for the boiler dilemma - the plumber reckons our water pressure is 1.7 bars so he says we can have a combi. This is good news because I just read this on a website: "Do not use water from a hot water system or your bathroom taps for drinking or cooking because it usually comes from a storage tank in the loft and is not as fresh or as safe as water directly from the mains." Gah! When hungover I have definitely refilled my bedside glass from the bathroom, and usually give the kids water from the bathroom to save trekking up and down two flights of stairs.

The combi is being delivered on Wednesday and it should take no more than one or two days to install. Of course there'll be a heck of a mess afterwards so we'll need a builder over soon into the new year to "make good" the plasterboard and flooring that will be ripped up to find the pipework. The combi won't have hotel quality water pressure like our current power shower, and it will cost about £2,800 all up (plus whatever the builder charges).

Putting a pump on the header tank in the loft (and installation) will cost another £500, but we're going to see if we can live with normal water pressure first. We used to at our last place so unless it's really bad I guess we'll get by. It is fabulous being able to run a bath in about three minutes but it's not actually necessary. My only concern is if the pressure drops off when someone flushes a loo or runs a tap in another part of the house. Our washing machine and dishwasher are plumbed with cold water only so they shouldn't have any impact on the shower. This is the sort of stuff people normally take for granted, but actually it can make a difference to your life if done badly.

Oh and the photo at top has nothing to do with this post, but the kid on the cover is my daughter from a shoot she did nearly three years ago. This issue of Junior is the January issue and is out now at all good news stands in the UK...

We moved in a year ago!

Happy anniversary gravy, got you on my mii-i-ind! (Musical reference, Little River Band FYI). Yup, a whole year has passed. And despite all the hiccups and dramas, when you compare how this house looked when we first exchanged contracts to how it looks now. I have to admit, I am pretty chuffed with how it's turned out. Here's a bunch of before and after shots for your perusal (NB these house pics show the possessions/taste of the previous occupants)

At top shows how the entrance hall looked, and below is how it looked as of half an hour ago...



Here is the original stair case:



And here it is today:



This is the utility room that used to be at the bottom of the stairs:



And you can see how it looks now, with that pesky boiler turned 90 degrees, because the back wall was knocked out for the extension:



Here's the original TV room in the middle floor:



And here's how it looks now - note the boxes still yet to unpack, and the kids clutter (that yellow and blue thing is a puppet show theatre):

Boiler progression

Img from vaillant.co.uk

Unless you're about to replace your own boiler I can't imagine that this post will be very interesting, but here goes. Rob managed to negotiate the plumber down by £240 by sourcing the boiler off t'internet. This meant that we'd have a new boiler and water storage tank installed for around £2,260.

The date was agreed with the plumber for this Thursday as the boiler was meant to arrive "next working day if ordered by 4pm" . Only it turns out that the boiler can't actually be delivered until sometime on Thursday. Which won't really work as it needs to be here before the plumber kicks off.

Rob has cancelled the order, and postponed the installation date with the plumber.

Now that he's given it some thought, he's making noises about installing a Combi system. This is hugely appealing for several reasons:

1. It means no more boiler in our dining room! So long as the plumber can get access to a gas pipe, the boiler could live up in our spare room, probably above the desk where I'm writing this right now.
2. It means the hot water cupboard in the kids bedroom can go - hoorah! More space!
3. It means no more noisy water pump whenever you run a tap on the top floor
4. It's better for the environment
5. It's cheaper to run

On the downside:

1. If there's a gas outage, we have no hot water
2. Unless we have one bar minimum water pressure, it won't work
3. It'll cost an extra £500 or so
4. We'll have to "make good" the plaster and flooring that gets ripped up to reticulate the pipes

Someone is going to investigate the water pressure this week - unless we have that one bar then we're back to the original plan. I'm not optimistic that the water pressure will pass this test as my "ensuite" is effectively a shoe storage area owing to the dribble that comes out of the shower head...

Great minds think alike

Img courtesy of Flickr

As soon as I have a weekend at home I will photograph all the things in the house that we've yet to sort out. The last three weekends have been spent in various parts of the English countryside - kicking autumnal leaves and drinking litres of delicious wine. Hopefully I can make some time this coming weekend.

Until then here's a lovely white kitchen which features a dash of high gloss on the counter top, and chartreuse green as an injection of colour. Oh and they've got moulded white retro chairs and wooden floors too. I used to cringe at my parents bold orange 1970s colour palette once the 1980s were underway, and I guess my kids will have the same reaction to our aesthetic choices before too long. "Eeoow, this house is so, 2008, urgh!"

The plumber came back with a quote - £2,500 to fit a new boiler and replace the water storage tank. Apparently all the necessary parts can be bought for around £1,000 which means the labour (ie one days work) is being costed at £1,500. No wonder so many people are re-training as plumbers! Rob's offered to buy the parts directly to see if we can negotiate a reduced day rate. Watch this space.

Good light for photos

So far we've had one plumber come round to quote for the new boiler. We used to live next door to his parents, and he did the boiler at our flat. Top bloke. It's been a week and a half so we're hoping the quote is imminent. The other plumber I contacted didn't show up and I'm having trouble getting a recommendation for anyone else (if you happen to have a reliable boiler oriented plumber's number, please leave it in a comment below). Would be good to have two quotes for comparison purposes.

The photo at the top was taken by a professional photographer who specialises in taking kids photos. Despite the rainy day there was plenty of light, she hardly used her light reflector. The new Verner Panton chairs were put to good use, though I wish I'd paid more attention to wrangling Gwen (the one in pink), of the hundreds of photos taken she's pulling silly faces in 90% of them.

If you have kids and you're based in London, I can recommend Francesca the photographer - very patient and produces better portraits than I can manage. Here's her website: http://francescaquerci.com/

And some examples of her work below (Yup, these are my kids...)

Cabinet stop gap

Another Friday night at Ikea. We must be getting pretty good at it now as we don't fight any more. Partly due to knowing all the short cuts around the store, but also learning the tricks - such as eating first, parking near the lifts where you exit from rather than near the entrance and making a list.

On this trip we bought the two metal cabinets mentioned in an earlier post, and two plastic trays. Not bad. The cabinets in their massive flat pack boxes only just made it into the Volvo (had to remove the back seat headrests though), but were remarkably easy to assemble.

I ordered a 37" flatscreen Toshiba Regza from Amazon including all the cables, a temporary indoor antenna and related bits for under £500 (there goes the holiday fund) which arrived the next day. The upside of having a second TV is that Rob can watch sport and the kids can watch Spongebob... and I can read the newspaper supplements in peace.

The room is starting to feel really useful, instead of cold and bland. We'll get a third cabinet actually, since this will be our storage for the next couple of years. Looking forward to getting all our artwork up on the walls this side of Christmas.

Now to find a plumber who actually shows up as we need that boiler replaced, and soon.

Click the photo below to see a supersize panorama taken at the weekend...