Learning to love home improvement.
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I couldn't move into my new room until the violent shade of blue was gone. Just covered it in white for now, three coats, and omigosh what a relief.
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Sanding, filling holes, and painting the hallway from twitter-blue to white, finally.
I made shelves for shoes! I came really close to buying some a couple of weeks ago - from etsy, made of reclaimed crates - then realised how slack I was getting on the reuse front. I scavenged wood from three places: Some shelves I didn't need from the built-in cupboard in the bathroom; the bins across the courtyard; Grain & Sustain, who had some offcuts going spare. And borrowed tools from a neighbour. I bought screws (and reused a few that I extracted from the G&S wood). For want of a workshop, I did sawing on the beach and in my bedroom. I measured and planned; Dave helped me with drilling and solving some logistical issues. It's pretty janky, but it functions, and it's MINE. I don't think making shelves is my true calling though.
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When I first moved here I wished for steps down to my nearest bit of beach, instead of the slippery muddy slope down the verge. One of my neighbours had been thinking about solving this problem for some years, too, and had both expertise and vision to actually do it (unlike me). So with five and a half hours work (including lunch break) and lots of digging and rock hauling, the two of us built these steps. It was deeply satisfying, and they look like they've always been there.
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Removed the unnecessarily bulky builtin wardrobe from my bedroom to reclaim the space for better things. Except I guess it's been here since the flat was built, because they didn't bother to finish the floor, walls or ceiling underneath. So now I have new and exciting voids and exposed brickwork. Also the edges don't line up. K gave me some MDF for a temporary floor, but I'm probably going to need a professional to deal with the rest.
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Dave took down his fitted cupboards. There were no fantastical wall voids like in my room, thankfully, but we did find a creepy haunted baby photo.
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Put art on my walls. Unprecedented level of settling in.
Deconstructing the old, slightly gross, bathroom, with a hammer. Fortunately the tiles came down easily without too much disruption to the underlying plasterboard. And then work begins on putting new tiles up.
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I learned to grout, and grouted a lot. Also spent much time cleaning dried on adhesive off all of the tiles (grumble). The sink, shower, and toilet got plumbed in, the shower screen up, the floor down, and a new bath panel made from fragments of the old one plus flooring. It's almost there.
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Finally resolved the void! After the plaster had dried, I sealed with with diluted PVA and gave it two coats of white paint. Then turfed all of my stuff (all two bags of it) out of my room and moved the hammock to the living room, and transformed it into something that looks more like an actual bedroom, for guest use this month.
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A secondhand TV cabinet from Furniture Plus, transformed into a bathroom sink unit. I sanded it down (much more work than anticipated, despite help from friends and tools) then re-varnished it a darker colour. Also boosted the height by a couple of inches with some scrap wood. Dad did the work of making the holes for the sink, and plumbing it all in.
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Dad returned, and started dismantling the ensuite with a hammer. The shower fitting is nonstandard, the sink waste runs uphill, and the stepladder went through a rotten bit of floorboard. But the shower wall we wanted to remove came out just fine, and most of the material from it was fit to be repurposed to re-enclose the upstairs pipes that needed to be boxed in again.
Found some beautiful yew in R's shed. Sanded it down, treated it, filled borer holes, and oiled it about six times over the course of a couple of weeks. Bought, by accident, unfinished steel brackets off ebay. So I had to spraypaint them black. Finally it all came together into bathroom shelves. Which Dave promptly covered with all of his mysterious potions.
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Work on the ensuite uncovered an exciting floor void, and rotten floorboards that the step ladder fell through. Tiles went up, a new floor went down, toilet from ebay and sink unit from Freegle were installed, and existing towel rail was moved. The wooden shelf was yet another piece of beautiful wood, ash this time, scavenged from R's shed, that was almost exactly the right dimensions already, and I sanded down and varnished it. Dad left, and I repainted the walls with white bathroom paint. Two weeks later Dad came back, and installed the heated towel rail to replace the radiator, and fitted a new ceiling as the old one was rotting a bit. The mirror had been an issue as the window interfered with the space above the sink, and we need one that works for people between 5 and 6.5 feet tall. Astonishingly at the last moment I picked up a mirror with a frame to match the shelf from the secondhand furniture shop for £3 with a swivel stand, so we bolted that to the windowsill and it was perfect.
I needed a cabinet to cover an unsightly pipe in the ensuite. I thought I'd have to modify something, but I found this fantastic thing in Castle Furniture in Glenrothes. It has already been modified, so the base fit perfectly over the pipe, and perfectly in the gap available. I'll paint it white, but I also look forward to Dave's deeply offended reaction when he sees the farmyard animals.
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Finally cleared Dave's room the guest room and painted a base layer of white to cover twitter-blue and bare plaster.
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Laid laminate floor in Dave's room the guest room. Once again, Max's help was invaluable.
R and Max and I insulated under the floor in Dave's room the guest room. Under one half of the room there was a positively comfortable 2 feet of space to maneuver in, but under the other half it got down to a foot or less. Not horrifying at all. This involved duct taping and cable tying insulation tubes around as many pipes as we could get to, and stapling and taping thick foily stuff over it all. It took the better part of a weekend and felt like a mega achievement. Max did most of the work, obviously.
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Dave's room The guest room becomes white and purple. This was my first ever time painting a colour and it was fun.
Painted my room in pale grey and dark green, and gave the ceiling a coat of white to get rid of nicotine stains from the previous occupant. My cosy crochet corner is finally complete. More or less got the hang of painting straight along edges without taping them up.
Ever since I saw this rock in March, I have aspired to paint my hallway that shade of purple. Today I finally started. And also the very important job of de-yellowing the ceiling.
I finally took up the carpet in my bedroom. To my great disappointment, someone poured concrete under the front half of the flat. So my dream of having a secret trapdoor to underfloor storage in the 3-4 feet of space I thought was down there has been dashed. Some of the floorboards are knackered, so I might end up having to replace the lot.
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Espresso machine havoc that lasted for weeks is finally put back together.
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Took up the smelly old carpet in my bedroom and removed damaged floorboards. Insulated what was possible of the pipes beneath, and fit new floorboards. Then laid new laminate floor, as modelled by Max.
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Finished floor edging and skirting for the missing bits of skirting, and put my room back together. Also got an adorable stool for the extra couple of inches I need to get into the hammock now.
My hammock is now attached to the walls instead of on a stand. This gives me a lot more space around it, but more importantly makes it high enough that I can see the sea and the sunrise from it, so I never need to get up again.
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Removed an inbuilt kitchen cupboard to fit a bigger fridge freezer. Polyfilled the holes, sanded and sealed the unfinished wall behind, and painted it. Then covered it all up with the new fridge, of course.
Paintings commissioned from Sarah Wakeford, inspired by rocks at Buckhaven beach are finally on the wall - one in the hallway and one in Dave's bedroom. They're gorgeous in and of themselves, but I love that Sarah walked to the coordinates I gave her to see the rocks in-person in order to create the paintings.
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I put some pictures on the walls that have been sitting around for ages, which made me feel very accomplished.
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Successfully removed the builtin hallway cupboards. Behind them was surprisingly not a disaster! A bit of hole filling to do, but basically ready for shelves.
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Looking for hallway decor inspiration in Rejects. Patching up the inside of the cupboards with plaster and R's help.
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Finally finished filling and sanding and painting the nooks in my hallway following the built-in cupboard removal. I mixed purple and green paints leftover from the bedrooms to make kind of a darker more moody purple, managed to not just end up with grey or brown. I like how the dark colours and lack of light in the nook makes the ceiling invisible/indefinite. R helped me make shelves from a stack of decking wood that has been sitting around in his shed for years. Just cleaned it up and cut to size, no finishing.
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An excellent new light fitting for 50p from Furniture Plus. The chilli plants moved into my living room, along with a great many aphids :/
Far longer than planned browsing fabric in Rejects. I think I'll get the black and gold with mushrooms/space/leaves for a wee curtain and cushion in my hallway. Also, some astonishing light fittings, that are far too expensive.
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Started putting shelves up in the hallway nook. R can't resist the opportunity to insulate something of course, so we took up the floor boards, cleaned all of the junk out (found a whole set of drill bits!) levelled the floor and put insulation in, then put laminate down (leftover from Dave's room). Started populating the shelves with pantry and gardening items.
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The finishing touch for the hallway nook pantry - fairy lights, which I scavenged from a box of "free stuff" cleared out of my late neighbour's flat. (And to make Mum happy, I strung up the seed advent calendar she sent me there as well.)