There's No Going Back...

I love peeling wallpaper off. In our hall, the paint has gone funny and we can peel it off the wall. All 3 of us have taken to peeling it off as we go past


Dom has decided to take thr kitchen ceiling down... without taking a single thing out of the kitchen, and that includes the washing on the kitchen floor. I'm not impressed.

We have something like that going on at our front door as well, we had a leak from the ensuite above, we basically need a whole new bathroom its that bad and also need to re paint the porch, my 22 month niece likes to stand and peel it off. I cant see it been sorted anytime soon either lol.

Thats the way my hubby likes to work Nik. He is in that much of a rush to finish that its a rush job. When he done the bedroom I didnt bother to make the bed as I assumed we were emptying the room but no he just left the unmade bed in the middle of the room and worked around it. The tv was still plugged in and he got paint all down the new set of drawers. He then bought turpentine to clean off the paint but somehow the unopened bottle ended up lying out in the snow all winter instead

Oh dear!! Men are hopeless sometimes, aren't they?

We've had Sophie taking up the floor tiles too today. "I'm helping!!" She declared when I asked what she was doing

How is it comming along today?

We have decided to take the in laws cooker and sink as they are in much better condition than ours, they are only 3-4 years old and immaculate condition and they are total clean freaks so I jumped in and said we woukd take them. We might live to regret it as it will show up how bad our kitchen actually is but i really hate our appliences. We have a white sink currently but its really dirty looking due to the last owners and the paints peeling away at the taps so the silver sink will look better and our white cooker is a mess as well plus the hob has never worked properly hopefully switching to the silver will help until we can afford a kitchen we like

It's a case of:

Bye bye old door...


Hello new entrance...


And the ceiling has come down to get to the electrics and pipes.


I'm sure the silver appliances won't show up your current kitchen, it might prompt you to get a new one though!

We moved in here in 2010, and we're only just getting to the kitchen. I should have taken photos before we started anything

Haha im sure the mess will be worth it.

Yeah I could probarly talk hubby into a quick new worktop and cupboard doors but I should really wait and get it done right, I really want a breakfast bar but its a small kitchen and no room for one really but I have made my mind up and will compromise and knock down the wall or get rid of a cupboard so I should wait but im also impulsive, I usually dive in then regret it.

Once we get the bedroom finished, we need to get a new bathroom as the current one is leaking and not working properly. The boiler is broke and just hoping it is a repair rather than replace. We need to get the spare rooms a bit more furnished then we can concentrate on the kitchen. Its neverending lol

We had a new bathroom when we found out that I was pregnant, but it's gone hideously mouldy everywhere as we have no heating at all, and with 3 adults and a child in the house, it never dries out. Our newishly decorated living room has gone mouldy too

Definately worth planning it all out, especially if you want to take walls out. I think I had about 6 different versions of our kitchen to see if I could get something useful and nice. Our original layout only had 2 useable corners and limited wall space as it had 3 doors and a hatch in it, but when we've finished, we'll have 4 corners, 2 doors and no hatch, which gives us so much more space

Just found this pic from just as we were starting

Yeah, our en suite has went mouldy right from the start. The walls and ceiling just thick black mould, we managed to repaint it last year and its not too bad but can see its starting to come back again gradually.
The tiles are horrible, all black and mouldy and I cant do much cleaning to them because they are cracked and leaking. The shower door is on with 1 hinge and nearly had a bad accident trying to clean it one day, also the bottom of the shower tray fell off so you can see the pipes and you can see a big wet patch as the shower leaks so can only have the shower at certain angles. The toilet leaked and ruined our newly painted living room and porch then we got a plumber out who sugested a new toilet which has never ever worked so we are just waiting to rip the whole thing out when we can afford it. As im having so many problems with cracking tiles and mouldy walls im thinking of getting those plastic boards all way round but will need to see what a plumber suggests.

Do you have heating/ventilation in the bathroom? Also check out Victoria Plumb, apparently they are really reasonable

Yeah, I tend to leave the fan on all day until bedtime as well as the window. This is the second time this has happened as our first house was a smaller one on the same estate and this happened in the main bathroom now we moved in here and same happened. Looking forward to ripping it out but will need to live with it another few years til we can afford it

So, in my kitchen I have an oven, a fridge and lots of mess Dom has moved the fusebox and has for the last couple of been doing the plumbing. He's had some problems so we've had no water since Monday evening but he's managed to fix it all tonight. So proud of him!!

Poor Dom, things are not going quite to plan. When he tried to move the fusebox to the other side of the wall, the wall started crumbling. The more he tried to fix it, the worse it got. So today he's had to hire more props to hold the wall above up so he could take it out to rebuild it. We have had to postpone the delivery date as he can't get it done in time.

On the plus side, I really wanted the meter on the other side of the wall too but it would have cost us a couple of grand as i involves working with the main supply. But, because it was directly below the fusebox and fixed to a board, now the wall is being rebuilt, they can be moved, without paying a fortune!! Wahoo

That's good news.  How much longer is it going to take now?

Who knows tomorrow he's rebuilding the wall and sorting the last few plug sockets. Then he's looking into the shower as it started leaking into the kitchen tonight. Then we mostly just have to plaster whilst we wait for the new kitchen to arrive. Unless things go horribly wrong, it should with any luck be done by the end of November

At least Dom can do the work.  Lee can only do basic fit, which means we have to hire people in and we don't have the money to spare.

Dom isn't trained to do anything, he's learning as he goes along with the help of family and the Internet. The most he's trained to do is put up marquees or fry fish and chips. He's very practical and enjoys the physical labour side of things though. He's doing amazingly considering

Wow, that's amazing, if he's giving it a go.   Lee can do things once he's been shown - he's tiled our bathroom.  He probably wouldn't do the kitchen though.

Dom still isn't forgiven for the hairy sisters though 

He seems to be well and its good he is keeping going even when theres a few problems. My hubby would be enthusastic at the start then the first sign of something not going to plan he would give up. He is getting better at things, he now researches things on the internet and gives it a go himself instead of arranging workmen straight away. He has a tendancy to start a project and not finishing though like the half built fitted wardrobes he was keen to start but not finish and we now have a nice big hole in the garden where he was keen to start practicing for his patio

I'm very glad Dom isn't like that, he hates to sit still. He has had a productive year, he's ripped out some conifers and hawthorns which he's replaced with fences, he's taken up concrete and put down new concrete that he's then built decking on and now he's doing the kitchen. The decking isn't quite finished but the weather isn't really letting him get on so the last bit will be done in the summer

My hubby done that this year as well and finished it, he planted connifors and few other things this year and also done well building a fence out the front. My hubby is impatient though so he starts everything all keen, he was out doing the garden stuff at like 5am at the weekends but instead of just saying thats enough for this year he starts digging holes and taking me to see nice slabs and decking ideas then that was the end of that lol. I think his next job is some sort of shoe storage. I have about 4 big plastic boxes of shoes that is so annoying as can never find anything so im want some shelves probarly in the fitted wardrobes so hopefully he will knock something up soon as i have shoes just lying around everywere in the spare rooms but im not getting rid of any either

This whole kitchen lark is slow going poor Dom only got the ceiling up this morning. He's had massive problems with the electrics and then the shower leaking into the kitchen. He still has to plaster the room, so I think we'll be delaying the kitchen delivery again. One of his friends has offered to help at the weekend which is really nice of him

Hope you get it finished soon, its always the same when work is being done as it always leads to more problems.

We have had bad luck as well. We got the cooker from hubbys parents so my electrician brother fitted it on Friday but couldnt do the gas hob as needed someone gas approved. We were both out on Friday night seprately then we both went a day out on Saturday so wasnt until night we came home at night we thought we could smell gas. We thought we were being over cautious but we phoned the emergency number anyway and it turned out it was a dangerous gas leak so he turned the gas off and that included the boiler so we have had no cooker or heating since last night. We have someone comming out tomorrow but no idea how much they will charge. It was a good job we didnt use the cooker, hubby was going to cook sausages on Fri night but decided to get a takeaway and its not like me to go out on a Fri either so I would definitly have used the cooker. To top it all of we will now need to get a new sink to match as father in law had broken something underneath when he was fitting it so it wasnt able to be refitted. So much for a freebie its going to cost us a few hundred pounds

That's a shame PC, have a Google and see if you can find some nice but cheap sinks. Glad the gas is sorted, we have an old pipe in our kitchen that we were going to remove but when Dom undid the valve some gas, albeit old stale gas, came out. Since he was going to angle grind it off, we've decided it's safer to leave it.

The kitchen has arrived and is stacked in the dining room ready to build. The electrics are finally sorted and the plumbing is done. Building the cabinets are going to be a mission and a half. The delivery drivers didn't think it would fit so Dom and they crammed it in, putting pieces in wherever it would fit. Only to find that it only takes up half the room

We decided to get a plasterer in rather than Dom doing it, as we couldn't delay the kitchen delivery again and Dom was struggling to get things finished in time. We're just waiting for the plaster to dry so we can give a quick coat of paint.

Will post pictures if I ever get a computer back. I'm currently avoiding the kitchen as I had an allergic reaction to the drying hardwall last night. One minute I was fine and the next I couldn't breathe, I was coughing and sneezing, my nose bunged and my eyes were swollen. An antihistamine and a shower seemed to clear the worst and I'm feeling a lot better now the house has been aired and the hardwall has been covered with plaster, but working on a better safe than sorry policy.

Hopefully you will get it ready in time for Xmas.