Moving House

Today, we’re moving house. It should be fairly pain-free (with luck) – although most of it involves relying on other people to do stuff. (I’m looking at you, BT)

Of course, if BT don’t do their thing, I’m going to be offline for the weekend. We’ll see.

Preparations

Well, we’re just about ready.

The dog’s doped to the eyeballs, Psycho Cat is in a basket and ready for transportation. The current place is pretty much packed now – only the PC, desk, and stereo that really need doing now.

And then tomorrow it’s all happening.

At long bloody last.

Electrical Work

So, today the electrician is starting work on the new house – new lights, new fusebox, new switches, new sockets, the normal gubbins.

At the same time, the guy from EDF Energy is coming to survey the work we want EDF to do in order to move the meters and supply round the corner.

Hopefully this means I can organise it so that electrician shall speak unto electrician, rather than the un-techie me having to act as middle-man in conversations between them.

Regardless, though, it’s another step along the line of getting work done before we move in. Definitely A Good Thing.

Progression

Today, we’re another step along the way to getting the new house at least somewhat sorted before we move in (in two weeks’ time – eek!)

The people installing the wood-burning stove have turned up to do the initial stuff, knocking out the old fireplace and back-boiler, and getting things ready for installing the stove itself a week on Monday.

Yesterday we got the boiler serviced, (and I really must think about sorting out an oil delivery sometime soon) and also got a quote for moving a couple of radiators in the house, which is another couple of jobs off the list.

I’m also sorting out mail redirection today so that it’ll be in place for when we move. All part of the fun and games.

But at least we’re getting there, and should be at least in the vicinity of sorted for the 25th…

Skip #3

Over the weekend (and mainly on Sunday, to be fair) we filled another 4ft³ skip, this time just with garden rubbish – dead plants, rubbish, and general crap. There’s a little bit more to be done (that joy will be tonight) and then the skip can go off to wherever skips go when they’re full.

And yes, in theory we could’ve taken it all to the local(ish) tip to be added to their garden waste area, but well, it would’ve taken at least five journeys, and a fortune in green plastic bags. So a skip made more sense.

For now, the garden is currently pretty much sorted. Which means we move on to the house, and doing some of the stuff that needs doing before we move in at the end of May. That means fun stuff like doing the floor tiles for three rooms, and getting everything ready for the end of the month.

It’s all coming together quite nicely, thankfully.

Gardening

This weekend we’ve spent time in the garden, getting a lot of it sorted. Not just Herself and I, but also the in-laws, all helping out.
We’ve managed to:

• put in a base for a new shed
• built and installed the shed
• bought, set up and used a petrol mower for the garden
• in the greenhouse
  • stripped it out
  • covered the floor of it in anti-weed membrane,then in pea shingle
  • reinstalled all the staging on one side at a decent height
• removed two (small) trees that weren’t doing well
• built two compost bins, and started using them

In additon, the rest of the poxy Anaglypta® wallpaper is now gone from the house.

Oh, and we’ve decided on the woodburner we want, (the Elegance 200) along with the hearth-stone and back plate (both slate), and generally just got stuff sorted out.

All very successful. If knackering.

House Stuff

I’m only doing a half-day at work today, then heading off to the new house. We’ve got people coming round to show us a couple of wood-burners for the living room, and to see what needs doing to the place in order to accommodate one. It’s something we both want to have in the place, so with a bit of luck it shouldn’t be a great problem. *crosses fingers*
Alongside that, we’ve also got the new garden shed being delivered at some point today (“Yes, Sir, it’ll be there some time between 7am and 7pm – if you’re not going to be there, can you leave a note on the front door, authorising us to leave it. No, we can’t just tell the delivery driver to leave it, you have to give your written authorisation.” So why not just advertise we’re not moved in yet? Fuckin’ twunts)
Over the last week, we’ve also taken delivery of:

• All the floor tiles for the house, as well as necessary tile adhesive, grout etc. – which came on two pallets
• A small toolstore
• A 400litre water butt
• Two wooden compost bins
• Oh, and had a visit from an electrician, checking out what we’re planning on doing with the place.

Because of the shit-for-brains way that the fusebox and main electrical supply is located (which has to be seen to be believed, but is basically boxed-in at the side of a kitchen unit, so that it’s pretty much inaccessible) it means that we’re also going to have to move the supply, and fusebox. Which means getting the electricity supplier involved, as it’s supply-side rather than domestic-side. Oh good, that’ll be fun. But the wheels have been set in motion this week on that one too.
All told, things are going pretty well. We’ve had the place two weeks, that’s all, and we seem to have managed to get a lot done.
Initially the plan was to be moving in next weekend, but from the way things are going – and the work that still needs doing all over the place – I think we’re now looking at the end of May to move in to the place. It means we can get the electrical stuff done, the flooring in living room and two bedrooms (which is pretty much all the rooms that won’t be having something done to them – the only other room that’s unaffected by our plans is the hallway!) and hopefully also get the wood-burner installed before we go in.
That’s the plan, anyway. We’ll just have to see how things pan out.

Knackered

I’ve been up at the new house again this weekend, and in that time I’ve

• ‘Pruned’ (AKA annihilated) a buddleia, right back to first growths, which has left it roughly 10% of the original size. This is A Good Thing
• Tidied a lot of the garden, and chopped up the remains of the annihilation for use on the wood-burner when we have that installed
• Removed 11m² of poxy bloody laminate flooring and underlay
• Removed 18.5m² of manky lino floor tiles

In addition there’s been all the normal domestic stuff – shopping, walking Hound, playing with Hound in the new garden etc. etc.

And now, I have to say, I’m totally bloody knackered. Which is fair.

Day Four (of four)

Not a lot been done on the house today – mainly because of social plans, but also because it’s good to have a day where we’re not working on it solidly.

At the same time, though, I’ve bought a decent lump hammer and wrecking bar (crowbar, prybar, whatever) in order to finish off that poxy fireplace as well as getting rid of laminate, lino floor tiles and the like in other places.

In addition, we’ve decided on the necessary amendments to the plans sent to us by the architect, and checked up on some suppliers, and ordered some brochures.

All in all, we’re just getting sorted for the next weeks or so of work.

Day Three (of four)

Jesus, I’m knackered. Today’s been busy, and we’ve got a lot done.

Before		After

That’s the living room, before and after. The fucking horrid fireplace is all but gone, although it’s been an utter bastard. Whichever genius put the thing in appears to have put the rocks/bricks about six inches in front of the wall, and then filled the gap with concrete/cement. It’s a serious bit of kit – or at least it was.

We’ve also stripped half the wallpaper from the hallway – it’s fucking Anaglypta, and an utter, utter cunt to get rid of – and half the wallpaper in the living room as well. Although (as the photos show) it’s also taken a whole chunk of plaster with it. But that wall needed reskimming anyway once the fireplace is removed completely.

Tomorrow is going to be quiet, as we’re doing social stuff instead of working at the house. And now I’m off for a shower, because I’m fucking filthy, ache all over, and aim to collapse for the evening soon after.

Day Two (of four)

We haven’t done as much on the house today, although we’ve still been hugely busy.

We’ve visited various tile places – having done the measuring yesterday, we now know how many we need, so it’s all been about finding out what the right tiles will be, and how much it’ll cost for a huge number of them. (as well as what kind of discounts we can get) And it now looks like we’ll know what we’re getting, where from, and how much for. All rather reassuring.
Of course, now we just need to order it all – but that can’t happen ’til Tuesday, as the place won’t be open until then.
We’ve also checked out some lighting places and DIY places for the things we want.
And a chunk of the manky 80’s style fireplace is now gone – well, it’s on the floor at the moment, but it’s certainly no longer attached to the wall, which is definitely A Good Thing.

Day One (of four)

Well, that’s been busy.

• Removed all crappy faux stone garden ‘decorations’. The fuckin’ bizarre people who were there before had fairies, owls, foxes, rabbits, pigs, frogs, and a couple of dodgy statue things. They’ve all been committed to the skip.
• All the horrific 70s-style carpets have been removed, as well as the underlay – still (as we suspected) wet from the leak/flood we had back in February, so they’re in the skip
• The remaining lump of furniture has been kicked apart (MAN, that was fun) and chucked in the skip
• The garage has been emptied of all the left-over crap – it’s still got an amount of stuff in it, but that stuff should be at least useful
  and, finally,
• the entire house and garden has been measured properly, so we know what we’re dealing with.

We’ve filled a six m³ skip with stuff – OK, there’s still some room for stuff like the carpet gripper rods and the like, and for a few other odds and sods, but still, it’s pretty much filled.
It’s been a busy day, but really pretty successful.
Mind you, we’re both utterly knackered now…