Sunday 21 April 2013

The River Dee on a Sunny Day

We are all loving the weather at Vivod. Yesterday Child #3 and I went into Chester to do some shopping (he was after a new pencil case - the sort that come with all the pens and pencils inside it, in neat little holders), after finding one of those, some treats for me and some clothes for us both we went down to the river. I think I've taken you to Chester before, but I've never shown you the river which I love. I took some pictures, and so did my boy, but in general, I can't tell who took which...




































We ate ice cream and then walked back into Chester. On the way back he commented 'We've walked a long way today!", I agreed we probably had but nowhere near as far as a friend of mine who did 28 miles of walking yesterday for charity!! I'm so impressed! We probably only did about 4 which, in comparison, is pathetic!

I have some other things to blog about from last weekend which I will try and catch up with soon.

Sunday 7 April 2013

Attic Renovation Part II

So having moved the bedroom furniture away from the eaves that needed clearing, the next stage was to do just that.

This is what the eaves looked like then...




Grim isn't it?!

See those boxes there...? The ones with lots of paper in?...


They contained hundreds of these!!...


Yes, poor Vivod was once inhabited by those crazy JWs! I did already know this because I found loads of stuff when I moved in relating to them but I thought I had removed it all!

Anyway, back to the attic. LOTS of clearing took place. Largely involving me lugging stuff down 2 flights of stairs and then through the ground floor. I think the back of my garden is probably the furthest point from the attic. By the end of the day I was exhausted but it was worth it...





Now, it just needed a few boards and something on the roof to stop all that 'gunk' from landing on my belongings. So a little tarpaulin and a staple gun later...



Ta-dah! It's not finished but you get the idea. The boards need to be screwed down and the other side still needs doing too but I would actually be happy to put stuff in there now if I needed to.

So where did it all go?...

Here!
I also took the opportunity to clear some clutter from the garden too but I will come back to that another day.

Wednesday 3 April 2013

The Attic Renovation - Part I

Ok, slight change of plan this year. I was planning on doing the hallway, stairs and landing. Instead, the attic will be done first. To be honest, whilst this isn't the main reason, it does make sense to do this first as I would have needed to replace the stairs up to the attic as part of the landing renovation anyway, and also get one of the attic walls done too. 

So today I made a start.

Do you remember my attic?




Beautiful isn't it? ;-) Well it serves two purposes really. It's my bedroom but also tends to become a bit of traditional dumping ground too as I'd rather the stuff was up there, out of sight, than sat around the rest of the house. The renovation won't be quick and whilst some of this takes place I still need the room as a bedroom. So I started today by removing all of that delightful and modern fitted bedroom furniture...





S'gone! (as my middle child would say)

It was about lunchtime by this point, my bed was covered in the contents of the wardrobes and drawers, the floor was covered in bits of wood, rubbish, tools, etc. I was covered in dust and grime.

Now, I have 2 attics, one pictured above, and another smaller attic over the back of the house. There are also eaves along the left of the main attic that used to house the water tanks (now decommissioned), along with a significant amount of rubbish and who knows what else left by the previous owner. The plan is to remove all of that, board the eaves, board the smaller attic, and provide access to both areas which can then be used to store all the general 'loft stuff' that most people have. The main attic can then just be a bedroom. 

So, in order to start sorting the small attic I needed to shift my bed to the other side of the room, and then sort out everything that was in the room into either 'Loft stuff' or 'Bedroom stuff'. With a lot of effort, cleaning, sneezing, cursing, bruising and a little mishap I managed to create a liveable space by tea time...

Small beginnings.

Close your eyes and you can almost forget where you are!

I even cleaned that window for the first time ever.

That's the 'Loft Stuff' waiting to move to it's new home on the other side of that wall.

Who needs wardrobes?!

Obviously that bike is ornamental and will shortly make its way to ebay or even freecycle.
So not bad for one day I think. Admittedly I can barely move on the landing or hallway at present but that's tomorrow's job. I'm not really sure why I it took me so long to get rid of those cupboards but at least it's done now anyway. I think I have earned a nice big glass of wine today.