South London Semi

Are we there yet?

2011-01-30T12:44:00.006Z

No. But, inching ever closer.

My lovely friend Nick_Cee asked if we would be tiling the boxing in, which would make sense. We decided rather than spending on more of the marble, we would use the considerable space either side of the loo for some storage. There are doors to either side (currently resting on the other side of the room after being painted), but the idea is that Mr SLS and I get a side each.

Decorating in the shower room is almost complete.

I am planning on putting some sort of cabinet over the loo for storage, or a Kartell Componibili unit under the sink.

Heals used to do a red medicine cabinet in a cross shape, but I can't find it anywhere on their website. I wonder if it has been discontinued? Ikea do a nice one as well, red again. I quite fancy the idea of a bit of red against the grey.

The little loo, just begging for a yellow ikat roman blind. I have gone as far as to order a sample of the fabric. I am hoping I will hate it. Ikea used to do a fabric with a broad yellow stripe but it seems they no longer have it in stock, as I took a little trip over there the other day.

We have decided to have some built in storage made for the wall to the right of the windows in the new loft room, and a run of cupboards under the velux windows to the front. Wardrobes will be mine (over 2 metres of storage, somebody pinch me, I must be dreaming) and the low cupboards will belong to the Mr. Very excited about this. Not so excited that they can't start until week after next, but they are good and very fast these guys, so I think it is worth waiting for. I have asked them to quote for laying the wood floor. I think I have found a substitute for the element7 flooring, it is a mid grey oak called 'twilight' (loved the books ;-) ) , just waiting for a sample to arrive to try and convince Mr SLS.

So the list. The never ending, continually growing list. I need to go through and see what I can cross off and what I need to add. I read somewhere that often the last 10% takes 90% of the effort. Feels like it is taking even more than that!!

Three off, three on....

2011-01-19T20:59:00.002Z

So two lovely young guys arrived this morning at 7:30. Their mission? To box in the cisterns on the 3 new loos. They had loads of kit.

The ensuite is getting two cupboards either side of the loo. They managed to get the frame up today.

Here is the loo in the shower room. Because of where the soil pipe needed to come in, I have wound up with an odd triangle to the right of the loo, but it was all we could do because of the pipes outside.

And here is the little loo. Very pleased with this, what a difference to have it all boxed in.

So three things (just about) off my list, but now three back on the list because they of course need to be decorated....

2 posts in 2 days!!!

2011-01-18T09:13:00.003Z

Oh my goodness!! Two posts in two days. Well, I thought now that I am on a roll...

Actually, I am stuck at home with a little boy with an injury. Master SLS had a big fall at the park on Sunday. He was climbing a little fence and went right over the top of it and landed on his nose. He normally has a very gorgeous little button nose, and at the moment, he is looking rather feline (a bit like a lion). Poor chap. Here is a picture I took earlier this morning so that next time he does something dangerous I can pull it out and remind him of what can happen (either that or we can use it in a slide show at his 21st!)

Poor little guy. He is actually very happy playing on the wii and having me to himself. He said he didn't want to go to school today, but I am wondering if tomorrow might be the day!!

I have been trying to get a fabric out of my head for the little loo that I have painted 'Slate' (pic in last post).

I really love this fabric and think it would look fabulous against the grey, but it is £86.01 (question, why include the 1p, surely a flat £86 is enough) a metre. I would be too worried to sew a blind myself in this fabric, in case I screwed it up, which is then going to bring the cost of one blind up to the 200 quid mark. Now, I know people do spend that sort of money on soft furnishings, but I have never been able to bring myself around to it. Have you seen anything similar anywhere? I do have a friend in the US (where this kind of print seems to be much more widely available) who will ship for me, but I kinda just want to order this and be done with it. Thoughts?

OK, I am going to go and be productive and try to scratch some things off my list! And give my little fella lots of snuggles.

Another year, another to do list...

2011-01-17T18:10:00.011Z

Hello! Happy New Year. I hope you had a fabulous holiday season. I can't believe we are more than half way through January already. I had all sorts of plans to post during the holidays, but I came down with flu, as did my youngest, and we were really sick. It lingered on and on, and then went into a sinus infection. So boring. I am now feeling back to normal and am keen to crack on with wrapping up all the lingering bits and bobs that are hanging about. So along with a photo update, I thought I would record a little to do list so that I can get a better idea of what needs to happen around the SLS.

So before Christmas the tiler was about half way through the tiling before he downed tools and went off for 2 and a half weeks. To say that the tiler was a complete knob would be an understatement, he worked half days in the run up to his holiday, he easily could have finished prior to going off, but couldn't be arsed. I won't bore you with the details, but he was a lazy f*ck, but quite good at tiling. I worked out that he was here for 15 working days, not one of them a full day, so I was very glad to say goodbye to him last week. However, I do have 2 tiled showers and 3 floors to show you!!

The ensuite

Still to do in the ensuite:

Box in cistern (guy coming on Wed this week to start)

Measure up for glass screen to go in channel between sink and shower and for mirror panel for above sink and get them fit.

Buy light for above sink (thank you for your suggestion MangoFrog, I have got a little present for you for making a suggestion, please leave me your email address in the comments section and I will arrange to get it to you!)

Buy some storage for all our toiletries and something for bottles in the shower.

And then on to the bedroom. This room as become a bit of a workroom for all the rest of the work that has been going on upstairs. While it is almost fully decorated, there are a few tricky bits that Mr SLS and I haven't been bothered to get on with....

Current state of play:

OMG, what an unholy mess. To do in here:

Clear out crap

Finish painting skirtings, architrave and doors

Attach skirtings and various bits of architrave
Make a decision about flooring (more on this soon)

Get flooring installed

Blinds for windows

Wardrobes????

Move all our stuff up

Gosh, this is making me feel quite sick.

Onwards and downwards, now to the shower room on the next landing. Current status:

Get cistern boxed in (again, happening on Wed this week)

Touch up paintwork

Paint door and windowframes

Get rid of that effing hideous doorknob

Buy some accessories and storage

Buy a blind

Sort out small leak from shower door (Mr SLS went a bit nuts with the silicone, and put silicone down the inside of the shower frame, which is a mistake, as it is only supposed to be done from the outside, we now get a little river running out of the right hand side when the shower is on....

Hall Stairs and Landings

Not too bad actually. The bulk of the decorating has been done by Mr SLS and he has done a great job. Here is a little snippet:

To do in Hall, Stairs and Landings:

Paint Dado rail the whole way down (fun, fun, fun...)

Paint landing outside of new shower room (we left this as we knew the tiler would trash it if we decorated it first

Paint hall downstairs

Take plastic off the stairs (we put some on when the tiler came back as he was up and down the stairs cutting tiles

Put up artwork /mirrors

Buy lights (I need 4 pendant lights for the landings)

Are you bored yet? I am. Finally, the little loo on the first landing:

To do in here:

Touch up paintwork. Due to and unfortunate incident with some masking tape, a large amount of the paint along the top of the wall is peeling away ( I had the bright idea of taping off the white to get neat edges, and I have wound up a million miles from a neat edge. Sigh. )
Paint sash window and door
Replace door glass
Mirror above sink
Yet another cistern to be boxed in
Make a blind

So, although we are 90% there, we have the last 10% to finish off, which as they say is always the worst. A lot of these to dos are a blog post in their own right, so I am going to leave you now to put my kids in the bath and cook some supper for Mr SLS. But I would LOVE to know what you think. Any kind words of encouragement??

Finished for Christmas??

2010-12-21T22:37:00.006Z

That would be no. A big fat fail!!! I really am not going to bore you with all the details, just know it involves snow and various other excuses.

But I do have some pictures for you.

The shower room is tiled. Still some grouting to be done, but at least the shower can go in and the door can go on.

The ensuite floor has been laid but there is still a lot of tiling to be done in here. Loo is in, the cistern needs boxing in.

The redecoration of the hall, stairs and landings is about 75% there. We still need to paint some walls that were trashed by the builders, but the stair carpets are being relaid tomorrow. So we will be covering them up to paint over the holidays.

Since I had a whopping 0 comments to the last post I thought I would ask you a question. In the ensuite, I had intended to install a mirrored cabinet with a light inside it (sounds a bit horrid, but it was very nice). I hadn't accounted for the slope of the roof, so it is a no go. But I still have a wire hanging out of the wall and a switch. So I am planning on tiling in the marble up to the line marked on the wall. The area above the tile will be a mirror cut to fit to the ceiling. But I am not sure if I should mount a light onto the mirror as the electric is there? I also am out of ideas, what light would you use? Any ideas?? This is the space and the wire. There will be a prize for the person who suggests the light that I select. Answers on a postcard, or just in the comments section below!! ;-)

Limping along...

2010-12-08T22:23:00.011Z

Yes, that would be a thick layer of dust. The plasterers were in this week, and my goodness it has made the place dusty. Both the little loo and the shower room have been plastered and are ready for the plumbing second fix. Except the plumber has a sore knee. So probably won't be able to come out this week. And Christmas creeps ever closer...

This is the shower room, the new stud wall for the shower on the left.

The little loo (I am thinking of putting wallpaper up in here, which will be my first ever time!):

We haven't really cracked on that well with the decorating and I am now starting to feel a bit of panic. We have got the carpets for the hall, stairs and landing coming next week, and are hosting a Sunday lunch this weekend, and we have masses to do. I need to get on with it really. I am starting to consider carpeting the loft room. I just can't find a wood that I like enough for the money we have left. Haven't raised it with the Mr yet, but I do think it would make our lives much easier, as he wants to install the wood floor himself, and it will take him a month of Sundays. I also can't get the elements 7 floor out of my head, and nothing else comes even close. I just think going for a neutral carpet would make things so much easier. Sigh. Can you tell I am so over it now?? Tiler is supposed to start on loft ensuite tomorrow although I haven't heard from him and I didn't get a chance to ring him today as I was a parent helper on a trip to the Royal Albert Hall with Miss SLS's class. SO I was too busy telling 7 year old girls to get down, stop chatting, pay attention... Will ring him tomorrow to find out when he is going to start covering my ensuite in marble goodness. Hopefully I will have some piccies for you soon.

In other news, we did some different decorating this weekend and pulled out all our Christmas decorations. Given that the living room is currently a plumbing warehouse (there are currently 3 toilets in my living room!), we have kept most of the decs in the kitchen and the hallway.

SO sick of not having carpet on the stairs:

The kids tree, which for some reason has wound up in the hall!! It looks so tiny there, need to move it!

Our family tree:

Probably should have moved the barbie VW bug out of the way...

My decorating helper with my front door wreath (that I made last year out of cotton wool pads - crafty or what!!).

Hopefully I will be back soon with loads of progress having taken place... but don't hold your breath.

Extreme Decorating

2010-11-24T18:59:00.009Z

Gosh, it is a long way up. Mr SLS has taken a week of his annual leave to decorate the loft.
He rented this super long ladder and has been up and down it all day decorating the new landing and stairs. I have been on duty in the bedroom doing the less adventurous decorating with just a small pair of steps!! What a guy.

So this is what the loft room looks like with the base coat.

My shoulders are killing me!!

The plumber was here last week. He installed the shower tray, and so now we are waiting on the tiler to tile the ensuite.

Please note that that is a plastic cap covering the chrome waste!

In other news (!) as we have the carpets up in the hall, stairs and landing, and the skip out front, we decided to rip out the dodgy bath room on the second floor, and the loo on the first floor. When we moved into this house, we had a little toilet and sink on the first floor, and a bathtub and sink in a very small bathroom at the top of the house. Here is a photo of the before for your viewing pleasure:

Ack. So horrid. This is what it looks like now:

Somehow this offends me less!!!

This is the little loo

I don't have a before picture, but imagine a symphony of beige toilet, sink and brown tiles and you wouldn't be far off the mark. SO the plan is to refit the bathroom with a shower (900x800) and a loo and sink, and the little loo will be a cloakroom. It is ridiculous really, as we will wind up with 5 toilets in our house and there are only 4 of us, but it is hard to know what else to do with the space. Anyway, the plumber was due here on Monday to first fix these bathrooms but unfortunately his wife is unwell. So I need to put the plasterer on hold until the plumber is back. I was starting to wonder why we even started doing these on top of all the work in the loft, but just looking at that photo with the dodgy green floor and the horrid fittings and I now realise a bit of pain now will be worth it in the end.

I am, however, burnt out on tile selection for this room. I am going to drag Mr SLS away from the paint roller tomorrow to have a look at tiles to see if we can find something. I would really love to use glass on the shower walls but sadly I don't think the budget will tolerate it! So a tile shopping we will go!! No doubt I will fall in love with something hideously expensive.

Let there be light!

2010-11-06T09:52:00.005Z

What an awful lot of fuss over what seems like not much to me!!! The rooflight has gone in. The project manager came back to me with a letter regarding the installation, somewhere from £180 - £280 to install it. Given that we wouldn't be using the polycarb dome that was in the original quote (£350+vat) we were actually in credit. What a silly arse. So if he had just kept it all to himself, I wouldn't have chased up this extra money. Whatever, it is in. It makes SUCH a difference to the light in the hall, it is so much better up there. I was really worried that the new flight of stairs would make the hall even more gloomy than it had been, but I would say that it is about the same as it was before with just a small velux. The top landing is absolutely flooded in light, which makes me happy, I love bright spaces.

So where are we? As we go into week 7 (!) we are at that stage where there are a million and one 'bits' that need doing/finishing off. The electrician has been an absolute star (and he is SO lovely, if anyone needs an electrician, please do send me an email or leave a comment, as I would so happily recommend him, same goes for the roofer). In connecting up the loft electric supply, he noticed how 'shocking' our electrics are throughout the upstairs. He has rewired the whole upstairs for £1000 (we had a quote for £20k to do the whole house when we moved in, which we knew was outrageous, but we then decided to do it in bits as we redid the house). As the kitchen is new, the wiring is fine there, so we only have the playroom and front room left to do. Really pleased to have had it done, as it did worry me. The previous owner was a DIY bandit, the electrician reckons he did most of the wiring himself. Given that he was a fireman (!) I find it surprising that he would let his family live with such crappy wiring. Anyway, needless to say I am so glad to have had such an easy fix. The electrician that did our kitchen extension was so crap, so I am glad to have met someone so thorough and happy to help me!! He also put a light on the first landing which has made it so much brighter.

So we are waiting on the plasterer coming back to plaster in and around the rooflight. We also need the electrician to come back and do some more bits for us and to hook up the new circuit board (lights on the top of the house currently run from an extension lead!!). We are also waiting on the plumber. The plumber is a really nice bloke, but I would say he is more of a tortoise than a hare. I suspect he will get there in the end, and it will be done properly, but he is certainly s l o w.

Bathroom currently waiting patiently in my front room....

My vola tap!! Sexy, everything about you is so sexxxxy.... 10 points to the person who can name the band??

Shower valve, so close and yet so far.....

Soil pipe in, but loo still to do....

No lights yet.

But we do have doors!!! Horrible fire doors, but they do open and close.

So that is the current state of affairs. I can't wait to have the plasterers finish so that we can get going with the decoration. Yes, that is right, we are decorating it ourselves. Mr SLS is very good at decorating, and every time we have someone else do it, he is p*ssed off with the finish, so he is doing it himself!! We didn't really have a summer holiday this year as we had a bit of a 'summer of austerity' to save for the loft conversion, he has loads of annual leave yet to take. So he is taking off the first week of December to paint the loft room, the ensuite, and the hall stairs and landing. I will be assisting in between school runs (and the gym, and coffee mornings, and all the other very important business that I attend to every day!).

Would love to know what you think if anyone is still reading!!

Nickel and Dimed to death

2010-10-28T09:07:00.005+01:00

Nickel and Dime to death is an expression we use in Canada (where I lived to the age of 21), not sure if there is an equivalent here in the UK, but basically it means that you keep asking for little bits of money here which then amounts to a huge amount in the end.

I really don't want to whinge, but I am fed up to the eye teeth. The plasterer has ripped off loads of lining paper in the hall, almost all the way down to the dado rail so that he can 'match in' the old plaster, and has left me with a massive wall that is going to have to be stripped, relined all the way up, and then re lined. It is a mess. I have rung the project manager and asked that he confirm that he is happy with leaving me with this as the final finish. The plasterer then came downstairs 5 minutes later and told me he will make it good after all. WTF is it with people trying to do the minimum work and just seeing if you will accept it?? I hate that attitude. If I want the whole wall re skimmed, there will of course be the charge for another whole days work.

I have also had issues with the fitting of the rooflight. When we had the initial site meeting, I showed the project manager the rooflight I proposed using. I then printed off all the information for him and the lead builder. I emailed details of the rooflight across. They kept telling me, no problem, no problem. The rooflight arrived almost two weeks ago and has been sitting on my patio since. A fox has done a big poo beside it. Well, I assume it was a fox but it might be the builder, because they have since told me that they are 'worried' about installing it, and that it is bigger than they thought (even though I told them the dimensions of it, and they built the hole for it about 3 weeks ago). I had the project manager waffling on the phone about it the other day, and I asked him to cut to the chase and he said they are going to have to make an 'extra charge' for the installation because it isn't 'standard'. I asked him how much the charge would be and he said he couldn't tell me until the rooflight had been installed. Who runs a business in this way??!! I was on my way out the door when we had this conversation, so I told him I would need to speak to Mr SLS about it. I came home to a letter saying that 'he had tried to ring me a number of times about this matter' (news to me!!) and that he would be making an additional charge. To say that I find his approach unprofessional is an understatement. Here it is, sitting on my patio, not on my roof.... (I left the big pile of poo out of the picture).

I rang the project manager to question the letter. I also stated that I feel that asking us to make an additional payment should have been mentioned when I showed him the rooflight at the outset. He then started saying I am being unfair, that I am now blaming him.... blah blah. Really, it was like a conversation with a petulant child. We eventually agreed that he would give me the cost in writing and then we could discuss. So apparently this is being dropped by today. If it is anymore than a couple of hundred quid, I am not paying it. I am so hacked off with the way the situation has been handled. I have generally been very happy with the quality of the work, and the speed at which it has happened, but this really takes away from that.

OH, and today he told me that the cost of the doors to the ensuite and new bedroom aren't included, and I need to pay for them. You will find it in the small print of the contract....

SO, hopefully I won't be on here ranting and raving about the £1000 he proposes charging for the rooflight installation, but I have a feeling I might be. Feel free to tell me if you think I am being unreasonable. Am I???

Week 5

2010-10-26T17:37:00.007+01:00

Can you believe it has been 5 weeks since the building work started? I can!! Actually, it hasn't been too bad, but this week with the kids off school has been difficult. I find it difficult to have a conversation with the numerous people in and out without being interrupted by one of my children asking:

Can I have a snack?

Can I have a drink?

Can we see a friend?

What are we doing later?

Why can't we go out?

What are you doing?

Can we work on my Victorian Schoolhouse project?

Why is there water running down the wall?

Why do I have to have a brother?

When will all these people leave our house?

Question 10 is a very valid one! Who knows. I would say we have another 3 weeks at the very least. I am starting to tire of it all now. However, we have had progress. Would you like to see? Here are some photos that I managed to get today. It was starting to get dark, so they are a bit dark, but hopefully you get the idea?

Stairs are in.....

Builder even less keen on the rooflight as he has realised it is going to be tricky to fit! Whoops! This is where it is going to go.

New landing (rooflight above this landing):

Getting plastered....

Other side of the room:

So we are getting there. These pictures look so bland and boring and building site. So I have to balance them with some gorgeousness. My lovely friend Helen came to visit last week with her 3 supermodel children. She brought lovely gifts for my children (Mr SLS has had great fun playing with the Top Gear magnets) and I was given the most beautiful flowers. My favourite, Amaryllis. Aren't they gorgeous.....

Thank you so much for all the feedback on the last post. I have decided to have the Vola tap at the basin. I can't spring for the marble shower tray as well as Vola shower fittings, so I have gone for controls as close to the Vola ones as I can get, and a fixed shower head and kept the marble shower tray. I would have LOVED to buy the Vola shower controls as well, but they are SO expensive. I can't find a brushed chrome shower control to match the tap, so I have gone for the normal chrome and have convinced myself I like it almost as much...

This is the Vola shower that Helen suggested in the comments section back when I was considering a digital shower. I can see why she thought of me when she suggested it. Clearly that woman getting in the shower is my spitting image.

Tee hee!! Sadly not..... perhaps in my next life? Please?

Who knew??

2010-10-18T21:28:00.008+01:00

Mr SLS had last Thursday off to go bathroom shopping (more on that later). As he is very brave, he climbed up the ladder like a little monkey and snapped some photos of the loft for me. We were both surprised at how much they have achieved.

The top left corner of the room is the ensuite, shower will be on the left. That is the electrician doing the first fix....

The three velux are positioned high so that I can have some cupboards set into the eaves. I love how bright the room is looking already.

Another sunny day in SouthWest London. Can you see why I wasn't so keen on scaling the scaffold? These photos were taken last Thursday and they have told me that all the plasterboard is now up. The stairs are being fit tomorrow (they are currently sitting on the landing) and then I will be up there taping out the ensuite fittings to make sure they work.

Thank you all so much for the feedback on the shower. It did really help. I agree that the control panel is not the slickest thing around. We have therefore decided to just go for a fixed shower head and the bare minimum of controls. Had a look at the Vola shower control that Lady Helent suggested in the comments section of the last post. Very nice, but also very pricey. I do like the brushed chrome. So now I am trying to decide.

As a bit of background, this is the sink we are going with:

Are you interested in seeing the loo? Is it a bit strange to post a photo of a toilet? You can nominate me for a 'crappy blogger' award then (tee hee).

Back to the shower valve. So here is the Vola option, but imagine it in brushed chrome weighing in at a hefty £656.83:

Below is the an option for Crosswater which is just a shade under £300, but doesn't come in brushed chrome.

I think you would agree that they aren't a million miles apart. It is when you look at the basin taps that it all goes in Vola's favour:

Here is the Vola basin tap (in the brushed chrome, weighing in at over £700:

And here is the Crosswater, looking rather pedestrian and clunky, but at less than half the price.

Sigh. Not sure I can do the Crosswater now. What do you think?? Thing is, we have already maxxed out the budget for the shower tray. I was hoping to save some money on the taps. Or should I ditch the shower tray, get a nice low profile one for less than half the price of the marble one, and go for the pricer taps. Or should I risk divorce and order it all? What would you do??

Shower Room

2010-10-11T17:10:00.005+01:00

As I mentioned in a post many moons ago, I plan on using marble in the ensuite shower room in the loft. I even conducted a marble 'test' as I was worried that the marble might be stained by our hard water that we have here in SW London. The sample tile that sat in our shower for 6 months is the one in the middle. No orange staining at all. So the marble gets a big tick. The picture below is my inspiration room!! Sadly, my shower room won't have a lovely free standing bath in it! This marble is also much more darkly veined than the sample I think we are going with. It is amazing the variation in the different marbles out there.

I have decided on the marble sample on the left of the three sample tiles above. The veining is much more subtle than the veining on the other two, which I think I prefer. I think the room is too small to carry off the deeper and darker veining. The other reason is that the provider of this sample can also provide me a low profile shower tray made from the same marble. The first picture below is the sample tile that we decided to go with. The second picture below is of the shower tray. This example is in limestone, but it gives you an idea of the look I am hoping to achieve.

I think the tray above is a different material from the wall tile, I am hoping mine won't look darker than the floor or wall tiles. I want it to look as seamless as possible. Mr SLS has always been rather 'anti' wetroom, as everyone we know with one has had leaks. I spent ages researching wedi boards and he was happy with the marble shower tray as a solution. Now he gets his shower tray, and I get the look I want. Win win as they used to say when I was gainfully employed in the big world of business. Now I just spend all day on the internet finding expensive options for our loft room.

We are currently in 'negotiations' regarding the shower. I am loving the idea of a digital shower. Grohe do a lovely model with 3 pre set temperatures. It comes with a wireless remote to start the shower!! Mr SLS thinks it is faddy and doesn't see the point paying double for something that we can do easily ourselves (get out of bed and start the shower and adjust the temperature). I would love any thoughts any of you out there might have. Have you ever come across a digital shower? Do you know anyone who has installed one?

This is the write up from the Grohe website:

Imagine how wonderful life would be, if every morning you could simply press a button and a warm and inviting shower would be waiting for you when you reached your bathroom. The temperature, pre-set to the level of your choosing, and the flow rate finely tuned to suit your mood.Few of us can deny that at some point we've dreamt of such a luxury. With our digital shower Grohtherm Wireless, the dream is now a reality.

PMSL at 'the dream is now a reality'. I will be brave and admit that I have dreams of not having to get up and start the shower. I am not only a fussy cow but also a lazy cow. I can't wait to hear what the builder thinks of it!! Here is a link in case you decide you can't live without one either.

http://www.grohe.co.uk/en/bathroom-products/browse-by-style/cosmopolitan-style/tap-thermostat-lines/grohtherm-wireless/p/25_794.html

Thursday this week will be an exciting day, as the rooflight will arrive and hopefully be installed, and the stairs are due to go in. Mr SLS has the day off and we plan to visit a few bathroom suppliers to purchase the fittings for the shower room. So expect some pictures soon!! And the outcome of the shower negotiations....

Could it possibly rain any more?

2010-10-03T19:36:00.006+01:00

No, seriously, what is this rain all about? We took a daytrip up to visit my inlaws in Cambridge yesterday and it took us 4 hours (normally 2.5hr journey) to get home. As we S L O W L Y made our way home, the rain was lashing down and I had a bad feeling. I was right. The pics below are about a half hour after we mopped up, the amount of water coming through was unreal. The last picture is of the ceiling above the row of buckets, the water found a crack to come through.

Do you like my lovely assortment of towels? The little ones were very upset by the leak, and kept asking me why I had let the men take the roof off our house.

Fortunately, the rain seems to have stopped for a few days. I had the hall stairs and landing carpet lifted and stored a couple of weeks ago, so we were lucky that the only damage was the ceiling with the crack, and that is to be replaced anyway as there is a loft hatch in it which becomes redundant.

The building work is actually progressing at a very good rate. The dormer frame is up, and the flank wall brickwork is starting on Thursday this week. The builders have broken through in preparation of the stairs going in next week.

I have ordered the rooflight, and it will be delivered next Thursday. I am very excited to see it installed. Hopefully I will have some more interesting snaps to post next week as these things happen. The builder did ask me if I wanted to come up the ladder today to have a look at the space, and I declined. I am a bit of a scardy cat!

Week 2

2010-09-28T18:49:00.006+01:00

So the builders came as promised yesterday. It was very busy here all day, with lots of banging and cups of tea. They have put up the framework for the hip to gable roof (covered in blue tarp in picture below, this will be our new roofline), and the dormer is going in tomorrow, weather permitting.

I am sure the builder thinks I am such a fussy cow (which I am). The plans specify a polycarbonate dome in the dormer roof to let light in to the landing. While I agree it is important to let light in, I am not keen on a plastic dome. The builder asked me 'Can I ask why you don't like polycarbonate domes' I replied, 'Because I don't like the sound of rain on them and they get all dull and scratched' (which is true). He gave me a look of , 'Oh, ok....'. So I have been researching alternatives and have found this.

Much more attractive than a polycarb dome don't you think?? The rooflight will measure 1000 x 1500 and hopefully let in lots of light to the stairwell. We won't be having the dodgy halogen circle around the rooflight though!! I guess they wanted to draw attention to it!!!

As this option comes up as considerably more than the polycarb dome, we are having to 'tweak' the budget. One of the things that will have to be 'trimmed' is the flooring. The elements 7 flooring that I posted earlier (I should probably insert a link here to it, but cannot figure out how to do it) is just so expensive. I do think the roof lantern is more 'bang for the buck', so I we are going for that, and I am now on the hunt for some lovely flooring for the space that is going to cost less than £1500! I still really want grey stained oak, so I am flirting with the idea of getting some unsealed oak boards and experimenting with stain. This makes me VERY nervous! Yet again, I find myself wishing for endless pots of cash. Sadly, as usual, I have champagne tastes and a lager budget....

Rain, rain, go away

2010-09-24T14:53:00.004+01:00

Well, of course our Indian Summer broke the day the builders came back. They pulled a load of slates off the roof first thing Thursday morning. The heavens then opened, so they drank a million cups of tea and finished off a kilo of biscuits (so back to Poundland I go to get another kilo for a pound - can't say I'm not treating them well....). They then buggered off. They haven't come back since. No leaks yet, but I am very thankful that it hasn't been that windy with the rain, as I am sure the tarp has only stayed put because of the lack of wind. The rain was torrential on Thursday but has only been a minor drizzle since.

Meanwhile, a house 6 doors down started a loft conversion on Monday of this week. They now have the dormer up, the steels went in today. WTF.

I am hoping that it isn't just that our builders don't like getting wet, and that they are actually prudent to not do all this in the rain. I hope the house down the road has had water in as a result. Not that I want to wish them ill, I am just not sure our builders need to be as delicate about it as they have been? Anyway, they have PROMISED me a team of 4 to get the gable end up on Monday.

Are you bored yet? I am...

In more exciting loft news, the very clever and handsome Griffo has posted some pictures on his blog of his loft. Check it out:

http://obsessilicious.blogspot.com/2010/09/loft-flooring-and-ikea-hack.html

Well....

2010-09-22T19:06:00.007+01:00

Not even going to try to justify the massive silence here!!! Not sure if anyone will even be looking at this anymore, but I thought I would update anyway. I want to keep a record of things so that I can look back on this as a log of our work and decisions.

SO, after a considerable amount of time (and money), we finally have a party wall agreement with next door. Scaffolding went up last week. We have a skip (I love having a skip, let the clearing out begin...). The builders arrived yesterday. They moved a load of wood onto the scaffolding. They plonked 4 steels in the front garden. They then sat in my shed for an hour, ate an entire packet of chocolate bourbon biscuits, drank tea, and then buggered off to finish up another job!! Great start. I have been promised a return tomorrow. The weather has been glorious here, so I would like things to start while it is dry.

We moved Miss SLS out of her bedroom at the top of the house as the ceiling outside her bedroom needs to come down as the wall supporting the back of the dormer is just outside her bedroom. So she is now installed in a double bed in the spare room (which she loves).
The photo below is taken from the first floor landing. The door facing the stairs is her bedroom, so the ceiling ouside her room will come out, along with the skylight to turn the roof from a hip to a gable end. I have plans for replacing that skylight that I think I just finalised today. More on that soon!!

Approved!!!!!!!

2010-03-15T19:40:00.005Z

Yippeeeee!! Our loft conversion plans have been approved by our local council and they have issued us with a lawful development certificate!! We are so pleased. 3 years ago our neighbours (next door but one) applied for planning permission to do the same thing and were denied (they, like us, had used all their permitted development allowance for their kitchen extension). The law changed last October, and separate lawful development rights were introduced for lofts. We were so excited about this, as we had thought we would have to have a big planning battle to argue the point that a number of homes in the road had already converted from a hip to a gable end roof, so there was precedence for planning to be granted. This amendment has made our lives SO much easier. So now we just need to hash out a party wall agreement with our neighbours (the other side of the semi).

This will be long and protracted (and expensive). We have a very difficult relationship with them, they were not happy at all about our kitchen extension, and will be even less happy with a loft conversion. I am putting it in the very capable hands of a party wall surveyor. Once we have the agreement in place, we can start. Yikes. I will of course keep you in the loop!

In other loft related news (!) the marble tile sample in the shower is remaining unstained, I am going to keep it there until we need to order tiles, but I am hopeful that it will be ok. A forum that I was looking at the other day said that staining occurred after a year so I still feel a little nervous about it, but I also wonder how often this person cleaned their shower? I would be quite happy to wipe it down every day if it meant it would stay unstained.

And because I don't want to post without a picture:

I really want this lamp, and how TO DIE FOR is that view??

Also, we made some cupcakes last weekend

Am off to Ikea tomorrow as they have Rosali bedding back in. I bought a duvet cover and made it into curtains for Miss SLS's bedroom a few weeks after she was born, and have since wished I bought another to use as a duvet cover. Thanks to Lindsay at Notes from My Days (see the link in my blog , not to sure how to create link here!) I learned today that it is back in stock after 7 years!! So I am going to see if I can do a quick dash over to pick some up, and any other goodies that I can find as well!!! I will report back!! xx

Yellow

2010-03-06T07:54:00.006Z

Great song, tricky colour. This fabric is still haunting me along with the TOAST cushions that I should have just ordered when I saw them. I haven't made it into London to hunt down something similar. I only have one day a week that my youngest is in nursery all day and this week I did Ikea in the hope that they would have the perfect yellow cushion. Nope. So I hit all the shops locally to see what I could find.

Wandering into Debenhams, I spotted a flash of yellow! Sold. Not velvet fabric, but the shade of yellow looked promising. 20% off the already reasonable £15. But they are the wrong yellow.

I am also not sold on having two of them. SO back they go. They are really a canary yellow, and I want an acid yellow.

But I do have a bit of the right shade of yellow in the house.

I have had these over two weeks now and they are still gorgeous. I love the yellow against the grey vase.

Speaking of grey, as I couldn't track down the Chanel Particuliere nail varnish I bought these:

OMG the Berlin is just hideous. I took a photo of my nails varnished in Berlin but there is no way I am posting it as it was really rather cadaver'esque'. When did my hands start looking so old??? I put the Minsk on my toes and it is quite nice, it is a very dark grey and quite cool but not really something I would wear on my hands.

So there you go, that is what I have been mulling over on my Saturday. I hope your Saturday was more productive!!

What's behind door number 1?

2010-03-04T10:03:00.003Z

You might have noticed the door by our cooker in the pictures in my last post.

That is the door to our larder. I didn't want to have too many cabinets in the new kitchen (although I wound up with upper cabinets, which I hadn't wanted, but found I needed), so Mr SLS had the fantastic idea of tacking on a bit at the corner of the room to act as our larder. Once the building work had finished, we threw in some IKEA shelves and the room became the dumping ground for food, drink, kids art supplies, play doh. You name it, it went in there. The shelves were quite deep and I could never find anything. Inspired by a friend's larder (Janice, that is you if you are reading!!), I decided we needed to refit the whole thing, as it wasn't working for me. When we cleared it out I found 4 half full bags of self raising flour, 3 half used bags of rice, a rather petrified banana at the back, you get the idea ...

Here is the larder before

OMG what a hideous mess. The space behind the bigger shelf on the left was total dead space and the kids 'stuff' had infiltrated in an attempt to keep the kitchen clear of clutter. I used to spend ages looking for things that I needed while cooking.

So I spent ages trying to convince Mr SLS that we needed to do a 'refit'. He didn't really see the need to revamp it, but I was determined. So back to my old friend Ikea, to stock up on Billy bookshelves as that is what Janice had used (I am such a copy cat!). I loved the way the food looked against the black, so I had to have them. We moved the old shelves into the shed where they now hold tins of paint/decorating supplies (this was key in convincing Mr SLS).

Ahhh, lovely clear empty space!!!!

Sadly it meant that the kitchen was a disaster zone...

This was the point of thinking, 'Oh, why did we start this.....' we actually went to bed on the Saturday night leaving the kitchen like this. It was very depressing to come down to it on Sunday morning.

But once we got the Billy bookcases in, I got to get to organising, decanting and making it usable and workable. Here is the final result:

Behind the door my spices have a lovely little home of their own...

Ahhhh, that is better. Now I can find the flour (I have since labelled the jars so I know the self raising from the plain after some rather flat scones!).

I still have what seems like a never ending amount of areas like this in my home that need a good sort out, but at least I find this area much easier to keep tidy and organised!

The plans for the plans

2010-02-24T17:05:00.011Z

SO now that you know what we have planned, this is what we are thinking of doing to the space.

I love the idea of a separate dressing room and ensuite to the main bedroom, but the space is not big enough and the architect said that putting a wall up will compromise the light to the room to the back.

One day while flipping through Living Etc, I saw this picture and fell in love (in fact I love the whole house, you can see it herehttp://www.livingetc.com/showcase/houses/Contemporary_Victorian_article_274785.html?slide=1&thumbStart=1#gallery)

So I sort of imagine the layout to be something like this

The green diagonal lines are to show built in cupboards and drawers. The placement of the bed unit will depend on the head height that we manage to get. A neighbour has already converted their loft and we are using the same company, so I might ask to go and measure up so that I can get the dimensions to make sure it will work. The drawing above is not to scale, so I am still unsure of how much space there will be around the bed, so this plan does depend on it not being too cramped with the bed in the middle of the room!

The walls will be white, and I plan to order the following samples of Engineered Oak Flooring from Element7 - they are both a grey toned oak.

I love the idea of this, I just hope the reality will match expectations.

The ensuite will not be huge, sadly! From the same house in Living etc, I have become a bit obsessed with a carerra marble bathroom.

No space for a bath in the middle of the room sadly! How lovely it must be to have a soak in there. One worry I have about the marble is that it might stain. The water we get is very hard and in our current bathroom it tends to leave a lovely orange residue on the grout which I can (and do!) scrub off, but I know marble is very porous. So I have ordered a sample of the marble from Stonell and it arrived yesterday. I am going to put it in the shower to see if it stains. It has a polished surface, so I hope that will be enough to stop it staining. I also have some marble impregnator (tee hee, such a funny word) that I plan to paint on half the tile to see if that helps. Do you think I am totally anal!!?? ;-) I just don't want to spend all that money on tiles that are going to look crap in 6 months.

So that is the start of the ideas we have for the room. Would love your thoughts....

20/20 Hindsight

2010-02-22T19:34:00.012Z

Anything I would have done differently in my kitchen I was asked by a friend the other day? Hell yes!! Where to start? We have SMEG appliances (other than the fridge freezer which is by Maytag) and they haven't been great. The cooker is much hotter on one side than the other and cooks food unevenly and the hob scratches so easily and is really smeary. I also regret not having a gas option for the hob. The fan oven has also broken twice now and cost us a considerable amount to repair. I know hindsight is always 20/20 but I REALLY wish I had spent some more time researching appliances.

I am also not sure of WTF I was thinking when I chose that cooker hood. I bang my head on it all the time and it is very noisy plus I am not that keen on the shape (I was really rushing when I ordered it)...

A recent post on the Living Etc forums made me drool over this Mercury
range:

Want it. Am now figuring out how we could reconfigure things and how much we would get for our oven and hob on ebay!! At almost £4k, it certainly isn't a priority (hello, loft conversion pending), but it doesn't stop me thinking about it...

Other regrets? I really wish we had put wiring into this central beam (in the middle of the rooflights):

To hang one of these (which I love very much...)

I know there wouldn't have been the budget at the time to buy the light, but if the wiring had gone in, the option would be there. I was talking to Mr SLS about this the other day and he did say we could get an electrician in to quote for the work if I wanted, but then I hadn't told him that the Sarfatti light would set us back £975. Also, with the loft conversion on the horizon, it hardly a priority.

We also spent a considerable amount of money on the floor, we went for a slate from Original Style. While I love the look of the tiles, they are incredibly time consuming to maintain and need regular sealing. Slate is also very soft, so we have quite a few scratches and dents now. I really wish we had spent half the money on porcelain tiles rather than getting stuck on the idea that we needed to have 'real stone'.

I am aware that all of this makes me sound like a moaner, and I know I am very lucky to have what I have, but I think with all projects it is important to learn something. I will spend more budget on appliances next time (the fridge was my big ticket appliance and I am very happy with it, so I do think it pays to spend money on them) and I would also spend more time planning the lighting (future proofing it in case I want to add to it later). If we ever do it all again, I will hopefully not make the same mistakes again!

Onwards and Upwards...

2010-02-20T21:05:00.015Z

One of the many reasons I decided to start this blog is that we are hoping to do a loft conversion this year. I wanted somewhere to record all my plans, ideas and to chronicle the work. Plans are currently with the council and we expect to hear mid March if it has been approved.

Here are our plans:

This is the current front elevation (sorry it is a bit wonky, I am still working on my technical skills - another reason for starting a blog)!!

We are proposing a new gable end roof, which means that as you look at the house, it will be a slope to the front of the house, a slope to the back, and lots of extra headroom in the loft.

This is the current side elevation, with the hip roof

This is the proposed new side elevation, but from the other side of the house (imagine splitting the semi in half - wouldn't that be nice) - there will be a rear dormer to create more headroom.

This is the current rear elevation. You can see the slope to the back.

This is the proposed rear elevation, with windows into the new loft room matching in with those of the rest of the house. The original roof line is the dotted line across the new dormer.

So that is how it will look outside. There are a number of these these loft conversions in our road, with quite a few of the 'semi' pairs unbalanced. But to be honest, these houses are quite tall, and you really don't notice those with extensions unless you are looking for them.

So how about inside? Here are the plans

This is the current ground floor. It will remain unchanged, but I thought you might find it interesting anyway!!

Our house is strange in that the back of the L shape is 3 stories (but only two at the front) so there is already a bedroom and bathroom (the window that you can see on the rear elevation on the third floor is Miss SLS's bedroom and a bathroom (well, actually a bath and a sink, no toilet which is the way it was when we bought it, but we have plans for that that I will come to. )

I have put a red line around the new space. Here it is a bit bigger (the ensuite is outlined in blue):

(Sorry, just noticed that the shower should read 900x 1000, not 900x100!!) So those are the plans. I am REALLY hoping they will be approved. I will let you know once they are. I will post my ideas for the space soon!!! Also, I know the drawings are RUBBISH. I have to say the bloke who came around to do the survey and the drawings was a wanker who made a big black mark on my landing carpet and then was really shirty with me when I complained. I have complained to the loft company, and they were very apologetic. Hopefully not a sign of things to come! Good friends of ours in a house a few doors down used them, and they had a good experience. So fingers crossed!!!!

Is half term really finished already...???

2010-02-20T10:18:00.007Z

Gosh, this one went so quickly. I had plans to post pictures of my Valentines Day flowers this week and all of a sudden it is Saturday again!!! How did that happen? This was one of my worries about starting a blog, the time needed to update it!

Thanks so much for your input on the last post. I am leaning ever so slightly towards the Florence Knoll looky likey. I think we might go to the shop to sit on them and see if that forces a decision. There hasn't really been a nice vintage Danish armchair on for a while, I will keep looking as that is my second choice.

I am gutted because I was bidding on some lovely yellow velvet to make a cushion for the grey sofa and I lost it. I now cannot find another shade as lovely. The yellow velvet was to make one like a lovely one that was on the TOAST website and then sold out just as I was going to order it... I should have bid more for the velvet, I should have just bought the TOAST cushion when I saw it, now have serious non buyers remorse.

Miss SLS had a friend over yesterday for a sleepover. We took them to the Tate modern and then walked across the wobbly bridge (or Millennium Bridge as it is known to most!) and then home. It was a lovely day in London yesterday, and I love the Tate Modern, it is just such a fantastic setting and collection.

So because I hate blog posts without photos, here is a bit from my week:

Valentine roses from the kids:

Flowers from Mr SLS:

Trying to do a close up....

My amaryllis finally opened:

And revealed it wasn't white at all...

I bought a friend some lovely Chanel body creme for her birthday, and while at the counter, the lady let me try the newest hot chanel nail varnish called Particuliere. So hot you can't buy it, but she painted one of my nails just to make me really want it more!! SO have been combing the internet looking for a bottle. Unavailable everywhere except for ebay where you can get a bottle for £30 (normally retails at £16) - I am sure that they do this just to create a buzz and to annoy me. Please excuse the cuticles, looks like I have been a bit slack in the manicure department for a while (oh, say for about 6 years since having children...)

It looks pretty rubbish here, but it is a a taupey griege colour and I want it.... I am a marketing mans dream, create a buzz and I will buy into it!

This is the yellow fabric I lost out on. One of those cases of not really thinking of how much it would cost me to buy it in the shop and underbidding...... the Toast cushion was a very similar colour, now nowhere to be seen on their website.

With the little ones back at school next week I think I will make the trip up to Peter Jones or John Lewis to see if I can get something similar....

Front Room Help Please....

2010-02-12T13:55:00.023Z

This is my front room. It is your fairly standard 16' x 12' room with a bay window. It faces directly south so it is very sunny and bright. This photo was taken just after we replaced all the horrid UPCV windows with timber sashes. We were just about to start decorating it. This was two years ago!!!!! The room has been decorated and sat quite empty other than the bookcases and a baggy old beige sofabed. This has been partly due to an inability to make any decisions and the fact that Mr SLS worked for that big American Investment Bank that triggered the whole credit crunch. Also, we do have plans in about 4-5 years time to knock through into the room behind which is currently the playroom. That is why there is a silly great radiator behind the sofa and a quite bland and boring carpet, we thought we would wait to do these things until we knock through. SO the room isn't really how I envisage it will be one day, but I still wanted to smarten it up so that we can use it in the meantime.

Even now that things are a bit more stable financially I have really struggled with this room. I spent ages looking for sofas. I really love the Florence Knoll sofa, but at over £5000 (over £7000 for the 3 seater) this beauty would sadly not make the final cut.

I did find a cheeky fake for £800 (that is more like it) but the 3 seater was too wide for the space, and the 2 seater was too small.

So from the sublime to the ridiculous, one day I was walking past Argos (yes, Argos) and in the window they had a photo of this sofa:

Turns out it was the perfect dimensions for the space, and the colour would work well. Well, for £400 it was worth a try. I ordered it kept my fingers crossed. It didn't work. The sofa looked very blue in the room, and there was a pull in the stitching of one of the cushions, and the smell of chemicals coming off of the fabric was nauseating. It was the perfect size, but the quality was poor. So off it went back to Argos (who, to be fair, have a fantastic delivery and returns service including 2 hour delivery and pick up slots!).

I then went back to the place I always go back to when I try to do something different, Ikea. Now, there is nothing I dislike more than an Ikea snob (I know quite a few). I think that even if I had won Euromillions last night (over £100million, can you imagine?) I would still shop in Ikea for certain things. I love it. So off to Croydon I went, and decided that the Karlstad was a winner.
Here it is in situ:

Do you like my cushions? They are from the very clever Nicky at http://www.etsy.com/shop/FeltloveCymru

The size was just about perfect, the price was good (although I would have spent more money if needed, I did flirt with a beauty in SCP but was too worried about the kids trashing it) . However the Karlstad was missing one thing on my list, I did want some buttoning (not sure if that is the technical term!). However, I figured I could get some of those buttons that you cover, and then get my mother-in-law who is an upholsterer to do it for me. This has yet to happen, as they have not been down for a while, and so I am considering doing it myself. But in the meantime, there was a need for more furniture. I wanted two armchairs for the room for this space

And one to go in the bay window to replace this very old and uncomfortable, baggy and too big for the space sofabed

I was thinking a Balzac chair would be perfect in the room, and while cruising ebay for one I happened across this:

The Matthew Hilton Wing Chair. Which I won for £300. So it now graces that long bare wall.

This cushion is from the very clever Becca at http://www.cushlab.co.uk/ .

So now I am left with the decision as to what to put in the bay window. With funds uncertain due to the volatile nature of Mr SLS's job, I am as always being encouraged to be 'frugal' (a word I loathe) Currently in the running are:

A vintage danish leather armchair (they range from about £300 - £600 on ebay:

The Barcelona Chair (sadly, it would be a fake) in ivory (couldn't seem to upload the ivory pic £629:

The Florence Knoll Chair, again an impressionista! £399

I still love the Balzac but in every photo I see of one 'insitu' it looks knackered and the leather appears to stain. Plus, it is the most expensive at over £1000.

Also needed are some art, and a light. But I think they might be another post. At the rate I move, probably in about two years.....

So what do you think? I would love to know what you think would work best. I am currently favoring the Florence Knoll chair, and I think it would work well, but can you think of a better alternative?

Dusty and Gusty

2010-02-04T12:23:00.019Z

Well, I left you off at the plasterboarding stage. This is when things really started to drag, as the company who were making the concertina doors and glass above were TOTALLY crap and screwed up a number of times. We therefore had a massive hole in the back of our house for 10 weeks. I was getting more and more irate, and more and more pregnant.

The original kitchen was turned into a downstairs loo, a storage cupboard and a utility room.

Finally, on a freezing cold day in December, the doors and glazing went in. I walked in expecting to be delighted and instead wound up pitching a massive fit as the glazing above the doors was wrong. The glazing bars were in the wrong position, they were supposed to line up with the breaks in the doors. So I made the fitter stay until 10pm to take them back out. I knew if I left them in, I would have had a battle to get them back to redo it. SO back on the lorry they went. The fitter told me he thought I was really 'mean' to make him stay. UH, you fit something that was completely wrong. I then had a massive battle with the company to finally get them to correct their mistake. I even managed to negotiate some money back. Never mess with a pregnant woman. So we had another couple of weeks of this

Finally the glass arrived and we could start doing this. Lots of this.

And then finally time for the kitchen to be installed (or playframe as Miss SLS thought...)

And after weeks of finishing off lots of little jobs, we were left with this:

So there you have it. The biggest bit of building work we have done to date. In retrospect, it doesn't seem that bad, but I know it wasn't fun while it was going on. A couple of months after it was all finished, we had a little Master SLS.

On My Table

2010-02-01T13:54:00.010Z

I love flowers. I love all flowers and try to keep some in our home most days. I have been growing an amaryllis bulb since early January. I wanted to keep it in the utility room until it bloomed but it wasn't really growing that well so I have moved it to my kitchen table where it is very light. Here it is 2 weeks ago:

And here it is today!!

Mr SLS is quite into it, he keeps complimenting me on how quickly it is growing. But these are the easiest flowers to grow, it is really just a matter of keeping it watered and away it goes. I think it is going to be white, I can't remember what it said on the packet but hopefully it won't be too long before it sprouts.

Also injecting a bit of green into the house at the moment are these little grape hyacinths that I picked up at Ikea for £2.99.

On reviewing this post, I think that I need to move the candlesticks from the table, I do love them but they are not right with the plant. Funny how seeing the picture on here makes me realise that, because in person they seem right. Do you like them? I picked them up in B&Q for £4.97 each!! I think they are better with the fruit bowl.

Speaking of the kitchen, I am digging out the pics from the rest of the build and some after photos.

A Man, A Plan.....

2010-01-30T14:32:00.015Z

Mr SLS is so very clever and has helped me turn our plans into jpegs and so I can now share them with you. It was spring before we had found someone who created a plan that we thought would work for us. We wanted a big kitchen-diner, a utility room, a pantry/larder and lots of storage for things like buggies, scooters, kid related junk really. So this was the final draft:

I was very excited, and had visions of Little Miss SLS being able to play outside while I whipped up beautiful organic homemade meals for our little family. I wanted to start yesterday. Builder in place, we started work in August.

Trenches were dug:

The original room was knocked down:

The garden trashed:

And I tried to cope cooking food in our dining/play/living/everything room. It was hideous. I hated every minute of it. I don't even have a photo of it as I loathed it so much I didn't even take one! I remember distinctly walking into our makeshift kitchen one morning after dropping Miss SLS at nursery and a wave of nausea crashing over me. Turns out I wasn't just being dramatic as Mr SLS said I was, I was pregnant. So when the build was 6 weeks in, I was 6 weeks pregnant. To the day.

Luckily the builder worked very quickly, and soon we had this:

I think for me the turning point was when the plasterboard went up. It really started to feel like a room (and we were 12 weeks in and I had stopped vomiting everywhere:

We were just waiting on the glass and concertina doors before we could plaster. It only took us 12 weeks to get to this stage. The architect had specified a beautiful glass retractable ridge rooflight that I fell in love with and was the reason for choosing the design. Sorry for the small pic, but you get the idea.

Sadly, the quote came in at £18,000. Needless to say, it wasn't going to happen. So our builder spoke to a glazier mate and came up with another solution. Not as elegant, but would work...

I have taken ages getting this post together, so I think we will leave it there for a bit and I will return with the final stages and the after photos!!

30 October, 2004

2010-01-21T16:56:00.013Z

Was a big day for us. We moved into the South London Semi (SLS, if you don't mind?). There were only three of us then, me, Mr SLS, and Miss SLS who was 15 months old.

I did have a few regrets about leaving our little house that we had renovated and brought little Miss SLS home to. It was a lovely house, but just too small for the longer term. So we packed it up, left it sparkling, and moved less than a mile away to our new home, our SLS. Sure, much bigger. But it was also colder, damper, mouldier, smellier... you get the picture. I can remember the first night putting little Miss SLS to bed and her screaming and screaming and I kept thinking she hated the place and would never settle here.

We knew we had work to do, it was just a question of where to start. The arrangement of rooms was totally impractical. I have tried to find an electronic copy of the original plans but have failed! So I will try to describe the lay out. When we moved in the ground floor consisted of the front room (lounge) the dining room, pretty typical Victorian lay out. Then there was a small kitchen with a pass through into the dining room. The kitchen had almost no storage or workspace at all. There were three doors in a room that was 10' x 10'. Behind the kitchen was a cloakroom (with very fetching pink tiles) leading a third reception room that was about 17' x 12.

Photo 1. Front reception to the left,stairs, dining room behind stairs, kitchen beyond. Note the lovely green carpet and delightful wallpaper.

Photo 2. Teeny kitchen with 3 doors and hardly any workspace or storage.

Photo 3. Rear elevation, rear reception was in the white painted bit.

Upstairs there were 5 bedrooms, 4 doubles and one very small single. And no family bathroom. Yes, you read that correctly. We had a toilet and sink on the first landing, and then on the third floor, a bath and sink. Very bizarre.

Clearly creating a family bathroom was high on the list of priorities. And the kitchen had to go. I had no where to store anything, and cooking a meal was so frustrating with no where to put anything down.

So sorting out the kitchen and family bathroom were our first priorities. We had some drawings made and the start of trying to make this place work for our family. I have the plans on my computer, but seem to be unable to upload them. I am going to consult with Mr SLS who is a bit of an IT guru to see if I can get them in another post for you and will continue with the story of our extension from there... so yet again stay tuned!!

Hi there, come on in!!

2010-01-19T18:14:00.008Z

I have never thought of myself as blogworthy. I love reading blogs. It is like an unlimited supply of magazines. And I LOVE magazines. But we are about to embark on a new adventure in our South London Semi and I want to document it. So here we are.

We have been in this house for 5 years. It is a pretty standard Victorian semi detached London house. We are only the third family to have ever lived in this house. Amazing considering it was built in 1897. The woman we bought it from was born here in the 1940's. You would therefore think that it would have had lots of lovely character intact having had just two previous owners. You would be wrong. This family were guilty of many a style crime. Such as? How about replacing all the original sash windows with UPVC double glazing, taking out all upstairs fireplaces, replacing the original front door with a mock Victorian with triple glazing... I could go on, but I assume you get the picture.

So, we have been trying to very gradually return our home to her former glory, but in a more modern way that suits our little family of four. Wanna see??? Will try and dig out some old pictures for you to see. In the meantime, do you like my hall light? This hangs just as you come into the house, and I love it.