Tom Fotherby’s Blog

The bathroom turned out to be quite difficult to get right because of drainage issues and in the end we had to raise the floor up to hide pipes and to get a better slope for waste water.

It’ll be nice having a on-suite bathroom, no more going downstairs to clean our teeth.

Before:
After:

We’ve finally finished the living room:

Before:
After:

It is much more laptop and console friendly. It used to have 1 socket, now it’s got 10. It used to have 1 storage heater, now it’s got 2 central heating radiators. It used to have nicotine coloured wall-paper, now it’s got new plaster and fresh paint. Other work includes a soft carpet, dimmable lights, DVD storage space, gas & electric meter relocation, TV socket, Telephone socket - It’s much more comfortable now.

I had to replace a rotten floor joist:

We are having the dining room and sitting room re-wired and re-plastered:

Before Plastering:
During Plastering:
After Plastering:
After Painting:

It’ll be nice to not have to look at the bare brickwork any more. Plus having more than one socket in the room will be a real luxury.

Since we are having our dining room re-plastered and have stripped the wallpaper, it is the right time to have our window replaced with French doors. We have planned to do it ever since we were looking round the house when it was still on the market:

Before:
After:

It has made the room much brighter. A big improvement which I guess won’t be fully realised till the rest of the room is done.

We have a charging area in our house where the chargers for our phones, camera, Gameboy and Bluetooth stuff live. It’s always a mess of cables and adaptors so I decided to tidy it up.

A bit blue peter - But it’s better than before:

Before:

After:

1) I bought a box from B&Q that seemed the right size to fit a 6 socket power extension inside and felt quite sturdy.
2) I used a dremel to cut a plug-sized hole in the side of the box so I could fit the adaptor inside.
3) I used a drill to make a hole in the top of the box for each device I wanted to have a charger for.
4) I used sellotape on the inside of the box around the holes to stop the cables slipping back into the box.

The inside of the box can be as messy as you like:

We’re having our roof tiles replaced. It was something that we were told we needed to have done in the survey when we were buying the house. Our neighbour was doing his roof and we thought we’d do it at the same time so as to get a seamless join between the two houses.

Our current slates seem pretty old and are slipping off in places.

Being Done: Remove old slates, battens and felt. New “breathable” felt, then new battens and roof tiles. New front guttering. Render join between neighbours as necessary.

Of course, last night, while we had half a roof it poured with rain. I went into the attic to see if there were any leaks but it seemed ok. It was loud though! sounded like I was inside a drum.

The electrics and plastering and windows were done at the same time as the main bedroom. The only thing we didn’t replace was the original skirting board and window sills as they still seemed solid. We gutted the airing cupboard and put in some new shelves. We painted the room neutral, then bought a new carpet and curtains and choose a wardrobe with a full length mirror on one of the doors. The beds were left over from when my Grandparents moved house (we figured having single beds was more versatile for a spare room). The curtain poles were a wedding present.

Before:

After:

The best thing about our spare room is that we have a shoe cabinet! (cue Wagnes World quote to scary ex-girlfriend after she gives him a gun rack as an “anniversary” gift) A gun rack… a gun rack. Shyeah, Right! I don’t even own a gun, let alone many guns that would necessitate an entire rack.). Except, I do own some shoes and it’s very zen to have them nicely lined up in a shoe cabinet!

We painted and resized 2 bedroom doors, changed the handles and mounted some hooks. We put up a curtain rail, chose and hung some curtains. We Bought a bedroom Hi-Fi which has an alarm clock and we got a dressing table chair. So apart from some art work on the walls, the bedroom is finished - Hooray for finishing our 2nd room!

Before:
After 1:
After 2:

I finally got round to fitting a boiler cupboard door in the kitchen and doing the last of the skirting and architrave. I’ve wanted to do this ever since we moved… a before and after pic:

Before
After

Removing the partition wall was definitely a good decision as it made the room a little bigger.

We got the bedroom plastered and we painted the walls and ceiling and fixed some new skirting board. We had a new bedroom carpet fitted and have just finished building 6 pieces of flat-pack furniture. It’s so nice to finally get some upstairs storage space, it’s going to feel so luxurious compared to living out of wire boxes

Next, we need doors and curtains and a few finishing touches.

The strong winds blew down 5 panels of our fence.

After winds	After fix

I don’t like doing unscheduled DIY - spending time doing this has meant less time to spend on the bedroom.

We’ve been gutting upstairs, stripping all the wallpaper off the walls and removing the skirting boards and coving:

We laid co-axial cable and shopped for some funky light fittings. We got in the electricians to install 7 new double sockets, an attic & cellar light, new bedroom lights and a new extractor fan & light for the future bathroom.

After a long break from DIY (to arrange our wedding) we have made some effort to do the finishing touches to our kitchen. We tiled the wall and window sill and fitted the plinth, edging tape, filler and cornice. The hood was tricky to put up because it had to be supported by our cavity wall so we had to drill though the plaster board and add extra battens for strength. We had to cut the hood chimney down to size and put up a board of wood to hide the top of the chimney and give the units a feel of continuity.

Left to do: Window blinds, remaining skirting board, boiler cupboard door, spice rack and hang some pictures.