Weâre baaaaack! Itâs been quite a while since the last update and while we can make up lots of excuses for this, no one wants to hear them and theyâre not very good.
Weâre about to kick off another load of work on the house, but before we can get to any of that we need to get you all up to date with whatâs been going on in theâŚ
đ Nozzy House! đ
The Bathroom
The shower glass was the last thing to go in. We now consider this room done* (apart from some shelves).
The Bedroom
The walls are a bit more green. We now consider this room done* (apart from repainting the ceiling, and replacing the cupboard knobs, and some other bits).
Improved cinema
The cinema is a lot nicer than it was. We upgraded the seating when Ozzy bought some beanbags as a birthday present for Nikki, and we took quite a large step forwards by replacing the projector and getting a soundbar. Itâs pretty awesome and comfy to watch stuff down there now and weâve had several movie nights with films, snacks and friends.
We took a large step sideways when we became custodians of Henryâs exercise bike and rowing machine to turn our cinema into a gymena (that word is much more fun to say than to type). When we tried out this arrangement for the first time it began very well, but as the projector warmed up it quickly became unpleasant on the bike as the projector belches hot air straight into your face. We solved this by buying a BIG FAN, which we probably should have had anyway as there isnât a lot of airflow in the basement.
Barstool legs
We got an unexpected call from our kitchen makers asking if they could book in a time to come and photograph our kitchen for their portfolio (a good sign I think đ), and this gave Nikki the prod she needed to get around to painting the kitchen stool legs to match the â¨bling⨠of everything else.
First, she tried a gold spray paint with grey spray undercoat. We went and bought a can that claimed to have sufficient coverage, but we soon found out that trying to spray something as thin as the stool legs results in an awful lot of paint missing the legs, as such we ran out of paint very quickly. What paint hit the legs went on fairly easily, but the result was a bit patchy and the paint looked more like glitter than â¨blingâ¨. The paint was also prone to scratching, and as a last effort before our kitchen was photographed, she tried a brushable paint.
It is hard to paint a tube with a brush. It looks okaayy.
If we knew what we knew now, weâd have either bought the legs already â¨blingâ¨ed, or been satisfied with the legs as they were. It wasnât really worth the amount of effort we had to put in to change them.
As of yet, we havenât seen the photos on their website, but weâll let you know when we have!
Breakfast Balcony
A quick little project we fancied was to create an outdoor balconette seating area, for coffee and toast on sunny days. IKEAâs finest, cable ties, bam bam bam, sorted. We consider this done*, of course. (except that we plan to install some herb planters on the railings, and havenât yet worked out how best to fit them on.)
Sash window
In academic circles there is a great problem whereby scientists donât publish negative results. This often causes a large duplication of effort as experiments are tested many times by separate scientists instead of being able to refer to a published result. One theory for this is that negative results are dull, unexciting and generally not worth writing up.
Well! Weâre not going to let that stop us!
The sash cord in our lounge window broke. It is possible to use a sash window with only one cord, but itâs dubious at best. This happened during the summer, so we were very keen to get this fixed fairly quickly.
Windows are one of those things that weâve always been rather hesitant to attempt anything with just because of the price of failure. Even though it was summer we didnât want a great big hole in the side of our house.
The way to replace this cord is to crowbar the bit of wood on the frame that holds the sash in its track and then remove the lower window in order to access the weights and cord behind. This definitely felt beyond our abilities, but we gave it a go anyway.
The crowbar went in, and after a little scare where we thought the wood had broken, we had prised the trim off. The lower sash came off without a huge amount of extra worry and we now had a big hole in the side of our house.
Next was trying to access the weights compartment. This was not successful. We just couldnât find a way to remove the cover without looking like we would damage the wood in such a way that the window would no longer smoothly run over it.
đŹ Retreat! Discretion is the better part of valour!
We decided we should patch it up as best we could, then get a professional in to do it properly. Fortunately, having removed the sash we could knot some new sash cord onto the existing end and it works well enough to open and close the window again.
Have we called the professional in yet? No. We have not. đ¤Ś
đ Elephant Toilet đ
Well done us. The job we bought elephant themed things for and planned to do in April⌠last year. Itâs done*!
Remember what it was like?
First off, demolition. It was pretty easy to remove the backsplash tiles and sink. The tiles were attached to wallpaper, which was attached to expanded polystyrene, which was not very attached to wall. There was a large amount of polyfillering, sanding, then more polyfillering to do once the old tiles and sink had been ripped out.
Next, painting. We thought it was fitting that, as the previous colour was leftover blue paint from what our office was, the new colour is the leftover green paints from our bedroom and front door. Clearly it is too small a room for anyone to bother buying new paint! In fact, it was so small a room that Ozzy decided it would be far too crowded for more than one person to do the painting, so Nikki had to do it all (oh no đ).
Next next, we installed the sink, toilet seat, new light, elephant fittings and jungle themed artwork.
Next next next was a fair amount of plumbing planning. We had already bought some plumbing supplies, but more were needed, and we wanted to be certain we could get the job fully done once we started.
In went the lego pipes for hot and cold. After the requisite testing, splashing, swearing and fixing, we had the sink input complete and the sink output briefly set up using the fĂŞted (fetid?) âNozzy Dishwasherâ drainage method (a bucket underneath, for those who donât remember). We connected the waste properly shortly afterwards and painted them to blend into the walls.
Next next next next was the floor. We had a sample set of vinyl planks from Nikkiâs parents which were fine, except we thought weâd like a colour that more closely matched the kitchen floor. In they went. Silicon went round the edges and the room is now a lot less woodlousey and spidery than it was. The vinyl planks were easy to score and snap, but it would have been a lot simpler to work with had the room been less entirely made of edges, none of which were square.
All in all, we would class this room as a huge success for us, even though it took so long to work ourselves up to it. The plumbing job took a while to plan for, but because we had planned so hard it was pretty straightforward to actually do. This is a dangerous lesson, as we are generally a bit prone to overanalysing instead of getting on with things.
đ§ď¸đ§ď¸ Why does it always rain inside our house? đ§ď¸đ§ď¸
One of the joys of having this blog is being able to relive the past and reminisce about what the house used to be like and how far weâve come. Unfortunately, that joy comes with the ability to read sentences like the following
High on our priority list is now a way to sort this out without having to climb on the roof
Look at that! Thatâs me declaring a high priority item from nearly a year ago.
As you may have guessed, we havenât fixed this one yet and after the recent heavy rain our house rained inside again. Aaargghgh! We need to be able to sort this out. We are looking at methods of preventing the gutter from filling up with debris, and ways of clearing out the internal gutter. Seeing as how it was summer Ozzy found an appropriately summery solution - a bucket and spade. Expect more updates on this in the future.
Study sofabed
Weâre planning to have more sleepovers at our house going forward, and given the size of the house it seemed a bit ridiculous that we could only offer one couple a relatively comfortable bed in a private room (we have a nice sofa bed in our lounge). It then made sense to be able to use the office as a spare room if we have a full house and Nikki found this click-clack sofa bed which matches the curtains. Weâre pretty pleased with it! Itâs a little firm, but itâs not too bad! It has the Nikki Nap stamp of approval.
Any other updates?
There is one cool housey news thing thatâs too good not to share. One of our neighbours pointed out one of the roses in our garden and gave us a bit of its history. Itâs a variety called Whiter Shade of Pale, and it was planted here because the previous ownerâs husband was Denny Cordell - the producer for Procol Harum, as well as some early Moody Blues albums đ
We also marked another important milestone - We made our first apple crumble from the apples in our garden. Yum yum yum
Whatâs to come
We are in the calm before the storm. Sept-Oct-Nov are currently all booked with Simon and Will to come back and do up more of our house. On their list is the top floor bathroom, the dining room (erstwhile kitchen) and the hallway just outside the dining room. These are all things that are beyond our ability, toolset or enthusiasm to learn.
Clearly this isnât enough housey upheaval because weâve decided that weâre going to tackle a little utility room improvement ourselves before/at the same time.
đĄ Did you know? đĄ
Nikki and Ozzy are not the wisestWeâve finally managed to learn that nothing is ever really done done, itâs only done*, and itâs just a matter of priorities for when you decide enough is enough and itâs time to move onto the next thing for now.
Weâre both very excited by how much the house will feel improved after the works in the coming months. Just have to get through them, though we know it wonât be nearly as much disruption as the works last year!
Shouldnât be as long until the next Nozzy House News update!