Itās been quite a while since weāve done one of these! Weāve got to the point where each individual job isnāt very big, so we havenāt bothered documenting them.
The theme for this yearās works is š¤ļøoutsideš¤ļø. Weāre running out of large-scale things to do inside, but there was plenty of scope outside for improvement.
However, weāve still accumulated quite a few other small jobs since the last update! Bim bim bam letās go
The Back
Even since we arrived in Bath we struggled to fully enjoy our patio. It was a bit of an awkward shape and the floor was all over the place. We also had issues with the drain, which would fill up with a big puddle in the lightest of rains.
Well, we decided that it could be so much better and got some people in to come and build us a new one. As always, Ozzy was astonished at the speed at which demolition happens, and after a couple of days in early June we were left with a big mess in the back garden where we used to have a patio.
Work tends to go fast when youāre using the right tools, and given that ššš tools are our favourite things ššš, we couldnāt pass up giving you a quick overview.
The Power-Wheelbarrow has a weight capacity of half a ton, and can lift and tilt its bucket into a skip. Super useful when youāre having to take all the spoil down the full length of our garden. The tank-style tracks have an amazing capacity for churning up lawns, and it churned up ours with gusto.
The MiniDigger is just pretty cute. It can tuck in its treads so that it can be driven straight through a house - we didnāt feel the need for a demonstration. They also didnāt let us have a go as its quite a bit more tippy than a standard digger.
Between them they made very quick work on removing our old patio slabs of pennant stone. They dropped them halfway down the garden, in a very neat way, that happened to expand our mid-garden patio by the āorchardā. š
Whilst the demolition was quick, it wasnāt entirely smooth. Weād decided to have the treads of the stairs match the patio, and when they came to remove the old concrete treads, a fair part of the rest of the stairs came with them turning them into a bit of a slide.
We had a big olā conversation about various options on how to proceed, but we didnāt really like any of the options presented. We could see that there had been several attempts at bodging this staircase previously with assorted bits of wire and cement. The lowest stair was half missing, and was instead made of soil and plant roots. In the end, we decided to get some stonemasonry people to come and fix things properly. Of course this adds more time as we need to organise more people, but we thought that it would be worth it.
In the meantime, work continued on the main patio, and by the end of June it was done*. We chose a porcelain tile as these would be very hardwearing, but mainly: flat (a feature we were looking forward to). We would have relain the pennant stone if there was enough, but half of it was missing and replaced with concrete or broken.
We were so pleased with finally having a flat patio that we decided to cash in a wedding present from Ozzyās parents - a garden furniture voucher. We couldnāt see any expiry date, which is good considering we were over ten years late redeeming it š
You can see the start of the work that the stonemasons were doing to the stairs here. They were so unsure about what might need to be done that they refused to give us a quote and instead agreed a day-rate. Watching them work was an education in stairbuilding technique.
We found out that each stair is almost entirely supported by the large party wall and the stair beneath - the smaller wall beneath the stairs was a much later addition. This ruled out replacing any of the stairs because we really didnāt want to do anything with the shared garden wall, so instead we opted to extend each step forward a bit - increasing the overlap between each step.
By the time the masons had finished it was already late July. Now we just had to organise a time to get the original bloke back to place the stair treads.
Then, we had to get someone else to come and fix the railing. During deconstruction of the stairs, we had to cut out a few of the supports for the railing. This left it in such a wobbly state that if you did need to use it, not only would it fail to prevent your fall, it would probably fall on top of you afterwards. Fortunately, thereās a really good ironmongers just down the road from us, so we got them to come and fix it up for us - it only took a few weeks, but that pushed us into September.
Lastly we just needed to tackle sanding and repainting the railing. I feel that having to wait a few weeks to get someone in to do something is generally considered an encouraging sign of competence - well in that case Nikki and Ozzy must be bloody amazing at painting railings! We had to wait ages for them to start!
Now we just need to wait until spring for the plants to grow back in and itāll be done! Weāve planted rosemary, some lavender, a peony, a rudbeckia, lots of bulbs and two climbing roses. Bets are on for how many will survive the winter. Weāll share some more photos when everythingās grown in a bit.
DONE DONE DONE! It only took 7 months - no wonder our updates are slowing down!
The Front
Whilst all this was going on, we were having some work done at the front as well. Our front garden wall has been looking a bit fally-downy ever since we got here - another similarity to Harrow š Given what Bath is like, and the visibility of this change, we decided to take our first dip into the wonderful world of planning permission and listed building consent - Yay.
Fortunately, it was far easier than we expected it to be. We knew that numbers 4-7 of our house block had got their front walls repaired and re-railed a few years before we moved in. What we didnāt know was that their consent forms included our house too! And because their work was started within 5 years of the permission being granted, planning for ours hadnāt lapsed so we didnāt need to do anything! Nice!
Full steam ahead then! We had our favourite stonemason friends come round and take the unoriginal bits off, stabilise the lower course, then add a few courses of Bath stone.
Our favourite ironmonger friends came back to add in the railings. They have a massive lead time so we had to wait a while before the railings could be installed. They drilled holes in our nice new wall, then the railings were stuck in with lead.
Time for another done*
It all looks great, but the surface of the garden path is so uneven that itās not possible to close the front gate š¤¦ Weāre choosing to think about how this shows how welcoming we are, rather than anything else.
The Others
Time for the bim bim bam section of all the other small jobs!
Lounge
We moved the mirror to the other side of the room, and painted the walls and bookshelves a bit. We also replaced the radiators as the old ones stopped working. We donāt have a huge number of ābeforeā photos because we forgot.
We also forgot to take āafterā photos, and weāve got our Christmas decorations up now so youāll have to wait.
We got a footstool which has a bed in it - we had a bit of a mixup with the delivery where we received a completely different colour in a mislabeled box - fun fun fun
Itās really cosy now, but itās still far from done.
Shelves
Basement
The basement continues to be pretty uninspiring compared to the rest of the house. We are mainly using it for storage, though now weāve moved the sofa bed down there. We bought some moving straps (š) which are rated for very heavy things, and spent about an hour carrying the sofa to the basement. šŖ We had to go out of the front door, all around the side road and up the garden, as the sofa doesnāt fit down our stairs. When we were halfway down the road, we got an offer from our next-door-neighbour to throw the sofa over the garden fence if it would helpā¦ (It wouldnāt)
The sofabed was intended for watching films in the cinema and as accommodation for guests, but it came in very handy for us to sleep in when there was a heatwave!
Ozzyās second love in life is big plastic storage boxes, and weāve reworked a lot of our shelves to accommodate these. They arenāt the prettiest, but itās useful to have contained areas for storing stuff, and itās easier to see whatās in them than in cardboard boxes.
Which means we can now return to the ā¦
š¦ Unpack-o-meter š¦
We've unpacked 67 boxes out of 67!
WHATāS THAT?? Weāve unpacked every box!! This means weāve now officially moved in. Well done us! š
Or rather, weāve just transferred things from cardboard boxes into plastic boxes.
Weāve also done a couple of jobs in the basement bathroom - replacing the old loud extractor fan with a quieter one, replacing the light with one that wasnāt falling out of the ceiling, and repainting and covering the louvre doors with burlap to help a little with privacy. We also ārepairedā the slightly leaky shower by turning it off at the stopcock. This bathroom is likely to be a future project - either ripping it out or replacing it in some way. Stay tuned to find out!
Excuses
Thatās pretty much it for this year. As always, weāve been distracted busy with other things as well. š
This LVGO concert deserves a special mention as Nikki arranged one of the pieces for it. It was used as the finale and encore and everyone loved it š„³š®āšØ. Afterwards the composer gave Nikki two limited edition copies of the original game as a thank you. Massive sigh of relief, and definitely worth all the trouble taken!
We also got a drone! Please enjoy some quick shots from our last couple of trips away in Wales and Weston-super-Mare. The unnecessarily epic music is a requirement for drone footage.
Let us know if you want any gutters inspected š
See you all next year!