Fire in the house

The wood burner is operational! 

Isn't it just beautiful.

Yours 

Belinda Stepford

xxx

House Progress

Since I last wrote about the renovation things have been steaming along at full speed. Seriously its beginning to actually look like a house rather a building site. The house has been a flurry on workmen coming in and out.  The Kitchen is nearly done and so is the Bathroom they just need finishing touches like grouting and flooring before they are ready to be finished.

The Cul-de-sac has been filled with skips and vans as a house across the way is also being renovated so we must be driving the neighbours up the wall. 

The walls have been insulated this week, by a man doing slight acrobatics with a wall injector, and the loft will be done at some point next week, then laid so we can use the loft as storage.

Despite all the progress there is still a long way to go, the wood burner isn't in, light fixtures, decorating, flooring, finishing touches and dressing still needs to be done. It is so exciting to bring this house back to life, it has metamorphosed from the 1970's atrocity into a modern family home. Its sort of boggling to be doing a modern project after living in period properties always so its been a very different build from anything any of us have done before. Thats both exciting and nerve racking.  

Yours 

Belinda Stepford

xxx

Full Steam Ahead

There has been a sudden flurry of business at the house, over the course of this week there have been endless streams of people in and out. Fitting and finishing work. We officially have a bathroom that actually works, rather than a shell with holes in the floor. All the major jobs are now done. Which is a load of our minds.

The wood burner has also gone in, and it looks beautiful. A home is not a home without a fireplace. Now we can start burning things so that the fabric of the house is warmed. We are so close to the house being finished. It is all so exciting.

Its a little hard to believe that a few months ago this house was a greasy, filthy smelly 70's monstrosity and now its been stripped back and reborn. This is what I love about interior design. 

Yours

Belinda Stepford

xxx

An update on all things

This blog has been slightly dead since august, how sad, I seriously keep meaning to write in it but I've been swamped. That being said this is my 100th post!  University work is in full swing and added to that Student Finance England the utter horrors are being evil to me yet again. Now they have decided that I am only eligible for the bare minimum of funding (not true) and are messing me about "reassessing me" yet again. Its as though everything that can go wrong has gone wrong with them. So I've been on even less funds that last year, if thats possible. I even caved and had my mother buy me a food shop, something I didn't do in first year even though I stock piled in preparation for not having money. I would sincerely like to kick the shins of who ever is in charge of student finance. They belong in the very dankest pits of hell. Anyway, rant over. There has been other more interesting news than my money woes. The house is nearing completion! Work has obviously been slower now my sister and I are back at uni and with my parents both working the build speed has slowed down but some awesome progress has been made. Despite some minor mishaps with feet going through floors and metal beams needing to be put into secure up the utility before it fell down throwing the budget slightly its going okay. The huge Sycamore tree has been cut down in the garden, we've kept some of the wood for the new wood burner.

The kitchen is almost complete it just need the light to go in, to be painted and for the floors to go down. It looks absolutely lovely though, the cooker is a super cute old fashioned looking thing that I'm a little in love with. Even though we couldn't get the little half moon handles we wanted the ones we got aren't a bad replacement and look really sweet. I think my dad and I did a pretty decent job on picking the work tops too.

All the rooms have been lined with paper and the carpets are getting measured sometime this week so progress is ticking on. The bathroom still isn't in even though its supposed to have been done weeks ago. Builders don't half like to drag things out. Parents have also been maniacally sorting out our current house getting ready to rent it out as soon as possible after the move so haven't had time to constantly chase around after slacking workmen.

Thats all really. I've got some plans for future posts so fear not I refuse to become one of those bloggers who posts once in a blue moon complaining they don't post enough, I'm out of the habit but I'm getting back into it I have big ideas for this little site even if it is only really for me.

Yours

Belinda Stepford

xxx

Constructive Destruction

We have been busy little bees in the last two weeks, the house has transformed. We have reduced it to a shell and the start of rebuilding has begun. I stripped all the wallpaper and ceiling chipboard off the living room. My parents did the same to the hallway. Everything became covered in flakes of pine that had created the textured ceiling.  We've stripped the dining room ceiling which consisted of polystyrene tiles on top of patterned paper, on top of artex, covering a leak stain which hadn't been dealt with. Such madness.  We also took the dogs to the house one at a time so we could get them used to being there.

We have totally removed the kitchen, mallets and man power was used to rag the units from the walls. Horrific discoveries of more piles of greasy remnants where discovered underneath the units. A swarm of silverfish scuttled out with every movement, some ever lived underneath the wall tiles. We ended up greasy and dusty while dragging the kitchen into the utility room, and again when we transported the units into the car on our many trips to the recycling centre.

Once one side of the kitchen was out we set about removing the tiles, which where two layered thick of plain white modern tiles over brown 70's tiles. They where reluctant to leave the wall but once the hammers came out we had fun clattering them to the floor.

The plumbers came in this week and installed a new boiler and re-piped the entire house, which was a mismatch of various peoples DIY misadventures over the last fifty years leading to a dangerous array of    weak spots around the heating pipes. They also removed the bathroom so all that is left to do is remove the tiles and start the refit. Then they removed all the radiators so we could remove the wallpaper behind them and line the walls with backing paper, which revealed even more ugly patterned wallpaper.

Then Darren the kitchen man came and removed the kitchen sink so we could finish removing the units and tiles. We also arranged with him the units, handles and worktops that we are getting, we've already picked the tiles.  He then set about demolishing the wall, and moving electrical out lets. He finished off rounding the arch in the kitchen and prepped it to be plastered over this weekend. He also did a fabulous thing of removing the 70's gas fireplace and ripping off the pine casing around the chimney breast. He also happens to have a wood burner for sale, a lovely little one with a marble surround which suits us perfectly. We've also had a tree surgeon  out to survey the sycamore in the back garden, he agreed to remove it and trim the overhanging trees so the garden will get more light.

The further we take our archaeological dig into this house the more it feels as though the house is sighing with relief. Its not long now until we can start decorating and make the house ours. 

Yours

Belinda Stepford

xxx

House progress

We got the house on Wednesday and by Saturday we had already near transformed it. Simply ripping out every single  vile stinking carpet out of the house made a huge difference and covering the house in candles. The rooms look instantly bigger and brighter. The house now smells of bleach and cleaning products not old Chinese food. It is so much more welcoming and easier to see the potential in the place. 

We also cleaned all the the windows and scrubbed the kitchen. My Mim and I scrubbed the kitchen surfaces for hours but they still felt greasy it was awful. Worst of all when we removed the tin foil from the wall there was grease underneath the foil, that was there so long it had been painted over. What cretin saw a greasy wall and thought, you know what would improve that... covering it in foil. yuck!

The kitchen despite hours of bleaching and scrubbing when I knelt on the work tops to clean the top of the units my knees stuck to the grease on the work tops. I was just trying to get them clean enough to put in the back of the car to take to the tip but they are so impossible to actually clean I think we're just going to have to put a tarp down and take them like that. My Mim tried to brighten our greasy kitchen up by bringing some flowers in from the garden and popping them in a tea pot. 

We also started de-weeding and tearing apart the garden, on a particularly sunny day. We managed to drag out four really established sycamore saplings, rather a lot of brambles and seeming never ending cleavers. All in all we've been very productive, when we weren't sitting in the sun drinking tea... 

I love playing house, its like the sims but real real life, so much fun.

Yours

Belinda Stepford

xxx