Moving house

Bebi · Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:31 pm Post subject: Moving house

We've decided that we're moving in the next couple of weeks. Our old landlord has found us a nice house with a garden and we got the key last night. It's being decorated at the moment (it only became free yesterday) and hopefully we'll be moving within a week. I'll obviously be offline during the move, and until we can get the phone line sorted out at the new place, but I hope to be able to nip round mums now and then and borrow her connection to keep everyone updated.

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It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:51 pm Post subject:

I've started packing unused items, got more or less half of the kitchen stuff boxed and ready to take round. There's just the crockery/cutlery, cooking utensils and food we eat daily to do but I'm going to come back to those later and start on the bedrooms next. I might spend some time tomorrow cleaning the kitchen of the new place so I can at least store items in the cupboards while it's being redecorated.

Andy's hoping it'll be redecorated by Monday (three days time) so we can start actually moving then, but I'm not so sure, next week sometime for definite but I think Monday's a little optimistic.

It's a cute little house, modern, and with a small front garden and decent sized south facing back garden. The back garden's not big, but large enough to have a shed and veg patch as well as being able to have a patio seating area and plenty of flowerbeds. I'm going to dig up all the grass and completely redesign it, so I may not be online as often once we're moved in as it really does need some work. At the moment it's just grass that's been left to grow wild. My intentions are to have the shed and veg patch in front of the driveway and pave the rest with raised flower borders all the way around.

Anyways, I'd better get on, sooooo much to do, especially if he wants to move on Monday! LOL

Edit: My plan for the garden

Click to see full size image

Key
A Patio area
B Raised flowerbeds
C Raised herb bed
D Vegetable patch
E Shed
F Driveway
G House
_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 8:57 am Post subject:

I'm just having a coffee and a cig before I close this down and we get the rest of the stuff moved. Got 90% of the kitchen moved yesterday, it was so funny last night when we realised we were hungry - we had to make do with whatever was in the fridge and we have one teaspoon, one fork, one desert spoon and a steak knife haha Smilie_PDT

We ended up with cheese and salad sandwiches with a yoghurt for afters.

We're hoping to get everything we need to live with over today and then spend a couple of days coming back and getting anything else and doing a quick tidy up. We're leaving the sofas and maybe the large wooden display unit (6ft tall, 4ft wide and 2ft deep). There's a suite in the new house we can use for the time being and we don't see the point in moving the sofas when we're thinking of getting a new one anyway. The wooden unit is solid and extremely heavy, it'll be a shame to leave it but it's a real drama to move it and there isn't really anywhere for it. We may change our minds but we'll decide whether we'll move it once we've got the rest of the furniture in and have worked out how much space there is left (and how tired we are...)

Because the previous tenants left a few belongings in the new place and told our landlord they didn't want them he's allowed us to keep whatever we want as he was going to put everything in a skip anyway. Apart from a few boxes of car-boot stuff for my parents I found a hallmarked silver toothpick holder and two Wedgewood plates (matching pair) so I've put those away until we're fully moved in and I'm going to have a good look at them later. The previous tenants were using the Wedgewood as dinner plates (they were left in the sink dirty) but there are no chips or marks on them. I'm not sure if they're valuable yet or not, but even if they are I'll be keeping them as I quite like them. The toothpick holder I found when we were moving some beds from the bedrooms, it was sat on top of the skirting board behind the bed, it's a tiny thing with a loop on it to put it on a necklace. I don't have time right now but I'll take some pics of them and post once I'm back up and running. I doubt it will be before we get our own internet connection on though.

Right it's time I went now, take care everyone and I'll keep you updated when I can escape to mums house *waves*

Messages will be best sent via this forum until I'm back properly, I probably won't be checking emails, just this site.

If you've arrived here from one of the sites I've linked and are not a member you can leave me a message by posting in the Unregistered Users section if you don't want to register. Make sure you put your name on the post so I know who you are hehe :O)
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It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 7:39 pm Post subject:

Well that's just typical, our "man with a van" let us down today so we couldn't get what we wanted moved. Looks like I'll be up and running til tomorrow morning at least now lol we're handing the keys back next Saturday so as long as we're all moved in by Weds it gives me a couple of days to tidy up this place and make sure we haven't left anything important.

Mum's coming with the car tomorrow, so we should be able to get everything that's liftable over with that. The van will be available evenings during the week so we'll have to move the washer then, and the fridge and cooker if we can't lift them between me, mum and Andy. We should manage beds ok with the car, but we don't really want to move round there for good until we've got the major stuff over. No way am I leaving anything we need alone in the house as the current landlady is grumbling about us moving out, and I don't trust her not to change the locks the minute we're out overnight. She's already insisting that someone comes to service the fire tomorrow even though we've told her it can wait a couple days as we're moving. I've said tough, if they come they'll have to work around us and not the other way around.

Right time I was doing something constructive rather than sat here tapping lol I'll try and update in the morning depending on whether we're moving the pc's and if I get time.
_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:42 pm Post subject:

We've now got a van to move the main stuff tomorrow lunchtime so I'll be turning the pc off for the time being after I've had my morning coffee. I'm absolutely shattered so keeping this short, I'll try and update in the morning :O)
_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2007 2:09 pm Post subject:

Yay we've moved!!

The new house is great, it's so nice to be able to get up and have my morning coffee sat on the back door step looking out over the garden (even though it's a mess at the moment). The cats are settled, well, apart from Margaret but he'll realise we've moved before too long. We had to go fetch him for a couple of weeks last time, but he knows where the new house is so that's the main thing. Zac and Mymble are 100% settled, going outside (from the first day) and generally being relaxed. Zac wants to go outside after dark and explore rather than the day but until I've seen him around and about during the day with the back door open I don't want him to be out all night in case he gets spooked and can't get back into the house where he feels safe. Eventually we're having a shed built and are putting a cat flap, bed and food/water in there for them, it should be finished by the autumn so they'll have shelter overnight by winter.

We've still got so much to do, I'm round mums at the moment doing this update. Andy wants to completely redecorate, but we're waiting a week or so to get over the move (insists she who did almost everything during the move lol) Mum's also broken her arm (wrist) so I'm here giving her a hand with a few things she can't do herself. She fell over a kerb in town last week and fell awkwardly on it. It's in half plaster until Weds and then once the swelling has gone down she's having a full plaster on for 6 weeks or so.

We're having problems getting a landline on. BT say the previous tenants had their phone line registered with some Hungarian overseas company and they can't remove this unless we can tell them which company it is and get a code to release the line. It's pure madness. Also they won't put a phoneline on until the broadband is sorted out which could take up to 10 days

Smilie_PDT

Anyways that's about it I think, I'm going to do a few more jobs for mum, ring BT (again), then head home to do some more of whatever there is to do. A woman's work is never done LOL Take care everyone, I'm hoping to be back online properly as soon as BT get their derrier's into gear and get our landline working...
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It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

FrankBlunt · Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 3:37 am Post subject:

Congratulations on finding a new home, Bebi!

Have you had to call Budapest yet to determine the former overseas phone company? Any way of getting in touch with the prior tenants for confirmation?

When you spoke of your cats learning of their new territory, I thought of the thread I started in the "Natural World" forum on UM. It's called "Homing". You may be interested to join the discussion, prove me wrong, etc., etc. Smilie_PDT

Bebi · Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject:

We've got the foreign phone company thing sorted, I'm currently sat in a queue to BT to find out when they're going to put it on. Fingers crossed I should get an answer today. Don't you love hands free LOL

Looks like we moved just in time, Andy spoke to one of our old neighbours and she said the cellars on that street are flooded again. We found out we qualify for crisis aid to replace our freezer etc which is a bonus (however belated) so hopefully soon we can start building up a food stock again. At the moment we're living from tins, packets and fresh produce bought daily, but it's so much more cost effective to buy fresh once a fornight and make meals for that fornight and freeze them. We tried looking on Freecycle before we moved but obviously with the whole area affected by the floods everyone's in the same boat and there aren't many available, I'd also rather they went to those who really do need them, families with children etc.

I'll have a look at that thread when we're back online properly, I'm currently using mums pc (typing one fingered and listening to the theme from Watership Down while being taken on a tour of various BT departments) and don't really want to clutter up her history with hundreds of different sites. Oh... just got through, apparantly we need an engineers visit to check that the other company didn't mess the line up *rolls eyes* I asked if it was a free visit (remembering last time) and was told they can't guarantee it and we'll have to ask the engineer when he arrives a week today... Great lol The upside is if it all goes to plan we should be reconnected by midday on 24th - but I'm not holding my breath til it actually happens...

We've been busy decorating. The bathroom and upstairs hallway are now finished apart from a last brush round the edges of the ceilings with white paint, I'm leaving that til we've done the bedroom then do all the ceilings at once. I've also got a clear perspex toilet seat with barbed wire inside it hehehe

We're undecided whether to paint the living room or wallpaper as some idiot painted the lower half of the walls in dark reddish terracotta gloss and when we took off the distinctly non-matching border it all went very strange and now looks a complete mess. The border appeared to have been attached with superglue and has left a really sticky residue on the wall as well as scratches where the wallpaper scraper caught the paint. Oh, and the steamer used to remove the border also bubbled the dark paint and has left some really rough surfaces. We tried sanding it but it just made it worse lol

Anyways, I've taken up enough of mums time and pc, I need to get back home and get cracking on glossing the banisters. Take care everyone *waves*
_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:22 pm Post subject:

We're back online!!! The BT engineer was here for about half an hour and the line was working before he left. I'll still be really busy for the next few weeks though, we've got the living room to finish off decorating and the kids room to get fixed up. The kids are visiting on 4th Aug for 2 weeks, we need to get the bunk beds made up and a curtain pole/curtains put up then it's done. We've got the curtains, just need to get a pole on Monday, I've seen a nice pine one to match the bunk beds for a tenner. We've painted the top half of the living room (magnolia, yes I know it's boring but it matches everything), we just need to finish the lower half which we're going to wallpaper, again we're getting that on Monday. We've seen some we like (strangely we both spotted it at different times lol) it's a light teracotta colour and has a nice raised effect similar to linen, it's £8.99 a roll, but it's really good quality and should last for a few years (well, it had better!)

Anyways, I'm going to go and check my other websites and see what's been happening with them. Hope everyone's okay *waves*
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It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness

Bebi · Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject:

Phew... day off from decorating lol

We've replaced the gas fire and started on the wallpapering. We wallpapered half the room yesterday, we just have the half behind the sofa and desk, and up the stairs to do, which is going to be the trickiest bit.

The gas fire is lovely, we spotted it in a second hand furniture shop down the road. I wasn't sure at first because I'd seen one complete with surround that I liked, but I'm glad we got it because it looks great, even without a fire surround. It also throws loads of heat out on the lower settings which is going to be cost effective. And the best thing about it is it cost us £110 less than the one I'd seen so we could spend more on decorating. (and buy two lottery tickets, but we didn't even get a single number, waste of time that was lol)

I'd never wallpapered before (ever) until yesterday lol I actually really enjoyed myself and found it a lot easier than I'd imagined. I think the fact we've only papered halfway up the wall might be a factor in that though putting 5m of border on level without any breaks in it was hilarious.

My job originally was to cut the wallpaper to length before pasting and then after Andy had pasted and hung it go around cutting any parts out like sockets etc. I found myself enjoying it so much poor Andy ended up pasting it and that was about it - I helped him to to level the paper then I took over and got any bubbles out and trimmed it.

After a long discussion we ended up pasting the border as we went along, Andy unrolled the border about 3ft at a time and held the previously stuck part while I pasted and lined it up with the marks. It actually worked out a great system as it's perfectly level and looks great. We did have to add a small piece to the end of it as the longest wall is 6m, and I ended up doing it on my own, not that Andy didn't want to help, I was just having far too much fun to let him haha

We're having a day relaxing before tackling the stairs. Being a wallpapering newbie I'm probably imagining that it's going to be easier than it looks right now, but we've got the job of making sure the angles all fit together as the stairs are open plan. Also the skirting board here curves round the corner rather than goes straight with angles so we won't have that for a guide. I suppose today will be a physically relaxing day rather than mentally relaxing - I can see us discussing this on and off all day, but I don't want to pick up a measure and a pencil and start marking because it'll be assumed we're starting it now rather than tomorrow... Why can't men work on the theory of ideas without involving the practical? LOL

_________________
It is those who are perfectly sane who are driven the maddest by an insane world...

There is method behind my madness