Around the home...

The House

Boiler replacement
We had always planned to one day change the boiler in the new house as we have a preference for a combi-boiler rather than having separate hot water and central heating, when the electric immersion heater failed though we were forced to act quicker than we expected. Unfortunately we couldn’t easily replace the heating element in the hot water cylinder because whoever fitted the boiler placed directly above the cylinder, preventing us from getting access to the bits inside it. This lack of planning and poor execution is a theme that seems to run throughout the house (some might call it qwerky!). For a few weeks we had to do without hot water and we were washing either at work, at Sue’s mums, or at the local swimming baths. Now it has been replaced we are pretty much back to normal.

New furniture
We sold much of our furniture to the woman who was buying our old house as we had bought it when we moved in there approximately 10 years before. We brought only the sitting room furniture (the seating we intend to change later once we have finished the redecoration), and some shelving and storage units. We had bought new beds just before the move and we had a lovely old oak dining table given to us by Joyce and Terry (the frame of which is several hundred years old). We had new dining chairs delivered in the nick of time just before Christmas ready for use by all our visitors who were coming over to dine with us during the festive break. We have bought a few pieces of furniture which are in the Indian style in dark rosewood and rustic finish and they seem to suit the style of the cottage very well.

Decorating
We had help from Sue’s brother and nephews with plastering and some painting, enabling us to repaint the lounge, dining room, front bedroom and start on the bathroom. We have now nearly finished painting, with just the woodwork in most of the rooms and the walls and woodwork in the bathroom yet to do. Sue’s aunt is coming over soon to hang some wall paper on a feature wall to complete the lounge and then it is details such as door furniture, shelves, some pictures and a curtain left to hang after that.

Fence
We had some storms earlier in the year and the only fence in gardens in our terrace of houses to come down was ours. It was completely rotten and so we again called on Sue’s brother to come over and put up a new one with strong concrete posts that should now last a while.

Allotment

We still have our old allotment which we will slowly rob of useful plants, moving them either to a new allotment or to plant out in our garden. There is a section of land behind us that is being used as a vegetable garden and we have asked the owner if he would consider letting us rent (or buy) some of it off him, but we haven’t heard back from him yet. We have bought our seed potatoes, onions and garlic and we plan on starting planting in a couple of weeks, once the ground starts to warm up.