Monday, 30 July 2012

The Bathroom

Lately I have been thinking about sorting up my awful bathroom. Last February we had a new shower put in, and since then it has remained un-gib-stopped where the new gib has been put up, there is a gap all the way around the shower box where the old one was removed where there are no cork tiles, and the fact that, as with the rest of my house when it was purchased about 3.5 years ago, it was clearly decorated by someone colourblind who managed to secure a job lot of miss-tints!




The new shower, put in February 2011

The colour combination...

As soon as I walked into the bathroom when we were looking at buying the place, I felt a little seasick, maybe even a little drunk... if the delightful single coat of olive green on the lower half of the bathroom wasn't enough, the wallpaper on the top half was enough to make your eyes water! Burgundy, green and cream vertical stripes, quite close together, and then some kind of celtic-inspired boarder around the top... oh my! I said that it would be one of the first rooms to be tackled. Um. Yes, clearly my priorities changed. Admittedly, eventually I got used to not looking at the walls when I went in.

The bathroom immediately after moving in.

The shower immediately after moving in.

Check out the maroon sink - it shows EVERY single dried speck of toothpaste!
In fact, the left vanity door is really only held on now, because I have a lock on the handles, to stop Red getting in there!


Over the past few weeks, I have just been therapeutically tearing off wallpaper when I have been in the bathroom, a little rip here, a little rip there, and the white undercoat underneath is rather refreshing!

Today I have done a bit more, and it is thankfully looking quite bare - though I will need to get in there with my scraper soon I think.

The ease of which the paper is now coming off is helped considerably by the fact the pull cord has come off of my bathroom heater, and now condensation is beading on the ceiling again, just like it used to, pre-installation of the heater 3 years ago. This is not so great - I really must get someone to fix it - being on the south side of the house, and most likely uninsulated, it is like a fridge in there in winter! I was going to give it a go myself (I killed the house mains and went in with my toolbox, but found I didn't have the right kind of screwdriver) I went and knocked on the neighbours door in the weekend - he is an electrician - but there was no answer. I fear I will end up paying someone to do it for me *gasp!*

Mostly stripped walls in one corner - and the offending heater!

I have arranged with my Mum to take the 3 kids away for both days on the weekend of the 11th and 12th of August, and my friend Salena (another Handy-Mummy, in fact!) will come over and we will blitz the bathroom and toilet walls, and if I can manage to get myself organised to get some cork tiles and sealer etc, we will do that too. SO many other things I want to do to that bathroom, but sadly I don't have the funds at the moment. But getting it gussied up will make me feel a LOT better about it! Ideally I would like to tile the walls, but it's just not in the budget now.

The same olive green walls in the toilet as well.
The yellow in the hall way also needs to be vanquished soon!


I can just imagine a serene bath while the kids are at their fathers. I open my eyes, and I am soothed by the walls, rather than the assault on my senses that I currently experience!!







Friday, 6 July 2012

What a slacker!

Oh my - I have been rather distracted, clearly!! I have been regularly thinking 'I really *must* write another blog post' but unfortunately thinking about it has been as far as it has gotten!

This Handy Mummy has been getting to grips with single-parenting and, sadly won't be back to the night classes next term - but really, by the end of the term, I wasn't even sure what I should make as I didn't really need anything else made for the house. What I really need to do is do handy things IN the house - soon I need to go and get more wood and a sheet of ply to build the window seat into my bedroom! Plans are underway, I just need time and inclination!

Most recently I have been slowly stripping the hideous wallpaper from my bathroom walls - my heart isn't in it at the moment though, so I have been doing a little therapeutic 'riiip' here and there when I am brushing my teeth etc.

I have also discovered an unlikely new love... I started going to the gym in April and have managed to lose in excess of 11kg so far! I barely recognise myself! I am off to a family function tomorrow night, I'm quite seriously thinking about wearing a name tag 'Hi, I'm Rachel. Remember me? You might not have seen me since I was almost 24kg heavier'

I won't be able to remember details of my classes now, so I'll put up a brief description of the pictures I took, hopefully in the right order! I was up to class 3/8 when I last posted WAY back in May!


This was week 4:
This MDF in a former life was shop fittings from Little Chalmers. All cut and ready for assembly!

Oooh the beginnings of assembly - what could it be?

If you look closely, these are just stacked up, not connected yet - that comes next week!


Week 5:

After some frustration, having made a slight (less than 2cm!) error in my measurements I had to dash home mid-class to get the last 2.4m MDF from my hall way to do the sides!

It is now living behind my front door, full of shoes! The bottom ayer of cubby-holes is almost twice as tall as the others to accommodate boots. 

Week 6:

Marked out the design to cut with the bandsaw


All cut, now all ready for filing and sandpapering to within an inch of its life!

It is ill-advisable to accidentally file ones knuckle with such a beastly sharp file! 
Preferable to only file the wood!!

'Safety first' says Handy Mummy ;)

Mmmmm sawdust!


It looks like thats as far as my photos got! I must not have been thinking about taking photos the last two weeks! The last project is a shelf for my bathroom, once the wallpaper stripping has finished and the gib stopping and painting is done.

Until next time! Hopefully I won't be so long between posts next time!