Tuesday 16 October 2012

The Small Things

So here we are again, and not much has happened. There's no progress on the garden wall, the spare room is still... spare, and the days are getting colder without a jot of insulation going in anywhere.

I'm not sure about the others, but I've been feeling a bit frustrated about all the work that needs doing, and all the weird barriers to it actually getting done that seem to keep popping up. With Finn in tow there is a limit to what I can do in terms of DIY, but I did hatch a plan to try to make a small improvement to the house, one which will actually act as prep work for us improving it further in the future.  Most delightfully, it doesn't cost anything.

I have started to scrub the Well of Despair. The walls and steps of this part of the house are covered in varying thicknesses of slime. Some of it budges easily and some doesn't, and even once it's off it doesn't exactly look great but it does look better, and that will do for now.

For now, it looks like this:


Which, after several hours of scrubbing, is a slight improvement on this:


Eventually this whole area will be painted (or covered in mosaic if I get my way!) once the concrete's up and the French drain is in, and then it will get filled with plants and some sexy green-roofed rubbish storage (again, if I get my way) and the end result will be rather like the picture below. Honest.


 Wish me luck!

- Hannah

3 comments:

  1. Good luck! Also you're awesome. x

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  2. I definitely wish you luck and love your mosaic idea. Amanda and I have lived at no. 67 for about 12 years now, and there are still many significant and expensive jobs that need doing despite major work and cost so far, so I'm really not at all surprised. Suggest you use the limited energy/money you're likely to have on the lowest-hanging fruit, e.g. draft proofing and fixing any major ingress of damp or water to avoid structural deterioration where its wet, and unwanted chills/heating bills over the winter. 10 litre size pots of trade emulsion rollered on where it's dry go a long way. Posters, rugs and drapes can hide many eyesores. Also better to avoid the desire for perfection becoming the enemy of something good and achievable in a shorter time frame.

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    Replies
    1. the above comment is so true- life long DIY, adapt & survive is my motto ! have you tried soda crystals for cleaning slime, mould, damp, grease etc? Not too bad for the environment either x Ann

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