Things they are a changing

Well, tho, really, that should 'garages they are a changing'

Good evening blogworld,

And haven't I been little miss naughty this week - completely abandoning you!  It's mostly because SWMbO is off school and we have grandad visiting so we've been out and about a lot.  However fear not next week is busy and you will see me so much you'll all start moaning and groaning about how much I'm posting!

But what I wanted to show you, before I head up the apples and pears is what's been happening at our house the last few weeks.  Hubby is getting his playroom!  He's going to have a room to play trains in and then my house will emptied of all the railway related stuff.  Yay!  It's very nearly done and I thought I'd share a pic or two.

This is the only pic I could find of what our garages used to look like - I'm sure I've got more, but they are not on this comp.

Then this is the outside today:

Don't know if you can make it out, but we had two buildings with a small gap inbetween - well they've now been joined together and the gap is the entrance to the back building and the new room.

This was inside upstairs a few weeks ago:

 This is today:

Plastered ready for painting, and fitting out.

This is downstairs - I did try taking a picture of the other direction but his 'man cave' just didn't want to have it's photo taken!  The camera wouldn't focus.

I will take more pictures as and when it's fitted out - but all this means that we are closer to getting the new bathroom and kitchen and therefore my new craft room!!

Right off I trot to bed.

Have a good weekend everyone and see you next week.

Sarah

A second From This to This

Warning - picture heavy post!!

Good evening blogworld

I did say I would pop these pictures up but I've been remiss in doing it.  So before I drag these old bones up to bed I thought I'd pop on and show 'from this to this' or 'before and after' pictures of the new bedroom for the little one.

We started out with a brick wall, which does not make for an interesting picture!

So this is my first picture: the shell is there and knocked through into the old bedroom:

 Then moving on (quite a lot really!) Plastered, painted and waiting:

Now final painting done and floor in, but no furniture:

Now a messy bedroom: (view one)

Messy bedroom (or toy shop!) -view two:

 As you can see you still go through the old bedroom to get to her, but this wall will be coming down and the area will turn into a large hallway.  This will happen next year when we update the bathroom!

More D.I.Y. to come next year!

Hope everyone has had a good weekend,

Sarah

D.I.Y. on a Sunday

Good morning blogworld,

Hope y'all have had good weeks, we've had a very productive one.  Not cards at all, I've been terribly remiss with those, but on the D.I.Y. front it's been a good week.

We might be having a day off today, but you never know as the skirting board is calling.  But that's only if hubby wakes up soon (he's napping on the sofa - one of trials of getting old it would seem is being tired when you are doing a lot of decorating!).

I thought I'd do my now semi-regular Sunday update on SWMbO's new bedroom.

Painting - (ceiling and walls) tick
flooring - tick
skirting boards - see above!
glossing - waiting for skirting boards
child wanting to move in - tick

So here come the piccies:

You can see she's already starting to move in - even tho there is no radiator yet and there are things to be finished off!!  I think if we don't hurry up we will find her bed in there one morning!!!

Hope everyone else is well.  I can't even say see you with cards next week, as I'm soooo behind with those it's unreal, but hopefully now we are on to the finishing touches I'll be back to normal in a couple of weeks.  Tho when have I've ever been normal - hmmmmm, never????

See ya

Sarah

PS - Although you will spot the lighting, it's not what I really wanted.  You may recall that I put out a plea for advice?  Well hubby persuaded me to go with what we've got to get SWMbO moved in, he said we can 'tart it up' later.  It certainly does need tarting up as far as I'm concerned!!!!  The two lights do give enough light, but the light fittings are just not right for that room.

From this to that (part 2)

Hello blogworld,

I know, I know, been very quiet around here again! It's been a busy week for me, just not on cardmaking front.  That will be next week.

What I have been busy on is painting!!  Have a look see:

From this:

To that:

That part 2 - with a small sneaky of what's yet to come:

Oh and this as well!  This is the start of the transformation of the garages.  From garage and workshop - separate; to garage, workshop and hobby room - together!  Basically there is another floor going on top of these buildings - hence the roof starting to come off one.  The other to follow - once the builder turns up again.  Oh yes, it's the return of the magical disappearing builder!!!

There hope that explains the long absence, but I will be back with cards next week.  And an update the following week probably!!

Hope y'all have a good weekend,

Sarah

Phew what a week!

Hi blogland

Apologies for abandoning you all this week but, as always, when it's school holidays SWMbO's social life sky rockets and I don't get any time for blogging or even crafting really!

I did manage to get two DT cards done for early next week but had to be a bad mother and dump her in front of the telly to do it!!

She's been to two birthday parties, did a reading at Church, went waterwalking at a local swimming pool, spent a day round a friends house, been to a Halloween party, had a friend over for dinner.  Pause and deep breath!  Then she had her swimming lesson and we had the house invaded by bats!!  Oh and had to take her best friend to hospital as they thought he'd broken a finger whilst at one of these parties - thankfully just a bad sprain not a break.  Phew!

Will be nice and quiet again next week (assuming we get out of the house on Monday to get her to school - sounds like there's quite a storm on the way) so I will be back to blogging and crafting.

Anyway - waffle, waffle, and no cards.  So I thought I'd show you how we've got on with the new bedroom, oh yes we've been pushing on with that too!

Plasterer is due tomorrow and we are actually ready for him - yay!

There you go - life chez Sarah!

See you all tomorrow.

building update

Hello blogworld

Well I did say you wouldn't see me much this week - busy social life dont'ya know!!  Well, SHMbO has anyway!!

But so as you don't feel completely ignored, I thought I'd show you some pics of how the extension to the house is coming on.

Outside, apart from painting it, is done.  I know it looks a bit grim, it was supposed to be coloured render that didn't need painting - but it didn't work out!  So now we have to wait for the spring and good weather to paint it.

Inside the new room is getting there.  The Building Regulations man said it all has to be insulated, hence the spaceship look!  Not bad though hubby is doing all this himself (well with a little help from me and SWMbO), but we'll get a plasterer in to skim it - hubby might be good with a drill but he can't plaster!!

But my new kitchen will be a store room for a few months yet.  Since we got the planning approval on the garages, that's going to take priority.  Ho hum, maybe next year for new kitchen and craft room??

See's ya tomorrow with my card for the new Digi Choosday challenge!


Sarah

Not cards, but help please?

Hi Blogworld,

I wonder if I might be able to ask a favour?  At Chez Sarah we've got to the point of having to think about lighting in the new bedroom.

Hubby swears he asked me and I said it would be alright to put a couple of wall lights in (one at each end of the room).  I've no recollection of OK'ing this and, to be honest, don't think it will be enough light.  But what to have instead?  We've agreed ordinary pendants won't work - due to the sloping ceiling - but I've no interior design skills at all and no idea!!

I'm sure one, or more, of you lovely bloggy people have wonderful interior design skills - what would you suggest??

Here are a couple of pictures of where it's at right now:

Looking into the room:

Looking out of the room:

SHMbO wants three lights along the ceiling - one to light the library area (near the door), one for the play area (in the middle) and one for her bed (near the end wall) - hmmmm that's easy then!!

Help?????

Sarah

What a few months!

Hello blogworld,

Warning, warning, warning - picture heavy post!!!!

Well I'm slowly climbing out of the pit that I dug for myself and am determined to get back to my colouring / making. I'm still not sure exactly where I am going with my layouts, but it's a start even if a small one.

I sat and made a card or two today - yippee!!

Firstly I think I'll do the card and then the update on the building works.

So me card:

Front shot:

Detail of image:

The arty farty:

I used:

Digi Image:

Stamp Boutique : Funtime Rosie - coloured with Promarkers, Copics and chalks.

Papers: 

Papermania

Dies: 

Memory Box, Die-namics

Anything else:

Charm, twine, chipboard embellishment - all from my many boxes.

A challenge or two:

DigiStamp Boutique - September competition

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Child's Play

Finally the building works - have I said that we've now had another planning application approved?  Hmmm, can't remember so please forgive if I am repeating myself.

We have had approval to create a new floor above our two garages, which will give a 22 x 12ft room this will be hubby's hobby room - he's into trains y'know - which means that the room we have created in the just finished extension will be Emily's new bedroom.  Not that she wants it!!  We explained it to her the other night and there were tears!  I'm sure once she sees it finished it will be different, but at the moment she is not keen.

The upshot of the new building is that all our current work is going at a slower pace, as some of the space is needed for storage for the things coming out of the garage.  Therefore at the moment we are in a bit of a lull - the quiet before the storm maybe?  Who knows, but it is nice to be peaceful again!

So here are some pictures of where we are now.

Stripping wallpaper from where the new door will be - what fun!!!

Look how much stuff has come out of the room!  This is the door to our current 3rd bedroom - which will be a hallway (eventually!).

The other side of that door - it used to be a room! The plastic sheeting is there to keep the rest of hubby's stuff safe from the dust.

Dah, dah - new room!!!!

Under inspection (please do not notice the bag of crisps in her hand - bad mother, slap wrist!!)

That's how things stand at the moment.

I'll be back soon,

Sarah

6 weeks (or thereabouts)

From this.....

.

 to this.... (in around 6 weeks (give or take))

The internal door was knocked through today - loads of dust and muck made me hide in the craft / dining / office room.

More pictures to follow.

Oh and SHMbO went back to school today - not too happy when she woke up, but happy when there.

Sarah

....now covered up

Hello blogworld,

Ah yes, umm weekly updates - eh!  That didn't last for long did it - still there wasn't much actually going on with the building and nothing at all with the card making, so there didn't seem much point blogging.

I really truly am finding it so difficult to get back into crafting or blogging, I try and then I fail and then I try again. Maybe I'll just give up until school goes back in September, then try properly.

Still I thought I'd do a short post to show you what the builder has been up to over the last two weeks, we haven't seen that much of him as the weather hasn't been great and he's got other jobs to go to.  We also won't see him now until the back end of next week when, hopefully, the slates will go on, the doorway into the house will be knocked through and the windows will be in.  In short the building will be finished - then it'll be onto internal work.

Though that's not all our building works finished - have I said that we got the permission to create a new floor above our garages?  So that will become Peter's hobby room and the house extension will become Emily's bedroom.  So from October more building chaos!

Anyway the work since my last post:

Peter says it looks like a little house all in it's own right - he thought if we blocked in the entrance from the kitchen into the new kitchen we could rent it out!!!

Ummm, nope!!!!!! I'm sooo looking forward to putting all of Emily's toys in her bedroom with her and getting our living room looking somewhat tidy again.

Strange how things change isn't it - Peter used to say, when Em was tiny, that he was looking forward to when she'd go play quietly in her bedroom and I'd say 'nope I'm not sending her into her room to play', now I'm like ' oh goodness Emily, please go play nice and quietly in your room for a bit and give mummy some peace'!  Does that make me a bad mother?  I do wonder sometimes if it does, but I also spend loads of time with her (she's never had a night away from me, we spend nearly every single day together, I drop her off and pick her up from school 90% of the time - she's also taken to sleeping badly again so it's a looong bedtime routine) so it is nice to be able to sit and appreciate the silence once in awhile.

So there we go, summary of the last fortnight for me:
cards - 0
building works - 5
days out - 2

See you in two weeks, probably.

Sarah

and up ....

Hello blogworld,

Here I am with my weekly build update.

As I said in the previous post - a couple of hiccups along the way, but mostly things are going very well.

Here are the photos from this week....

Start of the week:

 Middle:

Friday:

That pesky window and its lintel that the building regs man didn't like. 

Problem is that I want a big window as this is going to be my kitchen, I want a good view looking over the garden so I asked for the two windows to be knocked into one.  It appears that a concrete lintel just doesn't cut it - we should've had a steel instead.  The building man says he told our previous builder who didn't pass that info on and ordered the wrong lintel.

Hopefully the problem is solved as this builder says when all is finished he will take out the row of blocks above the concrete lintel and put in the steel one instead.  I still get my big window and the building regs man is pleased.

I'll be back again next Sunday with my next update.  On the craft side I've almost coloured one image and so I might even have a card to show you all.

Hope everyone else is having a good week,

Sarah

PS - I just wanted to say a huge congrats to my friend Susan who I've just seen has made the DT over at The Sugar Bowl.  Well deserved and I know she'll love being a Sweetie - as long as they don't make her use too much pink!!!

coooo-eeee - anyone home?

Hi blogworld,

Well extremely long time no see - I wonder if there is anyone left here at all, oh and excuse me while I dust the dust on the cobwebs!!

What can I say, I've not made a card on over a month - the closest I've got is a half coloured stamp on my desk - so Mr Mojo is still well and truly on his hols.  I wonder if he'll ever come back?  Such a shame as well as there a couple of DT calls going on that I'd love to have tried out for - but no point right now as I'm just not creating.

SHMbO's birthday went off well, we ended up going to a local play centre.  There were twelve 4 - 6 yr olds playing in the soft play and then having a game of bowling - they thoroughly enjoyed it.

School broke up last Tuesday - so far we've had some wonderful weather and some not so.  Fabulous thunder storm one evening last week.  Was up far too late watching it!

Finally, to leave you on a good note, the builder turned up!  Yay!!  We now have no roof on part of our house - here are a few pictures:

Before:

1st day:

3rd day:

This is where our computers used to be:

5th day:

So I will continue to update you all with the building works, but don't hold your breaths for a card - that could be months!!!

Ah and I also know that I have some emails to reply to - I'm sorry I've been completely off radar and not replied to anyone - I will do better soon. Promise!!!

Sarah

Oh, and 29 lbs of strawberry jam made - anyone want some???  And the holiday cottage is let for the whole summer - apart from one 5 day period - 1st time ever!!  We are busy bees!

It's starting!

Hi blogworld

Seeing as how a card is going to be a rarity on this blog for a while I thought I'd make a start with the chaos pictures.

To reassure you I will be posting two cards for my DT posts over the next few days and early next week, but after that you're into DIY only zone for two weeks!

So here is the start of hubby's move into my craft room:

Also a very kind lady on facebook shared an idea for Promarker storage and I've been spending a little time re-arranging and ordering - it's not finalised but it's a good start.

Hope everyone is well and happily crafting - I'll be back on Thursday with a, shock, horror, card!!

Sarah