I Made a Gate!

The side of the house has kind of been in limbo.  We want to build an extension there in time, so we're loathe to invest too much in improvements.  However, the gate was an eyesore.  Some friends stopped by our house (they had been here when the renovation started) and told me they only way they could recognize the house was by the gate!  I know it was meant as a compliment, but I took it as a challenge.  The only picture I can find of the gate before is this one.

The old gate and one of the posts were rotten.  We started looking around for new gates and the narrow size meant we had to get one custom made.  The best quote we got was £140.  I thought that was a bit steep and on a Sunday evening I told Niall I thought I could build one.

On Monday morning, I was at Jewsons and there just happened to be some offcuts of wood that were the exact height we needed for the gate.  I took it as a sign and bought the wood.  Our joiner was on site (making George in the kitchen island) and gave me some guidance (and helped wench the pieces together.)  It was a niggly operation.  At one point I had my mom and our three year old holding pieces together.  It was a three-generation job!

Pretty soon we had this.  (If you looks to the left, you can see another shot of the old gate.)

The title of the post is a bit misleading.  I didn't make the gate all by myself.  Our joiner ripped both sides of the gate with a saw so it was just the right size.

Then I started sanding.  And then priming.  Only to find that I hadn't rinsed our roller very well. 

Then I did the rest.  Primed again.  Sanded.  Painted with gloss paint.  I then ripped, pulled, used a crow bar,  kicked and a few other tricks to get the old gate and post removed.   Replaced a gate post, and hung the gate.  Apparently I didn't take very good after pictures either.  But, anyway, we have a new gate!  Here's the view from the back door (along the side of the garage, heading out towards the front of the house and the street.)

The gate matches the front door.  (We have a lot of that gloss paint left.  I think I'll use it to paint a few more outside doors.  Like on the coal shed and possibly the bomb shelter.)

We sanded, primed and painted the wooden surround on the garage as well.

The original lock I put on the gate wasn't strong enough.  It has taken a few weeks, but I finally got around to beefing it up and moving the placement to make it stronger.  Gate is 'secure', and maybe some day I'll get around to painting the new pieces.  Or maybe not.

Painting the Fence

Even though the house was in pretty awful shape when we bought it, I feel like we inherited some nice things.  Especially in the garden.  Despite needing to have the entire plot cleared and lawn laid, we did inherit some mature trees, a bomb shelter and a very sturdy fence.

We share a fence with neighbors on three sides.  One neighbor had painted theirs red, one has theirs painted green and one has their fence in the same state as ours.  (They have a lot of bushes in front of the fence, so no real need to paint it.)  To match with at least one of the neighbors, we had a choice between green and red cedar.  We had some cedar red fence paint that the previous owner left behind.  But neither of us were that keen on it.  I sold the red fence paint and picked up a 20-litre bucket of Ronseal One Coat Fencelife in Forest Green.  Looking back at photos, it's fairly apparent that the fence needs some TLC.  

The paint has been sitting in the garage for about a month, but I finally decided we just needed to get started.  One night I wire brushed the fence that holds the garbage cans (bins).  Then I painted it (with a large brush).  Two coats and it looked like this.

Wire brushing the fence worked well, but took a lot of effort. The next morning we used the pressure washer to clean off a large portion of the fence, and let it dry all day.   The pressure washer did the trick to clear off the moss and grime. That evening (once the kids were in bed) Niall and I headed out and painted a long stretch.

A few more sessions of pressure washing and painting and two sides of the fence were done.

The side where the neighbors have a green fence as well looks really good.  The side with the cedar red looks a little odd when you look closely.  Because of the slats, we couldn't really paint everything green because it would make the neighbors side look ridiculous.  So we tried our best to paint 'our' side of the fence without causing problems for the neighbors.  And the end result is a hodgepodge.  (We kept trying to look over the fence to make sure we weren't dripping paint on the wrong side.)

The back fence took a lot longer.  The large amount of vegetation, wood, rubble and weeds made it difficult to clean or paint.  It took several rounds of clearing and runs to the dump before we could work on the back fence.

 The baby didn't mind if I power washed as long as I held her while I did it.

Finally!  We had clear access to the fence, it was clean and dry.

I cleared most of the rubble, but kept behind these stones.  I think we may be able to find a place to put the stones rather than take them to the dump. 

The fence is almost finished.  We ran out of paint today, and there's still one more panel that needs to be painted.  But you can't really tell from this photo.

Still lots to do in the garden (and it's not like I know how to garden, but we're learning).  Tonight I'm pretty happy the garden looks like this.

Better Than She Found It

My mom has been visiting from the US for six glorious weeks and went home yesterday.  I asked her what she wanted to do for her last day and she said she wanted to clean our bathrooms!  (They're not disgusting or anything, just need the weekly clean.)

She told me it was important to her to leave our house better than she found it.

I started to think about how much things have changed at our house in the past six weeks, and had to laugh at my mom wanting to clean the bathrooms.  She has already done so much!

Sanded and vanished all of nine of the window surrounds.

She helped us get all of the pictures framed/hung.

She did all sorts of sewing...

Including these giant floor cushions for the kids.

Helped me build a gate.  (More on that later.)

Helped with the garden (including gently encouraging us to get a trimmer for the edges.)

Spent ages helping me find a new living room set that was in our budget:

Cooked, cleaned, watched the kids and all sorts of other things so we could get the house unpacked and organized.

And probably many more things I forgot.  Like cleaning the bathrooms would make a difference after everything else.  But she cleaned them anyway.  Thanks, Mom!

Don't worry, we gave her a little bit of time off for good behavior.  (She finally made it to Wimbledon!)

New Furnishings, No Budget

With the house done and the boxes unpacked, we realize some of the furniture we have isn't working for us. And with the cost of doing the house and since we're trying to put the pennies away for a renovation, neither of us were keen to spend a lot of money on new furniture.

In the front room, it became apparent that the set-up wasn't working.  The chaise longue faced the wrong way.  The piano's position didn't help with the flow of the room, and the sofa was just a bit too long and didn't quite fit with the house.

We sold the chaise longue.

And then the couch.

And then had nothing.

Which the girls kind of loved.

With the money we made by selling the furniture, we were able to get a very nice second-hand leather Chesterfield sofa, chair and foot stool (including delivery).  Niall has been looking at Chesterfield sofas for years.  We hired some guys to move the furniture for us.

I paid the movers an extra 10 pounds to move the piano out of the living room.  (It had to go on its side and I could not do it myself.  Nor could I convince Niall to move it with me!)  In place of the piano, we added two chairs we had waiting upstairs.  They're both really comfortable.  And the extra seats are just what the room needed!

The piano is now in the kitchen, across from the dining table.  I was worried about having it so close to the wall we share with our neighbors (in the living room), so hopefully the move makes it quieter for them.  With the piano in the kitchen, I play it more.  We FINALLY (after two years and three moves) got it tuned.  We were short on space, so the toy chest doubles as the piano bench.

Sold the piano bench.

Niall wanted a different chair for his desk.  I took one left behind by the previous owners in the loft and sanded and recovered it.

Our kitchen table wasn't working for us.  It was too small.  And having an antique table isn't the greatest with two little kids.  So we're selling it.

And we bought a second hand table that matches our chairs and fits in the space (and our needs) a little better.

Plus we recovered the chairs in laminated fabric and my mom sewed us a cushion for the long bench.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or sell it and use the money to buy something that works.

George: Converting a Sideboard into a Kitchen Island

Josie, since you asked, this entry is for you...An entry all about how George went from being a wooden   sideboard to a kitchen island.

Once upon a time we (Niall and I) were walking down a street in Cambridge and Niall saw a beautiful sideboard in the back alley of a modern furniture shop. It was ornate, wooden and in excellent condition. It was an antique and definitely out of place with the type of furniture the store carried. Niall talked to the owner and for £15 pounds he (Niall) bought the sideboard and got to borrow a dolly to wheel it home.

Back before we had kids, we had this weird thing about naming furniture. (Well, only two pieces.) So the sideboard got named George and we've called it that ever since. George has moved all around the UK with us, from Cambridge to Cardiff to Glasgow.

He has sat in storage for the past year with the rest of our things.   As we planned where furniture would go in the house, we realized that there was no room for George.  Niall and I were both sad, I guess that happens when you name a piece of furniture.

But wait!  We knew we wanted a kitchen island and since our kitchen is bespoke (and second hand) I knew we wouldn't be able to buy a matching one off the shelf.  (Even if we could, have you seen how much kitchen islands cost?  Answer:  Too much for us.)   We thought about creating our own, and then Niall thought maybe George would work.

George was a little too narrow on his own.  We came up with a plan...buy a countertop from Ikea and put it on top of George.  But the coloring was all off, so we did the unthinkable.  We painted George.  Ugh.  I had so much guilt about it and hummed and hawed.  And then just decided to do it.  First I removed the doors, then sanded.

And then primed and started painting.  I was sure someone would come by and comment on what a shame it was to paint such a beautiful piece of furniture.  Luckily the only comment was about how bright the red color is.

We bought the widest piece of butcher block we could get from Ikea (VÄRDE..it's the only one we could find that's 100 cm.)  I wanted to just have the countertop and George underneath, but our joiner said it was too unstable.  So I bought some newel posts from Jewsons (£10 each) and sanded, primed and painted those as well.

The joiner attached the countertop (with fancy biscuit joinery!) and we were very pleased.  I sanded, oiled and varnished the counter three times.  We looked and looked for stools and finally found two that we liked at the Salvation Army.

The girls love the stools.

And the kitchen island as well.

George has become the gathering place of the kitchen.  So, there you have it Josie.  The story of George.  The End.