Starting to tile

Saturday was a good day and I don't mean in a Klingon way! (waves to fellow Trekkies) We headed into Newport to run a couple of errands and I popped into my favourite charity shop to pick up some more photo frames for the photo wall I'm planning for our living room. I don't know what it is about the charity shops in Newport but only one ever seems to sell a good range of frames.

It also stocks concrete lions - I was so tempted!

Our haul

 The only thing I tend to buy from charity shops is photo frames that I can strip down and redecorate (which reminds me, I need to upload the ones I've already done!) but this time even SBB picked up a couple of things - the copy of Les Miserables and the classical CDs.
I also picked up this:

I actually can't stand Stilton but something about the pot just called to me and I could see it sat on my kitchen window sill.

I also clocked this little baby in the window of Mia in St Thomas' Square. One size £10. Bargain.

I know it's nearing spring and orange is more of an autumn colour but I'm still looking forward to wearing it.
After our little shopping trip we headed over to B&Q to pick out some trim for the tiles in the kitchen. We dabbled for a while with the idea about having a brushed metal edge to match the sockets but in the end decided that it would make the edges too obvious and might make the tiled area look small. The fact that they were also about three times the price swayed us a bit too!

Up at the flat SBB got to work on the tiles while I finished off the painting in the bathroom and worked on the windows in the living room. While I was painting the frames I noticed some of the trim had come loose so I squirted some sealant in that I had to hand and smoothed it down.

Work at the flat will be more of the same for the next few days I think!

Week 5 - DIY Christmas Countdown

Well. Best laid plans... I said last week that week 5 would have lots of updates but... that didn't quite work out. Saturday was supposed to be The Day To Do Stuff.
Then Saturday came, I uploaded week 6's update and then SBB stumbled out of the bedroom and suggested we stay on the sofa in our PJs. We hadn't got in til gone 1am that morning after heading to Portsmouth. I tried to work up the enthusiasm for going out. In the rain. To a cold flat to work. I teetered for a moment and then plunged directly into the need to stay in my pajamas. So we did.

Week 5 my focus was mainly on the living room windows. I've never been keen on the latches and you can see why:

They're an unattractive dirty shade of gold and someone way-back-when wasn't too careful with the brown stain/varnish so, now that we're giving the room a makeover, it was time for them to go.
I removed the locks as it's still possible to keep the window shut with just the arm, then I sanded the frame and filled in the screw holes with caulk.

When that dried I sanded it down but it had shrunk a little as it dried so I went over it again...

And that was the last thing I did. Pretty pathetic, really.

But I was joined by this little guy:

I set him free on the window sill.

SBB and Dad spent their time in the kitchen preparing the worksurface before they can cut out the hole for the hob. Dad had to buy a new tool to cut the hole out (I know, I know, technical huh?) so the back of the worksurface is currently just an interesting collection of lines.

The new sockets/light switches arrived. They're gorgeous. I was a little disappointed that the isolation switches both have 'cooker' written on them. The picture on the ebay had no writing on it at all which was ideal as one of them is for the washing machine/dishwasher sockets. Oh well.

Excuse the fingermarks. SBB ignored my cries of 'fingers!'

So SHINY....

Must make more of an effort to get down there more next week.