4 weeks on...

We moved in 4 weeks ago today. The time's gone quickly, still lots to do but we're making a bit more progress everyday towards finishing all the work on the house.

Back Garden

We've had a really busy day working on the house (the weather is great at the moment which helps alot with motivation!) As well as finishing painting Eden's room, we pressed on with working on the back garden. First job for Luke was to attack the weeds and overgrown grass with the strimmer, we could then get a better view of what we were dealing with. This afternoon we had some generous help from my Dad, Grandad and sister, Jess, who all helped with raking up the strimmed debris and piling up the rubble. Finally, Luke has made a start at paving the bottom of the garden (previously a stinging nettle garden) in preparation for rebuilding our shed.

Over the weeks since we've moved, I've been watching the pattern of the sun through the day. The morning sun shines strongly into our dining room, and on the back of our house and the front section of the back garden. Through the day the sunlight travels round to the front of the house, but because of the way the house is angled, the evening sunlight hits the back of the back garden. I think we'll plan to have decking next to the house for morning sunlight, and a paved patio area near the shed for the evening sunlight.

Eden's Room

Every room in our house needs decorating, but we have an 'order' in which we need to do things - the installations of double glazing and central heating dictate the order to an extent. However, Eden's room is already double glazed, and the wall that will have the radiator on is easily accessible, so we have decided that her room is a good place to start with the decorating. The previous occupiers had decorated the entire room blue, including the window sill and skirting boards. So during the week we did a quick undercoat of white to tone-down the blue before painting over it.

In our old house, Eden's nursery was my favourite room because the colours in it were so vibrant and happy. So we decided to paint her new room the same colours too. We started painting yesterday, with a coat of yellow on the window wall. Today we finished, with 2 orange side walls and a deep red on the wall adjacent to the door. The colours are all bold. It may not be to everybody's taste, but it's Eden's room - and the bright, happy colours reflect her fun personality.

So with the walls finished we now need to think about putting the carpet in. We took a visit to a local carpet store this morning, had a good chat with staff there and should hopefully have a carpet in by this time next week.

I'll post a 'finished' photo up next week, but in the meantime, here's some photos of Eden's nursery in our old house, the colours of which we've tried to recreate.

Front Garden looking great

Today our new lawn was delivered for the front garden. It's looking fantastic! Luke laid it in his lunch break (he was working from home as we also have the electrician in today to some wiring). The front garden now looks so different to the overgrown lumpy mass of weeds that it was previously!

Before:

Ready for the turf:

After:

Silent Sunday

Gardening

It's been such a warm sunny day today, so we decided to press on with the front garden - getting rid of the weeds and levelling the ground. Without seeing any photos this may sound an easy task. However, as well as the usual dips and troughs that you would expect from an overgrown garden that hasn't been looked after, there was one huge mound right in the middle of the non-existent 'lawn'.

Luke set to work with the clippers (we didn't want to strim and spread dandelions and weeds into next door's garden), followed by turning over all the soil, the results are rather satisfying in terms of flattening the ground. It took all day, but actually this was quicker than what we were expecting it to take us.

While he was doing this, I potted up some Busy Lizzies, arranged our pot plants from our previous house outside under the living room window, and made a start at clearing the back garden. I read in a gardening book that when dealing with any overgrown garden it is always best to start at the back door and work your way out. Well this is what I did today, and I'm proud that I got as far as clearing the little slabbed patio area immediately outside the back door. This involved getting rid of the previous owners rubbish and rubble, removing weeds from the cracks between the slabs and cutting away at the endless branches of bramble (actually they weren't endless as I managed to clear them all from this section of the garden). Plus I did a bit of rearranging of our garden equipment to make it tidier.

All in all a productive day in the garden - we filled up a wheeley bin, a composter and a dustbin just with garden cuttings and weeds! Before and after photos to follow.....

Hair Cut

When living in Southampton I found it very difficult to find the time to get my haircut, due to having Eden to look after, and as a result it had become rather unmanageable! So one of the first things on my to-do list when moving up was to get my haircut. Aunty Jessy looked after Eden while I went, and I took along a photo of what I wanted, which really helped.

Heres the before and after shot:

Day 15: Starting work on the kitchen

Well officially we started yesterday, as Luke started taking the kitchen units out while I began glossing in the hall. Today however, we have under-coated 2 of the kitchen walls - we would have carried on as it only took us an hour but we ran out of paint!

Before:

After undercoating:

House Project

Ok, so I know it's been nearly a year since I last wrote an entry for this blog, but since entering the world of Mummy-land I've felt most of my blog posts are more relevant to Eden and so have been updating her own blog for a while instead, for her to read when she's older (although do feel free to read too if you're interested - here.)

Last Wednesday, after many ups and downs, high points and low points (right to the very end) we finally picked up the keys to our new house. It has been a long year waiting since we first put our house on the market.

Our new house is in a perfect location for us, being right next to the countryside and with allotments opposite the house. It does need a lot of work though, an ideal opportunity to keep a blog of our progress, as it happens over the next few weeks and months.

Having picked the keys up on Wednesday, Thursday was spent giving the kitchen, bathroom, windows, and whatever other space we could reach that wasn't taken up with boxes and furniture, a thorough clean. My Mum's friend Marion did a fantastic job cleaning the bathroom, which was filthy, and I was pleasantly surprised at the sparkling bath and wash basin that was revealed underneath the layer of grime! Luke finished the job of making the bathroom useable by fixing the loo seat. All that needs doing in there now (in time) will be painting/possibly tiling the walls and sealing the roof, one of the minor jobs to do in comparison to some of the others on our list.

Next thing we did last week was make the dining room toddler-safe. It's the only room in the house that has a carpet down, and will now act as our safe haven to put Eden in while we potter on jobs. She seems to quite like the room, it has all her toys in, and a lovely big window overlooking the back garden. If she stands on a Quality Street tin she can just about see outside over the window sill!

Our first major work was completed yesterday by Luke, he did a wonderful job boarding the loft, and we now have a huge space to fill for storage!

That's about all so far. This week is taken up by obtaining quotes for the next jobs on the to-do list - central heating, a new boiler and double glazing.

Adder

We went for lunch and a walk in the New Forest today with our friends Paul and Katty Woolcock and spotted this adder in the middle of the footpath! Never seen an adder in the wild before!

Lymington 10K race

Today was my first post-baby race. I'd decided to enter the Lymington 10K a couple of months ago, as a way of keeping motivated in my training, and because the race has excellent reviews.

The course is flat, and a mix of road, trail, grass and gravel (and halfway round the course a couple of big puddles to navigate!). It takes in some stunning scenery running along the harbour wall, looking out onto the Solent and across to the Isle of Wight. Being a Sunday, the Solent was very picturesque with numerous sailing boats on the water. It was a cold, cloudy, breezy morning, but once the run started that wasn't a problem, although quite a strong headwind for the second half of the race!

The course has a wide running route all the way round, so there wasn't alot of congestion. In the first couple of kms, quite a lot of people had decided against pacing themselves and overtook me, but it was rather satisfying overtaking them all walking from 6km onwards!

I was aiming for under an hour, not wanting to put any pressure on myself to get anywhere near my PB (50mins at the Millenium Runs on 10K race in 2009). I'm therefore chuffed with my result today of 58:24! Not bad considering I only had Eden 5 months ago.

Oh when the Saints go marching in!

Luke and I have a list of things we want to do whilst we're still in Southampton. Top of the list was to see Saints play, which we did as a kind of 'spur of the moment' thing yesterday. We were offered tickets yesterday morning, and thankfully found a babysitter at such short notice! (Thanks Paul and Katty!)

As it's nearing the end of the season, the Southampton matches are all fairly crucial games at the moment, in their effort to gain a place in the play-offs. The final score was 0-0 disappointingly, not just because we didn't see any goals (booooo) but also because it makes it just a little harder to catch the 2 teams above us in a bid for the play-offs.

Still, the atmosphere was good, and the final few minutes were exciting as Saints tried all they could to score. Plus, it was really nice to get out the house and spend the evening together as a couple, having a night-off from baby-duty.

The last match I saw was Liverpool at Anfield in 2006, whilst on placement for uni. Before that, good old Halesowen Town FC, who were in a league so low down I forget what it's 'official' title was... but they were playing West Brom in a friendly so it was exciting at the time, I think I was about 12!