DIY? DIMBLTN (Did It Myself, Better Late Than Never)

This weekend was a DIY one, I had a sudden attack of determination to finish some jobs in the kitchen that had been hanging around for just over a year, like putting some shelves up and fitting some sliding baskets into the cupboards. The wood for the shelves has been in the shed since the kitchen was fitted last September (2007!) and the veg baskets have been in a box in the lounge for those 13 months!
Anyway, it all got done, the kitchen looks much better for it now, as we can clear a lot of the clutter off the worktops.
Olga got in on the act and put our new carpet cleaner to work in the lounge. As Lara is now crawling everywhere, we desperately needed to clean the carpet after Mishka's various mishaps - there's only so much cleaning you can do with kitchen roll and washing up liquid. The carpet looks great now, the new cleaner worked a treat, and we're happy for Lara to crawl around on it. Olga did have a surprise when she tried to get in the lounge on Sunday; Lara had crawled from the dining area to the lounge door, and was sitting there blocking it while Olga was trying to open it. Luckily the door is a glass panel one, so we could see her, and this led to a funny little game of waving through the glass, but also mean another cleaning job, as the glass in that door hadn't been cleaned since we moved in. All these things you need to think about once the little 'un starts crawling!
Another door gate is on the cards now for her nursery...

Nearly the weekend at last

This has felt like a long week. As early as Tuesday I was looking forward to Friday, and it's finally here. We need to take the Christmas decorations down now, we felt we were justified in leaving them up past 12th Night on the grounds we were still celebrating Russian Christmas, but even that has passed now.
There seems so much to do at the moment, beyond just looking after Lara's normal daily needs. I need to finish the summerhouse, dog-proof the garden (Mishka has taken to being the Neighbourhood Watch Dog now and jumps onto the garage roof, which means he's very close to being able to escape into the street), hang the pictures we've had framed, sort out various wardrobes, organise all our holiday photos and videos on our PC, and make sure Olga feels like the Princess she deserves to be (Ola - you come first!!)
You can tell we're busy at the moment from the lack of new photographs I've uploaded. This weekend - Sunday - I promise! Tomorrow is already booked up with those jobs I mentioned (oh, if the weather's nice tomorrow morning we're all going on a big family walk, then I'll do those jobs!) then we're going to Reading to celebrate Simon L's birthday. Hopefully we'll bump into Ant'n'Bec'n'Eve too and compare nappy-changing frequency.
Lara is being all funny about her sleeping habits again. One night she set a personal best by sleeping from 11pm till 4.30am, and we thought we'd cracked it, then the next night she was up almost every hour having a little feed. It did mean that one morning I was downstairs with Lara from 5.30 and I was able to watch a film I'd Sky-plussed eight or nine months ago!
We've decided it's not collic that keeps Lara awake, as one of the symptoms of that is that she can't relieve trapped wind. Trust me, if there was an Olympic event for relieving trapped wind, Lara would be leading out the GB team at the London Games, aged 4 1/2. It's a good job they've banned smoking in pubs, as you wouldn't want a naked flame near her within 30 minutes of her having eaten.

So, it's time to go home and do one of those jobs I didn't list earlier - finish programming the Universal Remote Control I bought on eBay to control all the electrical things in the lounge. The main reason was to control the wireless media streamer - Mishka ate the remote control for that 6 months ago....

Should it be the Autumnhouse?

I just wanted to show that the "summer"house is progressing; with the help of Kevan the builder, we got the roof in place last week.

Then on Sunday I was able to get the doors on... so it's just a small matter of the felt for the roof, another coat of preservative and then the glass. Maybe we'll need to run an electric heater in there by the time we can actually use it!

Kitchen updates

Just another quick one to upload some pics of the kitchen in mid-refurb

This is the old kitchen, before it was ripped out and put in the back garden.

Some of the units, made up and ready to be moved from the dining room to the kitchen; if it was me installing this kitchen, I reckon those units would never move.

Just a regular evening...

So, further to yesterday's report, of course a few things changed! The oven isn't in Chingford, it's in Bradford, and won't make it to Chingford until the end of next week. So I bought the same oven from Dixons - it was cheaper and will be delivered to Deeds Grove on Wednesday. So we went to pick up the cooker hood from Comet in Wycombe. Except it wasn't in Comet in Wycombe, it was somewhere else, and won't arrive until Tuesday. The gas hob, which also should arrive on Tuesday, was already in Wycombe, so we took that home instead.
Just waiting for the washing machine today...

It's DIY mayhem at Deeds Grove at the moment. The windows for the porch are in the garage, the door for the porch is leaning against the shed in the back garden, the kitchen is on the driveway, and the paving stones for the steps are in the garage. The Summerhouse is in pieces in the back garden, half the garden fence is on the decking, the cooker hood is Comet in Wycombe, the gas hob is in a warehouse somewhere, and the oven is in Chingford. Have I missed anything? Oh, the washing machine! The broken one is in the kitchen, it's new and improved replacement arrives tomorrow....