Someone this week told me they had a rule about anything that gets to take up space in their house: it must be beautiful or useful, and that means now. In all my years, I've not heard anything as simple as that. There's the "well, I might need it at some point so it goes on the top shelf" rule, or the "if you haven't worn it in a year it goes" rule ( Read more... )

A: watching paint dry ( Read more... )

I'm watching one of the vast swathe of home makeover shows, and I'm always mystified by this idea that things are "in" or "out" for decorating in the same way they are for clothes (and, for this particular post, let's not get me started on my fashion rant ( Read more... )

Okay, so almost warmth, but I have heating and it's doing its best to bring the house back to a civilised temperature. Images of thousands of pounds heading out the door have faded.

Outside temp has risen to a balmy -4. Unfortunately inside temp is doing its best to equalize with outside. How long do you think it takes to change 10 valves?

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Today it's minus lots of numbers. This is clearly an excellent day to switch off the heating entirely, and drain the heating system to fix the valves.

I'm sure I had some marbles left earlier this year; the cold may have cracked those last few.

Posted via LjBeetle

Work continued on two of my luxuries today. My bathroom is currently a disaster. Everything's been ripped out and most of the tiles are off the walls. I didn't realise quite how much I rely on my bath for its relaxing and regenerating properties until just now, when I remembered I can't just wander upstairs and wallow. Oh noes ( Read more... )

If I hear weird noises in the house at night, I get out of bed, grab the big metal stick I use to pull the loft ladder down, and go stalking downstairs ready to defend me and the cats. The thing is, there's never been any other person trying to get into the house. There have been other cats, a frog, a fox and the odd bird, but nothing that would ( Read more... )

After a short break, I'm apparently sorting again. I've filled 3 big bags full of rubbish and 2 full of clothes. This wouldn't be so bad, except it's all come from one room: my bedroom. I've done pretty well this time around, but I know full well that I can still afford to get rid of more stuff that's just been sitting around for years 'in case' or ( Read more... )

If all you knew of the houses in this country you had learned from homes magazines, you'd think everyone had masses of space and no stuff. I do wonder at times if it's true all these people have no stuff or if they hired some massive storage shed while the photo shoot was happening. Or perhaps they just moved their stuff from room to room as needed ( Read more... )