DIY & home style


Lockdown technical issues 17

I could write for days about the mental and physical stresses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but right now, I’m focusing on the technical nerdy issues home working and home schooling at the same time bring. My Husband works in IT (thank gawd), one child is 12 and doing senior school remote learning, and the other lad is 18 years old and doing his Oxford university degree online at home. The eldest live streams lectures, and also does video chats with other students on his course. This means 3 people in this house need the internet, and I just really want it for Spotify, entertainment and such. Jen spends his school day in his room, in streamed lessons, or quietly working on his iPad. We had a basic WiFi extender upstairs, but it’s no longer working well enough for this kind of demand. It bounces enough signal for a browser […]


Ideas for an attic playroom 2

Quite some time ago I decided that I wanted the attic space to become an attic playroom for the boys – I got as far as adding carpet to our boarded out loft. It doesn’t quite allow for full standing up there, which is why at the moment the boys just use it to play with their LEGO train sets. It would be great to get back up there and really crack on with some with some work so that Jen and Dee have a play space they’ll use more often. We still need to use space up there for storage too but because of the angle of the roof we have a lot of wasted space, space I would like to fill with proper cupboards designed for silly spaces. I’ve been looking on Homify for ideas, and this is a sort of wish list. I know a lot of […]


New year, new… bog seat 2

New Year, new me new bog seat. None of the new year lies resolutions for me. After years of moaning and saying how manky our loo seat is, and dropping hints about it to the man of the house I took matters into my own hands. It was an MDF seat, factory made and painted white with metal screws. Around 2 years ago chips in the paint allowed boyish whiffs in. The screws were rusted so much that it was locked to the pottery base. No amount of cleaning, scrubbing or even perfume would hide this stench. I seemed to be the only one who could smell it, the lads were nose-blind to it. I was embarrassed if anyone asked to use our loo, the stains that looked like a petri dish experiment just wouldn’t go and it looked like it had never ever been cleaned.


Carbon Monoxide Alarm

WIN – Carbon Monoxide awareness week 24

Ages ago I wrote a post about Carbon Monoxide. Carbon Monoxide can commonly come in to the home via a faulty gas powered appliance, such as your boiler or kitchen hobs. The huge problem with CO is it is invisible, tasteless and invisible. The only way to detect it is with a Carbon Monoxide alarm, and that is the point of this post. I Have been offered a CO-9X FireAngel Carbon Monoxide alarm by Corgi Homeplan to give away to one of my readers as part of Carbon monoxide awareness week which ends today. For tips and advice on Carbon Monoxide safety please read here.   As it happens this is exactly the alarm I have. It’s easy to use and set up, the hardest part was drilling a hole for a screw to hang it on my kitchen wall. In the box was a very good instruction leaflet, and I remember […]


How to avoid a double glazing disaster 22

As winter is approaching household repairs are on my mind. This house is always freezing in the winter but it improved a lot since we had new windows a few years back. What I know from shopping around is the prices vary wildly between double glazing companies, so does the quality of the product and the installation. To save you from a double glazing disaster, I thought I’d share a few tips to bear in mind when shopping for new double glazing. You get what you pay for


Repair before replace – easy ways to give new life to your windows 3

When the big lounge revamp was going on we discovered that the windows and back door were never fitted properly. To sort out this problem the chap we had in to decorate pulled away all the old trim and stuffed the gap between the wall and the window frame with sealant. Eight tubes of sealant later, and on went new thicker trim. Since then there has been a noticeable decrease in the draught. I realise of course that if the lounge windows were so badly fitted you can bet the rest of the house is just as bad. So as each room gets a decor update I will have to do the same in those rooms, except I’ll use expanding foam filler to block out the gaps fully. Some things I can’t do myself though, like adjusting the window runner bits so they close straight first time. This will have […]


I’m in limbo 22

Purgatory.  Groundhog day.  And so on. Yesterday (Monday 26th) the carpet was meant to be laid to finish off the living room following on from over a month of home improvement work.  It’s pretty much done now, just a few little bits and bobs left to do such as re-hanging family photos and sewing some curtains. But yesterday this happened … Yes, Carpetright ballsed up. After I was so complimentary about them too! My review of Carpetright which needs editing now I think.


Carbon monoxide – invisible danger 2

Did you know there may be a silent killer in your home that can claim the life of your beloved pet without you even knowing it? Carbon monoxide is a colourless, odourless gas produced by heaters, boilers and cookers in the home. Most people know it can be fatally toxic to people, but did you know it is toxic for pets too? I personally had no idea that dogs or other pets would be in danger from carbon monoxide, and when I was in a home in the past that had a gas leak we left the dog asleep on the sofa whilst we went outside for fresh air and waited about half an hour for the house to become safer. No idea at all that was the wrong thing to do, and the first time I heard it mentioned was in an email I’ve copied below….


Keeping the new carpet clean 3

As you might have read I recently went carpet shopping as I am on a bit of a home improvement mission. It’s got to a stage where I just hate most of the scruffy old stuff in our home, for example old carpets or faded/tainted paintwork. I haven’t exactly got a plan to how I am sorting the house out, I just repair or update whatever is annoying me the most. A little while ago that meant fitting a new fire and tiling it myself. Now it is most definitely all about the floor. My new carpet is being fitted in early January which means I have a little time to find a rug that I like, is machine washable and goes ok with the new carpet. This isn’t so easy! As is common with me, I’ve been distracted by cute stuff. Namely this football rug* from Zurleys website.


Carpetright are doing it right 4

Recently I have had enough of our awful beige-ish carpet in the lounge. I say ish as it is so stained, just who puts beige in the main living area of a family home? So I’ve popped down my local Carpetright* to chat with them and choose something a bit nicer. My living room feels small but is actually 5 by 5 meters which meant I couldn’t snag any of the brilliantly priced remnants as on the roll carpets come in a 4 meter width normally. Rather a few of the remnants are creams and beiges but there were some fun colours such as red, turquoise and a blue stripe.


Well that was a fun afternoon 8

This morning I was about to start tiling my kitchen. Not an exciting sounding day, but I like doing things like this even though it can take ages. It’s a lovely sense of satisfaction when you see a finished project. (Warning – if the sight of blood upsets you do not read further down this post!) I was measuring up and marking places on the wall with a pencil – then the phone rang. Off I went back in the living room to answer the phone. It was just a flipping telemarketer. I politely but assertively ask they go away and not call again. My phone is a cordless phone, which sits on a table top near but under the tv. The tv itself is on a swing arm so we aim it at the sofa to watch tv, or face away from the sofa if the lads play Kinnect […]