As most of you know I had been made redundant after 14 years with my previous company.
We decided that I would look for work, not panic and keep busy in the mean time.
The downside was that I have specialised over the years and was looking at niche market jobs, so not many about.
The last time I had interviewed for a job had been 20 years before, as the company that made me redundant, had head hunted me in a time when a chat over a cuppa tea (Or in my case on a hotel verandah in Cape Town overlooking the ocean) could land you a job.
We got married in August 2010 and having moved here in September 2010 we knew there was a lot of stuff we wanted to do to the house over time and set a 5 year plan in place for the modifications and changes we wanted to make..... you know how it goes though..... Redundancy announced in October and enforced in January and a misserable winter with loads of snow.
The first job was to turn the "office and dinning room" downstairs into a single room, known from the outset as the "Green room" as Nicola had bought stuff for it even before we had bought the house.
Due to cost and me being tight it was decided that we would do as much of the work ourselves, leaving plastering and final electrics to the pro's. I would still finish and prep for paint etc, but getting that bloody stuff up on the ceiling was left to our mate Glen, who has worked on 3 houses for us in the past. He gets a key and comes in after hours or whenever it suits him, keeping our costs down in the process.
Looking outward to the garden.....
The kitchen and utility area was a boiled egg yellow, that had to go ASAP.
Resulting in this..... a bit bland, but easier on the eyes.
At 8pm one night the walls were up, and by 9pm it started to look like this.
9.30 it was here and by 10pm the walls were down and Glen was away.
We need to pause here for a moment.
In an unusual show of concern, I will just say that safety equipmend like glasses should be used when working with plaster board and circular saws when working above shoulder height.
This really did hurt in the end.
Next morning, in typical Grizz style, I was removing nails from all the timber etc and storing it for future use.
My trusty angle grinder came out of course and I moved the wires the way I saw fit (was not going to open the ceiling to do it all the right way)
A couple of days later Glen was back, doing what he does best.....
Leaving things like this.
Followed by a nice mix inside the house as it was bloody cold at this point, filling the groove in the floor where the dry wall had been. This also showed the two floors having a diagonal difference of about 40mm which I did manage to doctor in the end.
At this point the weather turned nasty and we never saw Glen until after Christmas. With our deadline and also the flooring being booked for the 23rd December we had no option but to just get on with stuff.
Outside looked like this and even if he tried, Glen would not have made it to where we live.
Nicola out making sure the bird feeders were full.
We also had a lovely Christmas market up at Rochester Castle.
With Nicola at work every day, I carried on, sanded and prepped the walls.
Nicola helped wherever she could.
Green Room taking shape paint cutting in.
Watching paint dry.
Looking out after the floor went down.
So that concludes that job.
On Boxing day I made a BBQ for about 25 people here and everyone loved the room, which made Nicola gloat about the green theme.
I did paint other rooms in the house while I was at it and made some Biltong.
On the 31st December I bought a Madass, which caused ructions as I had not discussed it with Nicola.... oooppps.
Other little jobs included repairing the paving on the driveway etc.
More updates later on other stuff I did while at home.
I think I worked harder at home than at the day job, but it must have saved us a fair amount of money doing as much as possible ourselves.
That is if you are interested in seeing more??
Let me know.
