Today I…

Posted by louisa on Monday 18 July 2011 in DIY, meta | 10 comments

Today I slept late because we were up til the early hours putting the world to rights with a friend. When we’re elected supreme rulers of the world, things are gonna be sweeeeet. ;)

Today I sanded and re-primed the bathroom door frame – we did all the woodwork in there yesterday but the door frame “alligator” cracked so I had to start again rather than getting on with the first coat of the actual paint. Note to self: use the right brush for cleaning your teeth.

Today I filled in various cracks/holes/seams in/around the bathroom woodwork and in the coal hole-turned utility room. I heart decorators’ caulk.

Today I “supervised” John making doughnuts for the first time in reaction/protest to everyone going on about the new giant chain doughnut shop that’s opened up near the motorway. They were pretty good for a first try but have lots of ideas on how we can make them better. However we’ve not sure we *should* make them better – too much temptation.

Today I wandered over to Homebase (our “convenience” DIY store, although we prefer to get major stuff from better/cheaper places further afield) to buy a tile trowel and ended up buying in addition to the tile trowel & spacers: a little pot of green enamel to revamp some lanterns (reduced from £4 to £1), two 3-exposure photo frames (reduced from £10 each to £3), two mini succulents and a mini cactus (to be potted on together for John’s desk), a Calla Lily (pictured above) and some sort of stripey-leaved red Bromeliad — the latter two because I want some more houseplants and specifically at the moment, some colour for the bathroom. Naughty unplanned spending though.

Today I bumped (literally) into the same guy three times at Homebase. It got embarrassing by the third time.

Today I used my new tile trowel with my bought-super-cheap-at-Focus-the-other-week tiles to make a splashback in the former coal hole/now utility room. The tiling gods were smiling down on me for my first spot of tiling in 12 years – the corner to edge of the wall cabinet was exactly four tiles plus spacers, and the corner to the edge of the wall the other way was exact three – no cutting required!

Today I sat down at my computer to do a bit of work and didn’t realise how much tile adhesive I had stuck on my arm until it all dried and flaked off onto the floor. Another note to self: sweep that up.

Today I sanded the bathroom door frame AGAIN because the second coat of primer had cracked in the same way as the first. I decided to get really aggressive with the sand paper and ended up peeling – in pretty big sheets – three layers of paint off the door frame. It seems that somewhere down the line someone really skimped on the prep – the newly exposed level was perfectly glossy. I sanded that back though and primed it for a third frickin’ time and so far, no cracks. Woohoo.

Today I was grateful that John volunteered to cook a big batch of pasta sauce for the freezer so we could have that for dinner rather than me having to stand in front of the stove this evening. He’s serving it as I type this. Final note to self: type faster!

What have you been up to today?

Ten things

Posted by louisa on Monday 6 June 2011 in chickens, cooking, DIY, frugal, growing, soap | 2 comments

1. Buff the chicken has been in isolation since last Wednesday since the others started really *viciously* bullying her (as I said on Twitter, it’s disturbing how vicious chickens can be). I think there have been pecking order issues over the last few weeks and it’s stopped her being able to eat properly. She feels very bony (even for a pure breed) and is weak as a result – looking back at old photos of her, the difference is stark. I’m hoping some time by herself and some special food will turn her around but I wouldn’t be surprised to go down one morning to find she’d died overnight. Sigh.
2. We painted the bathroom on Sunday – not the woodwork yet but the second coat of the walls, ahead of the cupboards being fitted tomorrow. One June mini goal down (nearly)!
3. In other housey news, last year we found a hidden coal hole at the front of our house and over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been having it damp-proofed and turned into a utility room. It’s not been cheap but now has a proper full height doorway and is a proper extra room for the house – it’ll free up room in the kitchen too. It should be finished this week, hurrah!
4. While that’s going on at great expense inside, John’s DIY-mad dad is fitting a fence for us outside — to help contain the dog and the chickens a bit more. The fence is going to be rather frugal for a new fence as the lumberyard John’s dad goes to was throwing away about 20 horizontal fencing beams and some posts, because they’d got slightly bleached in the sun so couldn’t be sold “as new” any more. Madness! But useful timing for us!
5. And speaking of freebies, someone was taking a seemingly brand new electric staple gun in its case at the tip last time John’s dad was visiting – they told him it was “broken” but he took it home and found they’d just inserted the staplers in the wrong place. We now have a brand new working electric staple gun for free ;)
6. I never used to use bar soap to wash anywhere other than my hands – it left a film and dried my skin, causing my face in particular to get greasier in compensation. But my olive oil soap leaves my skin clean and soft – and it stays feeling that way for 12+ hours unlike just about every other cleaning method I’ve tried. I very much like it.
7. I made the ugliest soda bread I’ve ever made today – I don’t know what went wrong but it grew really unevenly. Still tasted lovely with soup for lunch though :)
8. Some of my rapini has gone to seed – the heads weren’t big enough to warrant harvesting. Damn the hot spring!
9. Do you make your own quiches? I’m looking for (frugal) store-cupboard recipe quiche ingredient ideas for when we’ve not got much else in — Viksterbean on Twitter suggested antipasti such as olives and artichokes, and that made me think about adding a swirl of pesto too. Any other ideas?
10. Boron would like it to be known that I did not write this post alone. Apologies for the poor quality of my webcam – I only ever use it for these type of pics ;)



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Our long weekend

Posted by louisa on Tuesday 26 April 2011 in chickens, DIY, growing, wild food, wood stuff | 8 comments

Cor, I feel like I’ve not written here for weeks! Like Christmas, Easter doesn’t mean anything to us here – not even the consumption of chocolate – so we’ve just had four days of doing nothing. Well, not doing nothing…

On Friday, I spent a lot of time reading about Square Foot Gardening. It’s something I’d heard vaguely about before and suspected I’d borrow it’s spacing principles when sowing/planting in my various wooden planters, but Friday was the first time I sat down and read about it. Then fully converted to the idea, I built a 3ftx3ft raised bed from our old bathroom cupboard doors (4ftx4ft is more typical but my doors were 6ft tall so 3ft-square was easier and also tucked away better into a space next to the pond).

I reused the former hinge screws to mark out every foot around the frame, so I could easily divide it into those magic foot square sections with twine. I haven’t decided exactly what I’ll plant in it yet but looking at the planting guidelines, my nine squares could be a rather productive space.

We did have a rather lazy day on Saturday – mostly reading in the sun – but Sunday was productive again: we painted the bathroom. I’m holding off talking about our bathroom renovation until its finished (two long months and counting) but I will say, it’s now rather blue.

It needs some more filling/sanding then a second coat, but it’s feels like it’s finally starting to come together. Hurrah.

Yesterday, we had the bathroom flooring fitted (hence the rush to paint at least one coat on the walls on a sunny Sunday) then went for a dog walk at Shipley Glen. When we came back, I pottered in the garden – chicken chores and potting on (the third batch of tomato plants, the two types of courgette, some lollo roso lettuces). I’ve decided that I’m not allowed to sow any more stuff until I’ve dealt with the stuff currently growing – stuff that needs pricking out or potting on – so I don’t get overwhelmed and leave things in too small pots for too long, as happened at some points last year. I can’t wait until stuff can be planted out in the garden en masse though – the greenhouse is just about full of seedlings and the sun porch is pretty packed too. It would also be useful to be able to start clearing space in the salad troughs/pots – grow faster lettuces, I want to eat you!

On the chicken front, Ginger is still broody – I’m kicking her out of the nest box whenever I go down there to make sure she gets food and water regularly, and I’m getting some harsh bwarking in return. I think I managed to talk Blacks out of following her though – she was acting a little hot & bothered for a couple of days but I cooled her down a bit and she’s back to normal and laying again now.

And while we were down near the chickens yesterday, John spotted what he called “the biggest mushrooms I’ve ever seen in my life” – a slight exaggeration maybe but they are pretty sizeable:

They’re on the tree trunk marking the division between our and our neighbour’s gardens and since we walk past there at least once a day, I’m pretty surprised how they got so big without us noticing. I think they’re Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) – edible but only really when they’re young. These guys are probably past it now but I’ll keep an eye out for future fruiting.

So our four-day-weekend was a decent combination of laziness and productivity, how was yours?

Frozen beck, unfrozen pipes

Posted by louisa on Thursday 23 December 2010 in DIY | 2 comments

I took these pictures of the beck (stream) at the bottom of our garden yesterday afternoon.

(Downstream/upstream respectively)

And I took this picture of the water pipe in our kitchen after we’d finished mopping up 3 mop buckets of water from the kitchen floor.

Sigh.

Frugal hair and fur management techniques ;)

Posted by louisa on Monday 13 December 2010 in frugal | 2 comments

Last week on Move to Portugal, Laura mentioned that they’ve realised it’ll be a lot cheaper to cut her husband’s hair at home than have him go to the barbers every month.

She asked if anyone else had any related frugal tips and I left the following comment:

My boyfriend has been shaving his own head (or having me help) for years.

He’s gone through a couple of sets of cheap, rechargeable battery clippers but now swears by some mains powered ones – a lot more powerful so the job is done faster and his dad has had a pair that’s lasted 20+ years. He just wishes he’d got them sooner.

When I had long hair, I used to trim it myself to keep it free from split ends – curly hair is very forgiving ;) Now I have it shorter so I go to a hairdresser – but only once every four or five months or so. As [another commenter] Carla says, keep it simple – don’t have an elaborate style that needs constant attention or products, and you’ll save loads.

When I lived close to a hairdressers training college a couple of years ago, I used to go there – would cost £4 for a cut (or £2 on half price Tuesday) and would easily rival a cut I’d have done in the city centre for £30! (Actually, that’s another saving idea if you don’t feel like cutting your own: it used to cost me £30 for a hair cut in the city centre [Leeds], £20-25 at a good salon in a poorer suburb about a mile out (where I lived), and now I live about 8 miles out, it costs me £10-15 a cut. Pretty much the same quality cut, much lower price!)

On the subject of hair, we also clip our dog ourselves rather than paying £45 a pop. We bought more good mains powered clippers and a pair of hairdressers scissors (for the bits that need trimming not shaving) for that price instead – far cheaper in the long run. The first time we did it she looked a little ragged for a couple of days but we quickly got better at it and now she looks gorgeous all the time ;)

Saying I get my hair cut every “four or five months” is actually a bit of optimism rather than accurate – it’s more like every eight or nine months because I hate going to the hairdressers (the enforced small talk mostly) but by that point, my hair really starts bugging me so I’d rather go slightly more often. The hairdressers I go to now is around the corner from our house – less than a minute’s walk away – and is more than fine for my basic cut, and so much cheaper than heading to a fancy salon in central Leeds (extra expense + bus fare + time).

Regarding Lily, it’s win all around us clipping her here. It’s a great bonding experience, she finds it a darn sight less stressful than she would going to a groomers (she feel asleep during the clipping the last two times), and it’s far, far cheaper. Our aim with her – as with ourselves – is to be clean-ish & presentable-ish and we can meet those goals here. She wouldn’t excel in Crufts with our grooming but she’s clean & pretty enough to dunk herself in mud in the woods, and that’s all she (and we) care about.

As well as his head, John, my scruffy boyfriend, shaves his not-so-designer stubble with his clippers too – he has no need to be baby’s-bum smooth so no need to spend money on expensive razor blades & shaving cream. Another time when laziness = frugalness! ;)