Our First Flat

eBay fun with furniture

Having been looking around for sideboards and garden furniture in all the traditional places, but to no avail, Henry made the big mistake of introducing Sara to the delights of eBay. 10 minutes later and Sara had bought a sideboard. 3 days later and we'd apologised to the seller for cancelling our bid (Henry didn't like said sideboard) and bought a different one. We also bought a nice set of garden furniture, and both were at bargain basement prices.

The garden furniture arrived first, and there was almost no putting together necessary - the kind of furniture we like! However, the sideboard was flat-packed so Henry set about putting it all together - not once, but twice! The problem was that Henry stupidly put it together so that a certain part was in the wrong position - have a look at the photos below and see if you can spot the different. Answers on a postcard to the usual address...

Once the sideboard was in place we decided the room needed a bit more light, so Sara went shopping and came back with two brilliant new lamps - and very achey arms. We think you'll agree they look pretty nice - the lamps I mean, not the achey arms. And even if you don't like them - tough, we're keeping them.

The hallway painting is finished.

This entry is a culmination of days, as the painting of the hall is a) by no means that exciting, and b) no way exciting enough to warrant more than a page's worth of photos.

In case you were wondering, we chose the colour scheme after seeing it done in a paint brochure, and we think it turned out pretty nicely. It was trickly figuring out where to take the line on all the stair inclines, but I reckon we got it right.

We followed the finishing touches (on Monday) by trying out our new barbecue - it wasn't really barbecue weather, and we didn't have anything to sit on, but we improvised quite well I think!!

Mirror Mirror, on the wall...

Once again finding ourselves at a (rare) loose end this weekend, we decided to crack on with all the little jobs that have been gagging to get finished. These included, in no particular order:

• Sanding down and painting the lounge radiator white (as opposed to wee-yellow, which it was)
• Applying the Caulk to the skirting boards to fill in all the gaps we'd left in them!
• Putting up the very large mirror in the lounge, and a smaller (£10 Ikea bargain) mirror in our bedroom
• Painting all the wood-work in the lounge - that's the lounge pretty much finished now!
• Filling and sanding all the walls in the hall in preparation for painting
• Choosing a colour scheme for the hallway - we eventually settled on Apple white and Willow Green...
• Attaching chicken wire to the front fence, to (hopefully) stop all the rubbish from the street from blowing in to our front 'Garden'.

The mirror's were particularly tough, as they're so effing heavy that Henry had to buy a snazzy new hammer drill to get the screws in to the walls far enough to hold them up. The other excitement of the weekend was going to see Claire and Dave, who have a new puppy called Otis. All together now - Ahhhhhhhhhh...!