• Let there be Light

    I cannot tell you what a gaff it’s been to reinstate this light after having our ceiling re-plastered. I think this was the fifth attempt. Failures I recall are: 1. Not cutting a hole for the rose. 2. Running out of arm strength because I was too stupid to remove the glass bowls. 3. Wiring […]

  • Renovations

    We’ve been meaning to get some plastering done in our house for ages. Some of the previous renovations were a bit slap-dash! The impending arrival of baby Wintle has forced us to get a move on with the home improvements. This photo shows the old and new. Capturing the colours and textures of the plaster […]

  • General Easter Update

    It’s been a while and we’re off on holiday tomorrow so here’s a few thoughts to jot down before I go. Easter and “The Passion” It’s Easter Sunday. Easter is obviously a hijacked pagan festival – witness the eggs and bunnies that symbolise new life as spring approaches – heck the date of easter even […]

  • Simple things

    Some of this DIY stuff is so much more complicated than it looks. After a hint from a friend of ours who came for dinner a while back, we decided to finally put proper locks on our bathroom doors. Well, not locks, but little sliding latches. “Easy”, I thought. Jusy buy ’em, from B&Q, fix […]

  • Digging it.

    Mud Glorious mud. That’s what’s at the end of our fairly large garden! Oh, and weeds. Creeping buttercup apparently. The queen of weeds in the Wintle garden. Our Garden One big reason for buying the house that we bought was the c. 100ft garden. For a nearly-town house this is HUGE! And it’s nicely split […]

  • Transformations!

    So, when we moved into our house the front room looked kinda like this: It should be pointed out that the red stripe was NOT our idea. The general mess and clutter was. Now, Sally has put a LOT of work into the painting. Her approach is very much little bits here and there whenever […]

  • The Miracle of Plumbing that is PTFE Tape

    We recently discovered (amongst lots of other things going wrong all around us) a small leak a the point that our washing maching inlet hose connects to the water pipe. This was a problem when we first moved in and we initially fixed it by buying a new hose and doing it up really tight. […]

  • Shelf hanging – a lesson in trust!

    Now here’s a thing that’s quite contrary. I’m not a very trusting person, while at the same time, I tend to believe what people tell me. I think it’s all down to experience. If someone says, for example, that they’ve got tickets to go see the Spice Girls at Wembley stadium. As long as it’s […]

  • I can do it!

    A new thread starts. Having bought a house I’m learning something else new – DIY! Sally bought me a book as a gift called “You Can Do It!” (It’s a B&Q book and B&Q’s advertising slogan used to be “You can do it when you B&Q it!”). This thread will be the ups and down, […]