The Dogmother Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 Go for it Cathy - that can be your new year's resolution Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mostin Posted December 10, 2008 Share Posted December 10, 2008 I couldn't go for a week, and I don't think I am that bad compared to some people I know, so good luck, no guilt from me for not doing as much as you wanted to this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 Where is charlottechicken? She hasn't posted since August! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dogmother Posted December 22, 2008 Share Posted December 22, 2008 I thought she was takign a forum holiday while the builders were in, but she's been gone a long time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 Well, I am back, and have a new kitchen and remodelled downstairs to the house to boot Not yet decorated fully, but reasonably tidy (a miracle for me) and certainly usable and perfectly functional. Phew! I won’t call my ‘buy nothing new’ year a total disaster, but deciding to have the house remodelled didn’t really fit in with the whole idea of buying nothing new However, the poor builders were happy to follow my (strange) ideas of not throwing anything away unless absolutely necessary, in fact they cleaned and reused every brick from the old laundry room, and even used my brick collection from the bottom of the garden! Broken bricks were used as infill for the new floor and most of the rubble went in too. Very little infill and bricks were bought, and I even kept two of those huge builder bags (did you know they go to landfill? Disgusting!!!) I have unpicked the seams on one already and cut it ready to be sewn up as a pair of 1 metre high by 50 cm diameter potato growing bags. I will have four potato bags altogether, they are bright yellow so nice and cheery too! As a consequence of using old bricks, the new extension is hard to spot and blends beautifully with the house. I am so pleased that my penny pinching and brick hoarding helped produce something so aesthetically pleasing! I sold my (14 year old) 50cm wide cooker to the builder’s labourer, and my poor old fridge/freezer has been correctly disposed of by the council, after I discovered that a new fridge and separate freezer would use less than half the electric, the new ones fit under the counter, which is what I really wanted. I was able to re use almost all of the shelving from the previous laundry, and as I chose to keep everything the same colour, no repainting was required, apart from the ends if the shelves were too long. My new kitchen curtains are eons old; they were first reincarnated when I bought my house, and served as bedroom curtains until I could afford a proper colour scheme. They were originally from my Yorkshire aunt’s mother-in-law and I bought them for £2 when the old lady died and her possessions were sold off. I turned them sideways to fit my long Victorian bedroom windows. Now they have been cut to provide a pair of long double door curtains and matching window curtains and a bit was left over which I fashioned into a shaped pelmet to go above the kitchen sink where curtains would just get wet. As the curtains are a soft moss green velvet they fit the colour scheme well. I took some leftover legs from the new fitted kitchen back to B&Q and swapped them for a white roman blind to hang at the kitchen sink window. Yes, I had to buy a new kitchen as the drawer units on the old one had fallen to pieces! However, there was a bit of a sale going on at the time and the kitchen itself cost less than £800 with the worktops. I managed to reuse the wall cabinets from the old kitchen and two of the base units in my laundry. The old toilet bowl, cistern and basin with taps from the old laundry are currently resplendent on the lawn awaiting their moment of fame on freecycle. I had new ones as the downstairs loo is now on it’s own in a cubicle and the old ones wouldn’t fit! The new loo also uses a lot less water, and the tiny hand wash basin discourages too much water usage. My old kitchen sink is now in the laundry, although after it was installed I discovered one corner had a hole in it. The sink was second hand anyway when I first had it, but the builder filled the hole with a lump of clear silicone and it is not at all noticeable. I even kept the roof off the laundry, which was ply with roof felt stuck on it. The roof came off in 24 inch wide pieces and these will be used in the New Year to create a waterproof bin store and wood/coal/fuel store in the back yard. The builders got so used to me removing bits and pieces off the skip, they started asking “would you like to keep this, you could use it for so and so”! They were even careful not to disrupt the ceiling paper in the old kitchen, which is now the loo and laundry. So much so, that I just had to tidy around the new walls with some coving and repaint the whole ceiling and coving with the old leftover ceiling paint. As you might guess, following the build I have no money whatsoever, and have spent the last few months on money saving websites, trying to get the best deals for the few new things I did need, and to establish some sort of money saving regime for next year. I have had fun this year, with the buying nothing new that I did manage, and hope to use some sort of hybrid of buy nothing new and living on less than 4K for the New Year. I am now determined to buy only charity shop clothes for work and going out, and have had some great bargains in the past year. I have purchased several pairs of pre-owned work shoes on eBay even though I could have had them new under the “buy nothing new” rules. I will continue to use eBay to source footwear. Phew, I’d better stop there; not exactly buy nothing new but I thought you all might like to know how it went. I will try and put some pics up in the New Year if anyone is interested. Now I must pop over to Cathy's shiny new 2009 buy nothing new thread and see how she is doing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy Posted December 29, 2008 Share Posted December 29, 2008 Great to have you back Claire! What a great update - you have done incredibly well! Would love to see pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted December 29, 2008 Author Share Posted December 29, 2008 Great to have you back Claire! Aw, thanks Snowy! I'll get some pics organised soon, hopefully it won't take me 4 months to post them on here! (but maybe that long to upload onto photobucket ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dogmother Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Lovely to see you again Claire, and your extension sounds great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules. Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 It all sounds really great. Pictures!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly Posted December 30, 2008 Share Posted December 30, 2008 Good to hear from you again Charlottechicken, and yet again you are an inspiration - I've had one of those builders bags in the garage for a couple of years, I even tried freecycling it but "Ooops, word censored!"ody took it. Now you've given me an idea for possible use! I am amazed at the amount of reclaiming/recycling you managed to do with your kitchen, I would love to see pictures. Perhaps you taught the builders something as well, and they will be a bit more thoughtful before chucking stuff in the skip on their next job! I don't think I will ever manage the whole 'nothing new' experience, but this thread really made me think twice about what I was buying during 2008, especially as I had to save up for something last year. I am going to follow couperwife's thread and try and join in where I can, but thank you for changing the way I thought about spending in 2008. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lesley Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Well done Claire - it sounds brilliant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chook n Boo Mum Posted December 31, 2008 Share Posted December 31, 2008 Wow Claire ! Inspirational ! I am all enthused now, I have plans to collar several friends who are builders/carpenters to keep an eye out for any wood which would be useable for my walkin run & a few other projects I have rattling around in my head at the moment. It never ever fails to surprise me when I walk past a skip or building site, just how much good stuff there is in the skips. I tried to salvage some stuff from the building work we had done, however the tinkers had regular bonfires & got rid of it that way Congratulations on 2008 & good luck with 2009 Sha x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted December 31, 2008 Author Share Posted December 31, 2008 thank you for changing the way I thought about spending in 2008. What a nice thing to say, thank you for joining in the thread Olly, I hope you continue to gain inspiration from Couperwife's thread too, I will see you over there! I forgot to say, I even saved the thread off those builder bags (if you pull the right bit it all just unravels ) and will sew them back up with the old thread. I also salvaged the plastiglass out of the back porch, it was something called Ariel liteglaze, marvellous stuff, and it is now keeping the top part of the hen run dry and a little warmer for the girls. My old worktops were also kept, to use as shelving in my wood store and bin store, when I can get round to building them. Thanks all for your lovely and inspirational comments, keep a lookout on here for pics in the near future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted January 1, 2009 Share Posted January 1, 2009 Well done Claire...and lovely to hear from you again. A fascinating update. We have all been wondering. £4000.....does that include food and gas/electricity? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted January 1, 2009 Author Share Posted January 1, 2009 £4000.....does that include food and gas/electricity? Yes! Everything except housing costs (as in council tax and mortgage or rent). Should be a challenge Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share Posted January 25, 2009 Well, for those of you who haven't fallen asleep waiting for me to post pics, here they are! Before, the terracotta painted wall is the end of the laundry/old toilet coalhouse which was to be removed completely. The patio just visible in front of the wall was swallowed up in the new extension. During. Here you can see the old bricks stacked up and cleaned under the roof as the laundry was demolished. I have kept the roof too! After! From the same position as the first pic. I am having to now swap the garden around and move the chicken run and veg patch about 20 feet further down the garden, so I can walk out onto a lawn and flower beds. I get a bigger veg patch though After from the side. I chose a more Victorian style of window, top half opens. There are 4 new windows all in a row, the last one is the other side of the back door, just visible. Here you can see most of the bricks are the old ones. The new inside! This doorway originally led to a 7 feet square laundry with downstairs loo. Now it is a 16 feet long dining kitchen, with double doors and two Velux windows!. I am standing in the old kitchen, and my new downstairs loo is behind me, in a tiny 4 feet square room! I left the back door in the same position, and the floor in the old kitchen/new laundry has been raised by about a foot. Sorry this pic is a bit dark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Couperwife Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 wow, that looks fab I love the colour you have chosen cathy x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tessa the Duchess Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 That looks great I am very impressed Putting in the Velux windows was inspired must make the new room very light and airy. Tessa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olly Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 That looks great - I bet you love the new kitchen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jules. Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 It's lovely, Claire Thanks for sharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted January 25, 2009 Author Share Posted January 25, 2009 Ooh, thanks for the comments! Sorry about the size of the pics, I thought they would be much larger. I must have used 'large' before on photobucket when uploading pics but forgot, so these are 'medium' The colour is Wickes fresh green, Cathy. It happened to be the cheapest paint I could find. I went for Velux windows because the roof faces south and I wanted as much 'solar gain' in the spring/summer/autumn as I could get to help heat the rest of the house for free The veluxes are actually in line with the ordinary windows too. At night I can see the stars in the east, south and straight up! I have a makeshift bird table on the handrail and keep frightening wood pigeons when I dash into the kitchen! Poor things! They peep around the door now, to see where I am Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 It looks lovely! Shame about that green paint (not a green fan me!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Dogmother Posted January 25, 2009 Share Posted January 25, 2009 That is fabulous Claire - your house looks the same age as mine. You've done a brilliant job and been so thrifty too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiggy Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 it looks lovely - I like green Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlottechicken Posted January 26, 2009 Author Share Posted January 26, 2009 It looks lovely! Shame about that green paint (not a green fan me!) It took me aback when I put it on the wall Pengy, talk about bright . I'm used to it now though, and because the room is so light it actually needs to be a strong colour. I have some nice leaf stamps so may do a leafy paint effect everywhere to really bring the outside in too I will need to use more shades of green paint though Clare, my house is 1898, so very late Victorian. Do you have an upstairs bathroom as well? Quite a few round here have kept the downstairs bathroom. The houses to the right of mine on the pics are 1902 early Edwardian, and very titchy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
