In a rare turn of events, I've actually pulled my finger out, and done some DIY lately - namely :

• Remove downstairs toilet
• Install washing machine where toilet was
• Remove door from downstairs 'toilet'/'laundry room'
• Plumb in dish washer (finally, after it's been gaining rust; washer required for hose).
• Install Tumble Drier
• Install/Put up Whiteboard(s)

Shockingly, the above only took 1 day. Which implies I'm getting quicker at knocking holes in 'things'.

Last week, I managed to arrange for some plasterers to come in to finish the dining room (or what will be the dining room).

They came, they saw, they plastered and its looking OK. Could be smoother, but its done now so we're really now just desperately waiting for it to dry properly so we can paint. We may go out tonight or tomorrow to see if we can get a carpet and get it fitted before guests arrive on Friday (I'm desperately hoping, but don't really beleive its possible)

However, the end is in sight. There's lots of tidying up to do but the house will soon be able to go on the market (assuming we'll be able to get another mortgage, which we have to do some investigating with regards to)

Finally we've had a weekend where I don't feel like we haven't got enough done.

On saturday morning the plan was to go and fix my brother's (problem with his modem which turned out to be a trivial setting in the end) and his daughter's computers (didn't even ask David what the problem was as it was fixed very quickly) then we planned to take our weekly long walk. I asked if any combination of the family wanted to come with us, but my brother was heading off to the gym, so we took the girls with us so that David (the brother variety) and Jenny could go to the gym together for a change. While we were there we ended up buying an iAudio (same as ours) from ebay for Jenny's birthday (we're not paying for it, but they don't have much of a feedback rating on their account)

Well, the good-ish news is that I've finished covering the walls with plasterboard; Hannah and Joe will be glad to hear the end of my late night drilling.

Next, comes the task of redoing the ceiling (we have more than enough plasterboards) so it matches up/is level (the first two were put on the wrong way around and don't join on a joist). Then there will be floor levelling - which might turn into a bigger task than I wanted as half the floor is tiled (raised by approx 5mm higher) :-(.

Mummy, can Santa do my DIY for me?

Over the last weekend I've been busy doing yet more DIY. Saturday involved removing the rest of the chimney breast from the dining room, while Sunday involved going to B&Q (Bother and Queue) followed by moving towards completion on the bathroom.

The skip which arrived on Thursday, was filled on Saturday with bricks, dog toys, plasterboard and other random rubbish. Unfortunately I didn't have room to dispose of both armchairs, so the garage is still unusable. The armchairs weren't very flammable either :-(

The bathroom floor has now been redone using some thick Plywood underneath the toilet, which replaces the MDF we had fitted by our $randomBuilder. The plywood is rock solid, unlike the MDF. The entire floor is now also covered in 6mm MDF, and is nearly at the point where the lino can be layed (except some idiot forgot to cut out a sink pedestal sized hole in the mdf, so you can guess what doesn't fit at the moment.).

In an effort to save ourselves some money, David has been working his way through various tasks in the DIY todo list. Yesterday I thought he had done enough without my assistance so decide to help him shift bricks into the skip, and to take down the remains of the chimney breast.