Baby basics

We had our third and final antenatal session last night. I'm sad its over but also feel i have had all my questions answered.  Each session over ran massively but the facilitator made sure that we had asked everything we wanted to.

I was shocked to discover i was like everyone else, terrified, unprepared and totally clueless. I now feel like we will be able to cope and most importantly that i now know what the signs of active labour are.
The weeks have gone by so fast for us.  Last week we had our 32 week scan. I had yet more blood taken and all appears fine. We couldn't see a full profile or body as its getting a bit full in there but i was pleased to see he's head down and apparently likely to stay. All his measurements are within the expected ranges and they even took a picture of his nose and mouth for us to have. I honestly can't fault the scan people at kings. They explain everything in full and happily answer questions. (Even explaining complicated ratios to Neil).
But the best bit had to be seeing him stick out his tongue and purposefully kick the Dr. She said she didn't like him after that!

We are so excited to meet our baby boy and can't wait for him to see our biggest nursery splurge.

Bathroom's at 50%

Yet again it has been too long, yet things have been chugging along nicely.

Since my last bathroom update we have tided up but we're still in the in-between stages.  After Neils parents left on the Sunday (weeks ago now) we were left with a fully functioning bathroom but with a long list of finishing touches to be done.  

Here's a breakdown so we can cross them off one by one.

• Fill in holes in wall left by tiles, screws, nails and bad plastering. (Sunday 13th November)
• Make good bumpy walls
• Choose paint colours (Saturday 5th November)
• Test paint colours next to tiles/coving etc. (Sunday 20th November) 
• Clean and repaint bath
• Tile remaining walls
• Stick and paint skirting board
• Finish cutting and sticking down flooring
• Wipe down and paint all walls, (decide which colour goes where)
• Find and hang bathroom mirror
• Find bathroom cabinet and arrange delivery
• Choose bathroom fittings

The bad news for today is that although we love the white we have chosen for the bathroom (that sounds mad to me, how can there be a good or bad white but I am convinced).

Oyster by Wickes

Our bargain blue paint from Homebase just doesn't look dramatic enough to really make the room and it should.  I think it should be bold and grand to suit the rest of the suite.  So it's goodbye mountain rain (which is no longer on their website) - it looked a bit like this...

So we were thinking of going for something a bit more like this instead...

Hague Blue @ Farrow and Ball

Bathroom skirtingboard

Yes, it is 5.54 and i am oh so awake in my sofa bed considering whether yesterdays skirtingboard painting in dry! Its all sooo exciting eh.

We bought all new skirting for the room (twice) but when we came to take it off it would not budge! (With the added problem that in some parts there was nothing behind it and it seemed to be holding up the walls...)

So old skirting it is, and what an excellent job the previous occupies did.
 

So, after a quick hoover and wipe i made a start as we're hoping to lay down the new floor tomorrow *happy dance*

So ta da! 'new' and improved skirting.

And here's what the rest of the house has decended into!

Bathroom DIY begins

After all the endless chatter of bathroom rennovation I am astonished to announce that operation re-do has oficially commenced.  A very brave and dedicated Neil has been working alone over half term to clear it out before his parents arrived today.

Here we have stage 1, tiles removed from around the bath and toilet and majority of flooring removed.  On the right you can see the pedistal for our new sink!

Tiles behind the bath removed

Gemma getting in on the action!

And then day 2 commenced where Neil removed more of the grout from the wall and smashed up the bath ready for its collection this morning.

My biggest irritation so far is that we didnt really take any proper 'before' photos and I'm worried that its going to be easy for us to forget how it looked before and therefore wont allow us to truly appreciate what an acheivement it will be once it's done.

However, going from an ill fitting dark wood floor to a posh waterproof vinyl floor with freshly painted walls and a gorgeous bath and sink should be enough to make us realise the distance we have traveled so to speak.

There have been a number of last minute alterations, including us having to pick out some tiles at 10.30 last night with the realisation that throwing more tiles over the mess that is now on the walls was a quicker alternative to preparing them ready to paint.  So in the end we went for these, which we picked up at 7.30am this morning.



Bevelled Edge Ceramic Wall Tile @ Wickes £9.59 per Sqm

We also got some of the black line tiles to try and add a bit of detail but I'll see what I think of those tonight when I get home!  The next thing to choose is the grout. I think they'd look nice with a dark grey. But we shall see...

Newborn baby boy wardrobe

We went out shopping today, running lots and lots of errands ready for our bathroom re-do this week; but I still managed to drop by Next to have a look at baby boy bits and pieces.  So with that in mind I thought I would put together a collection of my favourite baby boy bits. Next have some lovely bits but their website doesn't allow me to show them to you all :( You'll have to cope with some other high street finds instead!

Jumper £7 @ Asda

Duffle Coat @ Tesco

Jumpsuit @ Tesco 

Jumper @ H&M

Cardigan @ H&M

Knitted 1 piece @ GAP

I feel so close to you right now!

This is me today, oh boy I feel on top of the world!

There has been this HUGE list of things to do for oh so long and finally I think I can confidently say we are getting to the end of it, or at least getting through it!

Life is made up of lots of small achievements like getting the washing on while you text a friend and hoover the lounge. Multitasking at it's best I like to think!

Anyway here is my list of achievements from the last few days and a few choice pictures to celebrate.

• Pick & Order bathroom floor - We used the final bit of cash we got for our wedding to purchase the floor, 3 packs of this beautiful vinyl floor (manufactured by Polyflor in the UK) The sample is gorgeous. (I'll report later on how easy it is to lay.) I originally wanted to pay £10 SqM but this has worked out at around £15 which I am stonkingly impressed with seeing as, in my opinion, it's the same quality as my original dream floor (Harvey Maria).

• Find and buy bathroom light - This has been one seriously EPIC battle to actually decide on something, I was debating posting a few of the ones we *almost* went for but I don't want no disagreement so this is what we FINALLY went for.

Ok, tiny I know, M&S arent keen on letting me show you the full thing - it's here 

I originally wanted to get a chandelier but I haven't really found one (anywhere in my price range) that really floated my boat. And although I was trying to ignore the issue, all the taps in our bathroom are brass so anything really modern is not going to look great! I'm hoping this will give our room a classy yet perhaps a little industrial feel which will be contrasted with some coloured accessories.  BTW the lights £28 in the sale (Huzzah) and free for us as we purchased it with some wedding gift vouchers. 

• BOILER repair - OK, this isn't totally solved but we have moved 90% towards the finishing line, I've booked a repair man to come round on Monday at 7.30am.

• Choose and order nursery stencil - Done and done! Many thanks to groupon, it's the first voucher I've bought. So I got the stencil for £9.99.  Will look gorgeous over our little mans cot me thinks :)

Tree & Swing Wall Decal 

Big love, now back to the cleaning!  Did I mention we're off for the weekend with Neil's family who have booked a lovely murder mystery weekend away for us.  Cannot wait to see them and show off my ever increasing baby boy bump.

DIY King and Queen

Well, good evening and happy weekend!  I barely know where to start to describe the mind numbing amount of work we have been able to get done this weekend. And now, 2 major things down on our list of things to do before the baby arrives. Yipeee

So, the major thing to get done this weekend was our poor flat roof extension repair.  When we first bought the house we were told it needed to be repaired in the survey of the property but alas it wasn't an 'essential' (comes well below house insurance that's for sure.)  We were given a quote of near £500 to have it re-felted and it has obviously since then (a year has passed) deteriorated some more.  So let's just say by yesterday it was looking like this:

And here's what we uncovered once we returned from Wickes with the new wood for the edges.

The photo just above was actually taken this morning around 9am but it shows the thoroughly rotten floorboard that we found in the middle. EEEK! But Neil was fully prepared to head off to Wickes last night at 7.30pm to pick up a final plank so we could do a proper repair.

Here he is working late last night whilst I pottered around with the lawn mower.  

I have to admit it has been somewhat interesting listening to him banging around up there with me banished to the ground due to pregnancy related risks associated with climbing big ladders.  Although I should point out that as I was leaning on our garden table taking measurements yesterday I managed to completely break the table and fell on bum! (I swear I am not a pregnant wale!!!) So really even a metre off the ground is dangerous enough for me.

Now whilst Neil was sizing up our roof repair I got to finally take a wire brush to our back garden wall.  We are in the strange position of being completely surrounded by walls but yet also living in an open area surround by acres of grassland. But I think it's clear to say that peeling paint across the whole of the back of the garden is a good look for no-one!

So after a quick wire brush of all the peeling paint I took to my tools!

We first saw this purple paint about a month ago and both really loved it and finally took the plunge yesterday.  I have to admit as painted the first bit I was somewhat alarmed by the colour as it's the first thing that hits you as soon as you open the back door.  But as I continued it really changed the garden from looking a bit neglected to looking like we were trying to make it look nice.

There's obviously still plenty to do in terms of the actual planting of the garden but here we have a nice shot of colour.

And the finished rooftop taken from the nursery window, look at those neat and dry corners.  And with that all finished by lunch time we headed to the tip with the broken garden table and old roof felt before heading to our local pub for roast dinner. 

(Hard working toes, yuck)

Lovely grub! (And now back to Downton Abbey)