More personal good news now: Our Windows are being restored as of today!

you may remember a while back we got a sash window repair company (ventrolla) to come and give us a quote on the repair of our windows back to there former glory. Well after a short wait, we now have two very nice men from Chorley who work out of Preston fixing our windows, and it’s all very exciting.

Our window locks

Today they did two windows the dining room (yes the same one that is mid decorate, it’s getting quite cramped in there now, lots of paint, and windows stuff all in the same room). And the morning room.

It should be pointed out at this juncture before we go any further, that we live in a standard 4 bedroom terrace house built around the turn of the century when Liverpool was expanding quite a lot. We however have rather pompous names for all our rooms, we actually only call one of the four bedrooms a bed room, one is a nursery (not to bad) another is the study (where the pooters live) and the fourth is our library, most people would call this a box room, but it doesn’t actually have any boxes in it, just loads and loads of books (see the library, and a place to read them).

Anyway the windows repairs are going really well, and the two they have done are fab, the open (both top and bottom) we have cool little restrictior bolts on them to stop small people opening them to far, and nice chunky brass fittings for lifting and closing them. So it’s good news for us and yes we are very excited.

It appears to be that time again in the Jump’s house hold where money flows like water. Right down the sink, yesterday it was the turn of the washing machine, last week it stopped spinning so we got our friendly washing machine repair man in to have a look, he “replaced the brushes” which meant it span for a whole week before something else went pop, On a return visit, it turns out the circuit board is now busted, so we’ve given up on that machine and gone and got a new one.

We’ve given up on curry’s after a number of very bad customer service experiences, my favorite being told you’ll have to go to a specialist shop for that” (I think it was a HI-FI lead), so we trooped off to Comet instead.

Washing Machines galore, all with little icons on them that mean absolutely nothing to anybody. It’s virtually impossible to tell them apart too. In the end we we’re left looking at a washing machine and a washer dryer for the same price with the only discernible difference being the number of little lights on the front, so we plumped for the washer dryer, the little man attempted to sell us the 5 year cover at the cost of the machine again, and the limescale stuff, based on something, but give we live in Liverpool with it’s nice soft water, we didn’t get that.

according to the list on the little door at the front of our new washer/dryer it has a setting for SpecialSport and SpecialShoes: now, it doesn’t do just shoes, so we’ll have to get it home before we find out what special shoes are.

Anyway until Tuesday we are washing machineless, we’re taking some washes to Ruth’s Mum’s today, but if you see us over the next few day’s excuse the smell.

I promise, there is more going on at the moment, than the roof, it’s just all consuming:

Today the gutters where shot, so we have had to get them replaced too. First of all I was a bit sad, all the other houses in the street have the original gutters, and I was worried we where going to get naff plastic guttering, that would… Well look naff, as it turns out we’ve got groovy aluminum guttering that;s all shiny and silver, I think we will ask tomorrow if we can get away with not painting it.

We’re half way through the roof now, the front of the house has no tiles on but it at least water proof (the felt is down), it turns out our tiles where a little bit flimsy, and quite a lot of them fell apart as they took them off the roof, so it’s going to cost a little more, we are getting the tiles from the back of the house put on the front, then the remaining tiles are going on the back, and the short fall is being made up by Spanish slate which is much cheaper than welsh slate, and as far as I can tell looks the same.

the roofer, is doing a grand job, and has started to offer me tips on other bits of the house, Ruth thinks he’s taken pity on me because I work with pooters, and took the baby to the supermarket (obviously I’m not man enough). So he has been telling me how I can use some ’stock’ brick to ‘bag out’ the front wall, I’ve virtually no idea what any of that means but he has said he will show me how to do it.

Well the work on the roof has started, and stopped. Yesterday was a good, day and our roofer John rebuilt the chimney for us, in between bouts of tea drinking and gossip. He’s been most disparaging about the other roofers in the street (have you ever known a street to have three different roofers all working on the same day), non of which have used all the scaffolding around the house like we have.

Our roofer is obviously the only proper one working in the street, and as Ruth said for roofers they are remarkably chatty people (maybe working on a roof all day is a very lonely job that makes you chatty), so far we have talked about welsh slate, our back room the windows, grandchildren, family history oh and the windows. Given all that, they did quite well to get any work done yesterday.

today they turned up nice and early to get the main roofing done, and almost right away it’s started to rain, so the day has been canceled, and they will try again tomorrow. The idea was I would take this week off so that Ruth wouldn’t be tied to the house while all the work was ongoing, as it’s working out, they are going to be on the roof for at least the next week, so we’ve given them a key. Still I am enjoying my week off, it’s going far to fast, but I so needed time of work.

I’m on holiday…. :o)

it’s not a big long trip, sitting on the beach holiday, its more a sit in the house while somebody takes the roof off holiday. Still it’s some time away from work, something I haven’t really had all summer. So I’m going to take it easy, play with Daisy, and generally have a nice time.

It’s a bit early, but apparently the scaffolding bloke has been dead busy, so the scaffolding for the roof went up today.

Next Tuesday the roofers will come, and start to take all the slate off, put down felt, and put on the new batons, and then put all the slate back. They are going to rebuild the top of the chimney while their up there too, oh it’s all exciting.

We had the central heating done last week, and besides the small matter of a drippy ceiling for one day it’s all gone well, the central heating bloke came today, and said, the drip was his fault, he thought he had a cloth mopping up the mess, but he obviously missed a bit. Not to worry though, I’m decorating that room anyway and the whole ceiling needed a good painting.

The only major thing left then will be the windows, it turns out there is a huge waiting list for the windows so they won’t be happening until November, but still once all the work is scheduled we can just sit back and let it all happen.