Feeling blue?

These were a donation from a friend who was moving house about a year ago.  They are lightweight plastic and are really useful at this time of the year - we pull them out from the shed and because they are light you can move them around garden chasing some shade and staying out of the sun while eating dinner. On that note, this June is crazy hot!!!  Heat warnings in place would you believe.   Any locals/longtimers I have been speaking with have told me they cannot remember any hotter June.

The furniture needed a small touch up...

I suppose, I could have just gone for white.  But here we are, I went for a tropical Florida blue

I am not entirely sure about them tbh

A little bit out there! But heck, something different, eh

Shower Repair - Final update!

Last few parts of this job were done over three evenings!

Night 1 - adhesive

Afixing tiles.  NB.  Before this there was a lot of prework done - measuring and cutting etc.  I deliberately chose these mosaic tiles as it meant I could get in as close as I could to circles without having to shape tiles with a tool.  It is not as perfect as tiler would do with a shaping tool but it is as good as I, an amateur, could do.  

Night 2 - grouting in between all the lines

Sponging/cleaning of the grout

Caulking around the edge

Night 3 - added some more caulk

Finished!   This job nearly killed me.  But thanks be to the universe it is done and when we come back from our little vacation (oh, did I tell you we are on holidays!) we will be back showering in the outdoor shower.

 

More DIY!

Following on from my busy day of DIY yesterday, I did a little more today!

 

Project 1

The sign on top of the shed had fallen off.  Seems like it was just attached with cement glue or something.  So I got out my trusty new Milwaukee drill and screwdriver and I screwed it down

Project 2

I painted the wood that I had screwed to cover up a hole in the shed - see yesterday's blog for pics

Project 3

We got new back doors - hurricane proof ones.  The paint around the frame got damaged during the install so today I touched that up and it looks good I think!

Chores, chores

Yesterday one of my radiators just stopped working. Like literally went kaput as I stood against it - it was freezing yesterday, and I had the heating up high, and was having a whale of a time leaning up against the rad while people watching out the window.  What a great Sunday lol!

 

So I figured first thing to do would be try bleeding the radiator.  I searched high and low for something to do it with.  I was thinking maybe an allen key, or better even a pliers.  Anyway (a) I don't possess any of these anymore - I really need to work on getting a basic tool kit together and (b) in my heart I knew I needed the proper utensil for it (a proper radiator key)

 

This little bad boy cost me the princely sum of €2.50 in a dodgy little huckster type hardware shop in Talbot Street.  To be fair in larger shops they wouldn't stock this type of thing so Talbot Street rocks for these kind of things.

As I walked to the hardware shop I saw this pub which gave me a good laugh. 

It's a long story, I won't go into the details but I was in this pub (it's verrrrry touristy) for drinks quite recently and had a really great night! 

It still makes me laugh however, thinking of  how twee and touristy it is - and let's not forget - it'sTalbot Street!!!! Dodgy!!!

Anyway, I digress,  The good news is that my heating is back working after bleeding the rad.  Good because it's cold at the moment.  And in other good news tomorrow I get to defrost my freezer with a hairdryer.  The good times just keep on coming!

DIY Sunday

 One of my favourite hobbies is doing DIY around the house

 

Today after coming home from Athlone (after an incredible evening - see my other blog post) I got my tools out and started working.

This is the door to what I call the "utility room".  It's not really a room - it's just a tiny little space where the washing machine is.

My diy plan was to replace the 3 coathooks on the door with something a little nicer.  It took about a half hour in all - measuring, marking drill holes, drilling, installing rawl plugs and then finally screwing in place.

And here is the finished product a cool mid century inspired/Eames reproduction coat hanger. 

Ikea trip and then more diy

I woke up this morning and it was miserable.  Raining heavily and very windy.  The choice was either stay in bed or just get up and get on with it.  I went with the latter (part of my plan to get up and Do Something a the weeked).  

I decided to go to Ikea.  I didn't have to get anything but figured it would be nice for a potter.

First things first I got breakfast.  

Ikea have really improved their breakfast offering with everything freshly baked or cooked and laid out nicely.  They have scones, cereals, muesli, fruit salad, pastries and then a cooked breakfast of rashers, sausages, eggs and potato farls.

I bought: spare red blanket that I use to cover Harry's chair (see pic below), a toilet 

brush, and some chocolate ().

And then when we came home I put up a 4th blind in my house - I am gone blind mad but I think this is my final one for a while.  From the front of the house there is a blind on every window and it does finish off the windows nicely.  These are the blinds I bought in Harry Corry and I'm very happy with them.

DIY Sunday

With Spring/Summer coming in I've found that my curtains are just not good enough to keep the early morning light out.  And this means I am waking up about 6 or 6.30am every morning...and hence I am tired...and then not sleeping great...it's a bad cycle!

So last week it got so bad that I was driven to put black refuse sacks up on my window.  

Oh dear God it looked awful! As you can see :-) 

Plus also because they are recyclable type bags they are light/thin and didn't really work at blocking the light out.  And yes I have some books blocking some gaps also.

How bad does this look!!!!

I was going to ring a blind company and beg see if someone could come out this weekend. But then someone in work told me that their husband put one up themselves and it was relatively easy - and much cheaper than getting a company in to do it.

 

This blind cost €29.99 from Harry Corry

It took me about 2 hours in total.  

It was not difficult but there were lots of different elements - measuring, cutting, drilling, screwing etc.  

As I said not difficult, but I wouldn't be rushing to put another one up.

Well this, I think you will agree, is much better than my previous solution!

Drinks Cabinet/Home bar - DIY project

Step 1.  Chip off all the mosaic tiles from the counter which "somebody" ill-advisedly applied ;-)

Step 2.  Affix new wood countertop and "riser" - thank you "No More Nails" :-)

Cool story about the wood.

I posted on an Irish community forum and asked where I could buy "cut to measure" wood in my locality.  Received loads of helpful suggestions. But also received the offer from another poster that they would cut me the size I required from their leftover wood and they'd give it to me for nothing.

So I collected the wood from them this morning.

How nice!

Step 3. Spray paint black (two coats)

Step 4.  Screw on new handles (green crystal)

Ta-dahhhh!

Costs:

Flatpack drinks cabinet €25 (about 5 years ago in Centra, Cappamore. Ridiculously cheap)

Crystal knobs €5

Black spray €24

Wood €10 

TOTAL: €64 (yes, for real)