Romanais Blog

Monday xx

30/9/2013

A quick blog post tonight as I write this Mark is putting up the last few pieces of wallpaper. We still need to put pictures up on the wall and put a trim round the hearth but we are 99% done! I have my favourite things back up......

..........Anais' pressed flower picture............

......Anais and Roman's first pair of baby shoes.......

..........a cake stand with autumn/winter flavour Yankee Candle Tarts on, mmmmmmm.

Went shopping earlier and brought batteries to replace all the batteries in all the smoke alarms, we have nine! Also brought a fire extinguisher as a precaution.

Lastly, a picture of Fred roaring away.......

Sunday xx

29/9/2013

A rush trip to Homebase today when we realised we were going through the top paper too quickly and wouldn't have enough to finish the room. VERY luckily for us they had some left so we brought everything they had. Room is almost finished now, just the front wall and wall behind the sofa to paper, some trim around the hearth and then it is all DONE!

Had a lovely fire while watching Downton Abbey and it went first time too with no poking, prodding or adding any extra kindling either!

Its beautiful!

Saturday xx

28/9/2013

Fred is advertised in Jenny's "Period Living" magazine!

This is the FX8 model though which is 8kw, Fred is exactly the same but the 5kw model so a little smaller.

The pound film at the cinema today was Despicable Me 2 so we thought we'd give the decorating a miss and go and see Despicable Me 2 instead - much more entertaining than papering walls. I will never tire of the Minions, so funny!

We used Fred for a second time earlier and we are getting there.........slowly. A Youtube video made a good suggestion of putting the kindling like a Jenga game so we did it like this to start it off which started it off lovely.

When we put some logs on the fire seemed to go down so we had to put more kindling under the logs to try and build the fire up again. Mark went outside and chopped some logs up smaller which when we put them in the fire and more air got around them seemed to make a lovely flame. Lesson learned - don't use big logs until the chamber is up to temperature, start with smaller logs to get more air round and start the fire quicker.

It did get up to "best burn" temperature though and was lovely and warm in the lounge and conservatory. We even turned the lounge light off while Mark was trying to paper the walls and we were all enchanted by the pretty flames!

One half of the room is stripped and the wallpaper is going up slowly and looks very pretty. We still have to strip the other side of the room behind the huge sofa and paper that too.

Friday xx

27/9/2013

We had another kindling fire this morning though it didn't stay lit for very long...

So we brought some firelighters and had another kindling fire this afternoon.

The first attempt at making a fire was not so good as the fire would not get up to temperature and kept making smoke in the chamber. It sat at around 100 degrees for a long time.

We phoned the shop who gave us some advice, start the fire with more kindling and add the logs when the fire is roaring. It soon went up in temperature - approx 400 degree's and was in "best burn" territory.

Here is Fred roaring away!

Don't know if you can tell but I painted the fireproof boadring around the fire this afternoon - it took three coats of cream emulsion and both Fred and the slate were wrapped up in dust sheets so they didn't get paint on them. It does look much brighter as it was a grey colour before.

CROCHET GRANNY SQUARE BLANKET

10 granny squares done today
64 granny squares done in total.

I suppose you could say I cheated as although I didn't do any granny squares yesterday I did crochet 9 of the cream centre's while the guys had the drills out and were doing the dusty work. I locked myself away in the conservatory and only came out when they started doing the pretty jobs!

So, 64 squares = an 8 x 8 blanket. I was planning on doing a 8 x 9 blanket. I will lay them all out tomorrow and see what the size is like. I need to make sure that I have enough wool left to sew or crochet them altogether.

Fire Installation Day! xx

26/9/2013

Today is the day!

Here is the fire place at 8AM.

Workmen turned up at 8.15AM. By 9.20AM it looked like this. Drilling out bricks and plaster for the concrete lintel.

10AM - making the opening. Lintel fitted and wall patched up.

10.30AM All brickwork removed and tidying up.

10.50AM - All cleared out ready for installation.

10.55AM - register plate

11.50AM - Slate cut to fit and put in place

12.00PM - chimney liner going in

12.45PM - Fire proof boarding going in

1.20PM - fire proof boarding in. Getting ready to plaster around the front.

1.45PM - plastering done, slate cleaned ready to be oiled

2.00PM - wall now skimmed and oak beam in place

2.30PM - Fred - he's here! He's here! Cutting pipe ready to fit.

2.45PM - Fred is in!

3.00PM - first kindling fire to bond and adhere the paint in the stove. Need another two kindling fires before we can light it up properly.

4.30PM - kindling fire died down. Waiting for it to go cool and for Mark to come home so we can light another one! Comapnion set put on fire. I keep staring at it - its lovely!

6.30PM - Mark has started the second kindling fire

Wednesday xx

25/9/2013

Operation log burning stove - 1 day to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How will I sleep tonight?!?! Too excited! It feels like Christmas Eve already and tomorrow will be Christmas Day!

Will try and take lots of photo's tomorrow and upload to blog so everyone can see progress (so long as they don't mind me hovering over them with the camera!)

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Today was week two of the course "Helping your child to succeed at school".

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CROCHET GRANNY SQUARE BLANKET
Another 9 squares today
54 squares done in total

Still haven't sewn any ends in yet *tut*!

Tuesday xx

24/9/2013

Operation Log Burning Stove - only 2 days to go!

Anais was back at orchestra practice again today.

I went shopping to a local garden centre to look at the prices of wood and kindling from there. I got three new Yankee Candle tarts that they were selling off as they are summer fragrances, Summer Scoop which smells of ice cream, Pineapple Cilantro and Waikiki Melon - very nice, I LOVE Yankee Candles!

Went to Home Bargains and they have Christmas calendars out already! Got Anais a "Hello Kitty" and Roman a "Disney Planes"! Other choices were "Skylanders" and "Peppa Pig" - not suitable for me or Mark, so I still have to get ours (yes, we have Christmas calendars too!).

Went to Homezone and brought a pewter effect log holder for only £1.50!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You will also notice the kiln dried logs in there which were from Home Bargains for only £4 per bag. I got 5 bags which was all they had.

The moisture meter shows them as having 0% moisture content! They should burn very well.

Hopefully they will see us through until we get our log supply delivered in October which we ordered today - 2.25 cubic metre's worth!

Getting it delivered in bulk was cheaper than buying smaller bags from the garden centre. Now we need Jordan, Dylan, Lexi, Anais and Roman's help to move them all to the back garden when they come!

Here are our log supplies so far (until our delivery comes) which we have put in Anais and Roman's summer house until Mark has time to build us a log store. We also have logs under the stairs, in a basket in the living room and in the new holder I brought today. All of the wood smells lovely :-)

GRANNY SQUARE BLANKET

9 squares done today
45 squares done in total

Finally, look whats making me happy today! Charlie's tree has actual real red berries! They were a yellow opaque colour before but seem to have changed colour to red overnight! I can bring sprigs in at Christmas and put them on the mantle over the fire -)

Monday xx

23/9/2013

Operation log burning stove - 3 days to go!

Had to wait in today for the gas safe man to come and cap off and remove the old gas pipe.

It took him about an hour and in his words "it was a nightmare" as it had been embedded in. Now left with a hole in the wall.

Other side of wall.....

Hollow fireplace ready to be knocked through...

Mark came home and sanded the one side of the room so we are ready to paper one half of the room now. Still have to strip behind the sofa and behind each of the radiators.

We also have a TV cabinet though not putting it together until we need it.

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GRANNY SQUARE BLANKET...........

Another nine granny squares done today.
Thirty six granny squares done in total now.

Not sure I will have enough grey to do a blanket 9 x 9 = 81 squares and sew or crochet them together too. Might have to do a blanket 8 x 9 = 72 instead. Just realised if the blanket is 8 x 9 = 72 squares I am halfway through making the squares already!

Picture shows them stacked in piles of 10, top right of photo is a stack of 6.

Anais came home from school complaining of being hot, sore throat and headache. She has gone to bed with calpol after doing lots of coughing. Hope we are not coming down with colds already :-(

Sunday xx

22/9/2013

Operation log burning stove - 4 days to go!

Look what we uncovered today - from when we last decorated! "Mark, Michelle, Anais & Lucy, 30.09.02" - almost 11 years to the day!

More wallpaper stripping done today and filling the holes up. Think the only thing we have to do now is behind the sofa and take the radiators off to strip behind them too. We brought the wallpaper today too so that is all ready to go up once the stove has been done.

Anais did a sign today informing anyone who comes in that we have firewood (just in case they don't know what it's for!)

Granny square blanket - 9 squares done today
27 squares done in total (still not sewn any ends in yet)

I am almost at the end of a grey ball and have another 2 balls of grey left. I estimate that that I will get another 27 from each of those with (hopefully) enough left to crochet them together. So I am going for a 9x9 blanket = 81 squares (I hope if calculations are correct!).

Now off to watch the new series of Downton Abbey, I love period drama's in the autumn. Hopefully this time next week we will be able to watch it in front of a roaring log fire *cozy*! xx

Saturday xx

21/9/2013

Operation Log Burning Stove - 5 days to go!

We have logs! Not a lot, only about a boot full but they will get us going until our delivery comes next month (which we will order on Monday as we weren't sure how much to order - how long is a piece of string? How often will we use it? How many logs will we need? Do we order a flat back load of a half load? Its a minefield!)

We have stored them in the little niche under the stairs.......

.......and put some ready in a basket to go by the fire.

We went back to the fire shop and brought a log moisture meter. Anything up to 20% is acceptable to burn. Anything over 20% will soot the the flue up and cause the door of the stove to go black.

Mostly Mark has been doing wall paper stripping today with Anais and Roman's help as they both wanted to take it in turns to use the stripper. We went to Homebase to look at papers in there, thoughts on this?

I quite like it as the print is small and not too "in your face" or dark.

Last night I managed to do another 2 granny squares before bed so 9 done in total yesterday. Today I have done 9 granny squares so far.

TOTAL GRANNY SQUARES TO DATE - 18 (only 16 shown in photo)