Brayergirl's Book of Banter

Home Again and Back to Work

Yes I'm finally home! So now I'm able to craft and catch up on all my Christmas preparations. The Postcard above is a long overdue Flower themed postcard that I was supposed to make and send about 3 months ago but my Travel and work commitments intervened. Fortunately I belong to a very understanding swap group. Other swap groups would have politely asked me to leave by now!

Ladies of 'Our Front Porch' - here's the evidence, they are are done and will be hitting the mail tomorrow, along with everyone else's work (Yes, I was the host, so I was a double sinner)

Next on the list to make are my Christmas cards, and my Gift Tags, then I've got to finish Christmas Shopping, wrap up my Christmas presents, mail them, clean up the house, put up my Christmas decorations, prepare the spare room. etc. etc... you get the picture. Still, I'm glad to be home!  

Happy Birthday Mum!

Once again, I am away from home when it is my Mum's birthday, so this post is just for my Mum. Happy Birthday Mum, sorry I can't be with you on your special day. I hope that you have a lovely day and I promise to bring you back something special from India.

Lots of love from Kristy X X X 

Off on my Travels again..

By the time that you read this, I'll be on my way to Italia. This time it's for pure pleasure rather than anything work related. I'm staying at Limone sul Garda (picture above) which is a town at the top of Lake Garda surrounded by mountains. Whilst I am there, I am also going to try to make sure that I also visit the city of Verona which is fairly close by and which looks beautiful from the pictures that I have seen. It's still full of gorgeous looking, ancient buildings. I could also try getting to Venice too, but I've been there three times already, so I may not try too hard. The weather has been pretty bad in that part of Italy for the last few weeks, but it looks as though it is improving just in time for my trip.

When I return, hopefully more work will have been done to my bathroom as the toilet is being delivered this coming Friday and hopefully a replacement bath won't be far behind it. Oh, and I'm also booked in to have Laser Eye surgery when I get back too. Help!       

More on the Bathroom Saga

Well as you can see the floor has now been partially laid but not grouted. That is happening tomorow. It sounds as though I'll be getting the new toilet quite quickly too, however I'm beginning to get suspicious about my Contractor and the damaged Bath. I'd begun to have my doubts at the weekend as I really couldn't understand why anyone would plumb in a damaged bath, even if it was to: 'make sure that I had a bath to use' - OK I get that, but why on earth tile it in too?

Anyway, I spoke to the Bathroom company today and they have requested that I take a photo of the damage to send to them before they will agree to replace it. I had not until now, seen the damage until tonight as my contractor had taped over it to 'stop the bath from leaking' . When I told him this evening that the Bathroom company was insisting on the photograph, he started laying it on thick, talking about poor customer service and that I had to 'stand my ground' - normally this would not have aroused my suspicion, but he kept going on about it and you know what they say about people who labour a point! To add to my suspicion, he'd also asked that I pay him the money that he owed to the Plumber and the Electrician as soon as possible - I'm now convinced that this was in case I decided to withold money to cover the cost of a replacement bath and he didn't want to wreck his relationship with his sub-contractors.

Anyway, I took off the tape to take the photo's tonight and it's absolutely clear to me that the damage was caused by a tile being dropped on the bath after it was plumbed in, the hole even has the red dust from the back of the tiles in it! Why on earth would someone tile round a bath like this if the damage was already there and clearly visible? It makes no sense!!!

I'll keep you posted on developments - I've left my contractor a note for the morning to say that I think the only way I can photograph the bath and make it look convincing is if it's removed, cleaned up to the point where it' looks like it was never plumbed in, and then photograph it somewhere like in the garden or in my living room. There's no way I'm paying for another bath when I did not damage it, and so if the Photo doesn't get accepted, then I will be witholding the cost of the bath from the final payment to the Contractor.

Home Again & Bathroom Update

Well, as you can see, I'm now back in Scotland and this was the sight that greeted me on my return - a half finished bathroom. The Bath is not yet fully installed because it has to be returned to the Manufacturers as it is damaged and the plumber has had to re-plumb in my old toilet because the new one leaks. So this is the chaos that I am going to have to live with for a while.

   

The floor is covered in cardboard to protect the underfloor heating cables which have been laid. However, this should improve tomorrow as my contractor is coming back to start laying the floor tiles up to just in front of the toilet. He can't lay them any further until the new toilet is installed. In fact, this is the last job that he can do until the replacement bath and toilet arrive. What is a success however, are the tiles and the new inset Power Shower. They look great! Just what I was looking for as the tiles have the look of Travertine without the huge cost, the contractor likes them so much that he's decided to get them for his own bathroom! Having the shower inset into the wall also looks very luxurious, just like the hotels I have got used to living in during my many work travels! The shower is pretty powerful, which is just what I was wanting, the only downside is the pump, which they have had to install under the bath (see picture below) . It is very noisy at the moment, but hopefully when the bath is boxed in the noise level will be reduced - at least I hope it will!   

The new sink unit is a complete success too. I ordered one which was fractionally narrower than the old one which means we don't have to cut it into the bath like the old one had been! It's always hard to visualise something when you are ordering it from a brochure, but this definitely turned out better than expected!

The bathroom walls will be painted white to make it as bright as possible. When I got home Saturday the first thing I thought was that the old light fitting (which is actually quite new) lets the new bathroom down and that really inset halogen spotlights would be a much better solution. My contractor laughed when I told him this today because aparantly both the plumber and the electrician both said the exact same thing! So he's getting the electrician to quote me for that too. I think it will make a big difference so I'm willing to pay the extra. Can't wait until the bathroom is fully complete!    

The day before work begins.....

Not very pretty is it....this is a picture of my bathroom the day before it starts to be ripped out and replaced. As you can see, I've already started pulling up the floor, I've also attempted to start taking off some of the tiles, however, it took me 15 minutes just to get one tile off and it ripped out a chunk of the wall, so I'm leaving that to the experts. Anyway, hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be posting a picture of a finished  bathroom, complete with new white suite (instead of peach) power shower, underfloor heating and beautiful new tiles!  

and the winner is.........

CAROL MILLER!

My Mum randomly picked a winner by selecting a number between 1 and 17 and she picked number 4 which was Carol's entry. If you could E-mail me your address Carol, I will send you your Blogoversary goodies! (After I've made the postcard of course!)

Sorry I was a late with the winners name... it was because I travelled down to Brighton for Easter, and although I took my laptop with me, I couldn't get dial up to work from my Mum's place. I've done a huge amount of driving this Easter, normally I would fly, but as my regulars will know, I've not been able to fly recently because of my ears. It's also actually cheaper to fly home these days because Petrol is so expensive.

Of course, the other problem I have when I drive home is that I am the only driver in my family and so I turn into a taxi/delivery/pick-up/drop off/returns service once I am at home. This effectively meant returning some DIY Kitchen goods to Wickes and two drives up to Croydon IKEA and back, plus trips to the Supermarket, B & Q and Comet. Basically I've come back home to Scotland for a rest.

Strangely, you would think all of this wasn't a good idea considering how sick I've been. I say strangely, because today was my first day back at work after my trip and I REALLY noticed a huge difference in my health at work - there's been a massive improvement whilst I've been away. I'm no longer coughing, my brain is no longer fuzzy, my memory is much sharper, my hearing is not yet perfect, but vastly improved and, unfortunately I've also put on more weight (not so good!)  Maybe driving is good for me! LOL.     

My New Bedroom

Maybe it was because I was ill and spent so long looking at my bedroom walls, but in the last couple of days I got the urge to redecorate my bedroom. I painted the walls a soft cream and put up some wallpaper behind the bed to create a feature wall. The wallpaper is pretty luxurious, it's chocolate brown with gold stylised flowers trailing across it. I love how the gold is highlighted in the evenings when the lights are on. The wallpaper looks a million dollars but was actually cheaper than most wallpapers because it was Homebase's own brand.

I also put up a new blind, new curtain pole and some new chocolate velvet & sheer curtains, and..... I treated myself to a new chandelier light. So my bedroom now looks worthy of a  queen (well, maybe just a Training Manager)

By the way, I pride myself on keeping costs down, so the total cost of this transformation was just £120. Maybe I should go back to doing my interior design course I started 9 years ago but never finished......

      

Thank You Lianna and Sharon!

I had a couple of nice surprises in the mail today. Sharon sent me this beautiful Angel Hanging. I think it's been done on Stampboard, it's certainly very pretty.

Lianna sent me this Get Well Soon card - I've put it on the Mantlepiece so that I can see it all the time.

Thanks Ladies, I really appreciate your kind thoughts!

Thank You Lynn

I received this in the Post this morning from Lynn who is a member over at TandaStamps forum. Thanks Lynn! It certainly cheered me up a bit this morning.

Still no improvement at all on my hearing, I'm getting worried that literally nothing is happening, I know that it takes time, but it's now getting to me! I am also lacking in energy and motivation. Even getting dressed seems to be an effort just now.

Anyway, thanks again Lynn, it was a lovely thought!