A Victory for common sense...

Finally after submitting a formal complaint (which received an automated response but nothing further)  and three follow up emails to Virgin Media I rang them again and I spoke to a lovely lady who agreed the situation was ridiculous and within a few minutes had arranged that an engineer will call on Tuesday to rectify the problems...and free of charge too.  I am of course very grateful to her for employing common and sense and applying good customer service...but it makes you wonder  why they couldn't have done that in the first place?

As things stand right this minute...the top floor of our house is freezing cold because the  front window frames have been painted today and the paint takes sixteen hours to dry. We had painted two sets using the quick drying stuff but even with a couple of coats the results were pretty awful so this time we have got the proper stuff...stinks to high heaven but goes on like a dream and is glossy white as it should be... Tomorrow we are going to add a coat of super stinky but super glossy to the window ledges that were already painted and  because our bedroom is being decorated as part of this whole upstairs reno thingy we have going on we need to touch up the feature wall with some more suede paint because somehow it got a big splodge of white paint on it at one end of the room  and several speckles of  white (ceiling paint) and pastel rose (end walls). At least we can get those last bits done tomorrow while we are waiting for the Virgin man to come Tuesday and do his thing...

It is no small coincidence that while we were moving books from a pair of shelving units downstairs (tall Billy bookcases with doors on the bottom are coming upstairs into the craft room) we came across an Ikea catalogue... and the current one at that...pristine condition, pages unturned. There is no doubt at all that we will be visiting Ikea very soon...the catalogue will  make great bedtime reading.

The decorating a whole floor of our house in one hit was a crazy idea but has actually been a lot less stressful than I imagined...that said  its been horrid being without my craft room and I am so pleased that the end is now in sight...

The craft room should be taking real shape this week and by this time next week I hope to have some photos to share...


Once again I have to say Watch this space....

And on it goes...

The new craft room was painted what seems like ages ago ... and yesterday the painting of the old craft room was completed.  Amazingly it took one less coat of the same white paint to cover the red walls in here than it did to cover the blah mocha walls in the other room...we are not sure why but suspect the first lot of paint might not have been all that good because when we bought the next lot it seemed to cover so much better ...and it did a great job in here...

So two rooms down and hubby has decided it makes perfect sense to keep going and has started on our bedroom today...especially since we are at the mercy of Virgin media to re-site the broadband connection... thanks to the operative who while upgrading the TIVO, took it upon himself to splice the upstairs tv service to our broadband and cut our broadband cable so short that we can't move the modem more than few inches...

When I rang Virgin  Media I was told that while they could send someone free of charge to sort out the weird cabling the upgrade guy left behind him - we discovered that mess when we emptied this room of all its furniture and were almost strangled buy the half mile of cable that sprang up out of nowhere  - we would have to pay £99 for someone to move the broadband modem. Now this seems a little unfair to me since we had enough cable from our original installation and we want to move the modem back to the original installation point...but we can't because old sneaky cut the cable...but the girl I spoke to would not budge...so I had to make a formal complaint...and we are still awaiting the outcome of that one...

Ironically  while I had to provide my full name ,address with post code, telephone number, account number and security password before she would even speak to me, little miss helpful at the call centre did not feel comfortable giving me her name.... apparently she is concerned that customers might seek her out via social media... I guess she hasn't heard of security settings...or being helpful...

But I digress... back to the craft room...or lack thereof... I am currently reduced to working on a 75cm square table in the middle of the floor. This is not good...stuff falls off the table all the time, there is no room for mess and I plain can't find anything I need...

So the windows are clean, the wood blinds in the entire house are completely dust free, my oven is so shiny you need sunglasses to look in there, the bathrooms gleam and the cupboards are all organised...

The bedroom will be completed in a  few days and  I really hope we get a reply from Virgin Media soon...I am clearly going crazy without my craft room...

I am taking bets that hubby will fall out of bed in the morning...he has taken lots of stuff out of our room in prep for the painting tomorrow and his alarm clock is on the floor... he won't be able to hit it like he normally does...  I am betting there will be alarm sounds, then a thud followed by cussing...

Watch this space ;)

The horrid stage

We are that most horrid stage in the process...where the decorating of the new craftroom is complete but until the redecoration of the old one is completed we cannot sort either room. I am stuck in limbo.

I have a small table set up in the new room and I have bare craft essentials to hand  but it is far from ideal. The computer and printer is in the old room. Currently I am  sitting on a very uncomfy wooden stool in the middle of the old room , the floor is  covered with dust sheets and I am surrounded by stepladders and paint pots...It is most unpleasant.

I  will be glad when this part is over and I can seriously get to the interesting part.

This bit is no fun at all.

A Proper craftroom day

Oh the weather outside is (still) frightful....  what better than to stay indoors in the warm and work on the craftroom reno.

I spent an hour or so surfing around gorgeous craft rooms on the web...all of which sent me running back and forth with tape measure in hand to see if I could do that... what am I like? (no need to answer!)

I had in my mind what my ideal craft room will look like when it is completely finished, but  my inner ditherer has emerged and I am horribly unsure that my sketchy plans will actually work...or will the best option...or any other self doubty thingy it can think of. Thankfully my husband is calm and funny and is both strong and patient and promises me it will be fine and it doesn't matter if I want things moved around a bit from the original (non-plan) plan... I wonder what qualifies as  a bit ...  and how far I can stretch that patience of his ...

Anyhow back to the non-plan plan.... The main idea I have (and I am still firmly set on) is that I want stations/zones for certain tasks with the tools/materials accessible right there in that zone... With space being limited (even when moving into double the space of the previous craft room)  there is also a limit to the number of zones I can achieve. I do an awful  lot of die cutting and embossing and a lot of stamping so these are my two main areas...along with a messy pit for the tasks involving those processes that get stuff everywhere...stuff like glitter and glue.

My other main concern is storage..I need tons of storage and more importantly I need it to work for me...which means that I have to be able to see the stuff and it has to make sense to me and how I craft.

Looking at the majority of the ooh wow craft rooms featured around the web most (if not all) of them are beautifully coordinated, with matching cabinetry and pretty decorative touches... they are almost all very neat.  That is not going to be my room....not ever, not in a million years...

My room is hopefully going to reflect me and my crafting...so it will be a mix of functional and fun. The room is completely painted white...ceiling, walls, doors, window frames and skirting boards...its all bright white and sparkly clean (at the moment.. ) The floor is a warm light oak. I have intentionally chosen a complete mix of  assorted wood shades ranging from light beech to dark wood, with some black and white draw sets thrown in for good measure  and  I am hoping that the distinctions will define the zones and help me to organise my stuff ...and keep it organised.

But my blank canvas will not be stark...there will be colour...from storage options - a variety of pretty boxes and baskets and jars -  and  from the stash itself.... All the pretty papers, ribbons, fabrics, buttons and bows will be on display and will add colour.

But I am getting ahead of myself here... and I really should stop day dreaming about the end result and get on with putting the shelving units together and wiping off the dust-bunnies...

The weather outside can do what it likes..until I need to head to Ikea - and I will need to head there before too long... I am as happy as can be just pottering and dreamin'....

So excited...

Okay I am going to keep this really short because it is ever so slightly sad that I am super excited that the first pieces of furniture have gone into the new craftroom today...

but Yay! I spy furniture...of the storage kind !!!!

No such thing as too much stash?

I have always maintained there can be no such thing as too much crafting stash...but as I pack away all my stuff for the big move to the new craft room I am starting to think oh my goodness...where did all this stuff come from? 

So I think it is inventory time. I have already found doubles of BIGZ dies  and  I will need to sell the new and unused version at some point but since these are  Xmas related dies, and we are only just heading towards the New Year,  now does not seem to be a good time to list them... unless I plan to practically give them away...and I do not have any plans for that just now... I am sure that as I set up the new room I will find other doubles and quite a few things I don't and probably won't use  and I can have a sale at some point.

It is going to take about a week or so to transfer the rooms over. The painting is finally finished in the new craft room and it looks really fresh and bright. I can barely wait to get in there... but because modern inner city homes have zero space to store things when decorating, we have to get this room set up at pretty much the same time as we populate the craft room. It is going t be a challenge and chaos will no doubt reign as usual. I am optimistic that we will get it finished soon..hubby goes back to work on 2nd January and the work rate will seriously drop when that happens...

Back to packing for me....

Tied with pink ribbon

It is December and it is cold...and wet...and windy...so having windows wide open into the evening is not fun. Hubby wanted (needed) to shower off the paint but it was so cold up here he was hunting for a solution to hold the door closed...all the door furniture was removed for the painting process and the wind was howling round the door and banging it against the frame but all he had  to hand was tape which would peel off the fresh paint....he tried thread but of course that was not strong enough...and then it dawned on him that I have an extensive ribbon collection...


Not sure that he needed to choose a pale pink satin ribbon for the task but hey ho it does the job...threaded through the hole where the handle usually goes and tied to the next door along the landing it really does the trick...especially once I popped a card  'shim' under the door base too...


I guess it just goes to demonstrate that desperate times call for desperate measures... and when all else fails tie it up with pretty pink ribbon!