Reclamation and refurbishment 4

A little while ago we bought some garden furniture from a local seller on eBay. It was by Firmans and made of teak, but had seen better days, but it was very cheap, so we thought it might be worth a bid.

We stored it on our new patio/sitting area and decided we liked it so much we would put some effort into restoring it. J stripped off the layer of treacly brown stain that the previous owners had splashed on in places, cleaned it down with wire wool and gave it a couple of coats of teak oil. Looks like a completely different set of furniture now. Even nicer than we could have hoped for.

Finding shower-proof seat cushions for the chairs was trickier than I imagined. I expected that every UK garden centre would be full of the things, given the kind of summer weather we usually get, but no. I contemplated making some out of oilcloth, but I'm not sure that the combination of heat, bottoms and plastic is what I'm really going for here. So, eventually found some in Next. Didn't get the matching parasol as I wanted something a bit bigger.

Reclamation and Refurbishment 3

More during:

It goes on.

We finished the reroofing yesterday evening and then, seeing it was dry and the forcast for the next couple of days is rain (just to coincide with the start of the hosepipe ban season), decided to give the decking a coat of protector. It was getting on and the light was fading by then, but halfway through we actually read the instructions and realised thatthe second coat had to be applied NOT MORE than 2 hours after the first (not at least 2 hours as we had interpreted it)!

Job eventually completed by the light of the fairy lights and ships lanterns out there by 9:45pm.

Glad we did it now, as it's raining again and the 12 year old timber is looking pretty good. We have to leave it for 24 hours before we can start putting things back on the timber, which is a good excuse for not doing DIY today. The house needs cleaning and my knitting is calling to me.

Happy Easter!

Reclamation and refurbishment 2

J and I have been doing a spot of DIY. We try to avoid it when we can, as we don't work well as a team under pressure and tend to bicker a bit. It always works out ok in the end but the process can be difficult. J has OCD leanings and I can be a bit slapdash.

The roof of our deck area needed to be replaced as the plexiglass had seen much better days. This meant that everything had to come off in order to get at the roof. J over-winters his tender plants there and his horrible cactus collection lives on there permanently. Oops, that was a bit of a giveaway, wasn't it?!

Before:

During:

 We're using this as the opportunity to have a good clean, retreat the wood and have a general tidy up. P, who used to work for J, came to help.

 

The tender plants have a new, temporary shelter on my new seating area! Better looked after than me!


J's collection of 'weird shit', as j calls it, has been revealed in its true g(l)ory. Some of the pieces are lovely, some are horrible, some just weird. All have been a bit hidden. Now we can begin the 'what goes back' discussions...

Can you guess what J used to do for a living?

Weather magic - a personal apology.

J and I are personally responsible for the change in the weather this week.

How it happened:

We created a new patio sitting area:

We teak-oiled the garden furiture:

We bought a new garden parasol:
 
We stocked up on anti-mosi outdoor candles:

 We bought new outdoor unbreakable 'glassware':

And then, to put the final seal on it, I dug out my summer clothes and ironed my white, linen trousers.

Sorry folks!

Spring distraction

My Easter break started a day earlier than planned, as I seem to have done something to my neck. Bearing in my mind that I'm far from a wuss and usually have a high tolerance of pain - it was so bad last night that I was convinced I was developing meningitis again or (at the least) having a brain stem bleed. j has seen all those FAST adverts and kept 'discretely' asking me to squeeze his hand and look into his eyes. I don't think the tingling in my left arm or the blacking out in the bathroom when I tried to look up into the mirror helped things much.

Anyway, a call to the emergency on-call service seemed to rule out stroke and suggested torticollis, which sounds a friendly little disorder. The on-call dr recommended anti-inflamatories (which I can't take, having little stomach) and a hot water bottle (which we last saw in the early '90s). J and j were all set to find an all night hot water bottle emporium when I gave in and agreed to have something with codeine in it. Me and codeine are a bad mix normally, but it did take the edge off enough for me to sleep a little, wedged upright with 4 pillows.

This morning, I was so stoned and still in pain that I couldn't go to work. i think I left a coherent message on the answering machine, but who knows. I did manage to make coffee.


My own GP agreed with the diagnosis and gave me some diazepam to relieve the muscle spasm for a few days. Consequently, I've spent most of today in pain, alseep or spaced out on top of my newly acquired hot water bottle.

No doubt, when I come around again sufficiently, this lovely warm spell will be gone, but I'm taking my mind off things by loading some spring pictures from earlier in the week.