www.9thcircle.co.uk

Shiny thing!

It's pretty, ain't it? Apparently the living room is a little sooty now, but nothing a good clean up won't fix. Simon had mummified the sofa in plastic dust sheets, so at least that's cool.



This is a person I love very much. Although things have been tough with the house, there's been a lot of setbacks, and a hell of a lot of shouting (all from me, much to my shame) without this person it simply wouldn't happen. No one is to blame for the problems that have cropped up, sometimes things just take longer than you think, or sometimes there are errors in communication, and things go a bit askew.
If, at the end of each day, you can't wipe the dust/soot/grout/manky bin juice off each other, have a cuddle (albeit a very brief one if bin juice has been involved) tell each other you love them and go to bed ready to face the next day, then perhaps cohabitation isn't for you. I like to think that we've managed to do that, and will live to fight another day.
So I thought I would say thank you to the most important person in my life in the best way I could think of - by posting a picture of him covered in dust and pulling a silly face on the internet.
Eddie, you're my gratest mate - love Rich x

Too excited...

Am still off work. Tried to go in yesterday afternoon and was sent home on account of looking and feeling only marginally better than a corpse.

New fire is coming today. Eeeee!

It has to look better than the current situation:



So I am crossing all crossable bits in the hope that it gets sorted out smoothly today with no hitches. alas this means no more typing - typing with crossed fingers just feels damn weird!

I don't even know where to start

So, last time we met dear reader I was Nitromorsing a fireplace in my pants. We chose a new fire, and arranged to get it delivered and fitted, keeping the original surround.

So it was looking like this:


In the second image you can see my dad prying it away from the wall. The marble backing eventually had to be smashed into bits to get it loose, but we got the surround off, and finished stripping it and re-undercoated it.

The guy came to fit the new fire place - much hooing and haaing ensued as it turned out that the granite backing had been cut too big (but not before it had been stuck to the wall) so we were told we would have to have a new surround (despite the big fuss about the custom size of the backing we'd had cut) from the shop (funny that) before common sense prevailed and they took the damn granite off the wall and back to the shop to be re cut.
It also turns out we need the chimney lining - the large amount of smoke filling the upstairs rooms when the guy did the smoke test was a bit of a giveaway. So all fireplace related gubbins will now take place on Thursday. Watch this space. Thankfully Chris and Simon (long standing crazy mate) removed all the old fire things from the front garden, as it was beginning to look a bit Clampitt-esque. Fireplace is currently big dark hole in wall. Could make a wicked open fire...

In other news, decoration in the living room is slowly coming along, and looking dandy:





Just to show, this is what it looked like before:

This first photo being from the estate agent.

And here's one of when it was our happy little squat - complete with my chair for sitting in to wait for deliveries. When we had no electricity - which seems like such a long time ago now!


So hey, any time before Christmas, right..

We've optimistically set November 10th as the date for the housewarming, but I've spent this week in various states of sleeping, crying, puking and other unpleasantness due to gastroenteritis.. so it will need some serious arsekicking once I can spend more than an hour on my feet without wanting to die (travelling is also interesting - bleurgh!)

I'm also being told "just one more day!" on the bathroom (which was what I was told on my birthday!) and apparently Deadly spent Saturday doing all the remaining cuts that need doing, leaving the finishing off to be something akin to a big jigsaw puzzle. He did think I'd kick his arse because it looks like nothing has been done though. Too tired to arsekick.

In other, slightly random news, it turns out that there is a guy selling a Rovers fanzine on the bridge near the house on matchdays - which I think is very cool. It's called 4000 Holes (but of course) and has a website http://www.4000holes.co.uk

pants!

I started off by giving the fireplace a final coat of Nitromors and rub down with steel wool (it had four coats last night, after having four or five coats last week - it's been varnished, then painted beige, cream then white - the beige paint was stubborn stuff!)
I then wiped down the woodwork with white spirit and the dado rail which was due to be painted today. I couldn't be arsed working out how to get rid of the leftover tray of mucky white spirit, so left it on the hearthstone..
Chris was undercoating the dado at the other side of the room, which he wiped down last night (while I was doing the fireplace and generally getting a little drunk on Turbo Shandies, then singing loudly and doing silly dances.)
Then we both emulsioned the side and back walls of the room. By then, the dado by the fireplace was ready for me to undercoat. I was paying so much attention to not getting undercoat on the lining paper that I didn't notice where I put my knee.. yup - straight into the white spirit tray, so it was all up my leg, and all over the floor (luckily we'd rolled the carpet back)
So I went upstairs and ran my leg and jeans under the bath tap. And then put my jeans in the dryer. And spent the next two hours mooching around in my pants and socks (sexeh!) as I have no spare clothes at the house, but only in rooms with window film, as we've not put any curtains up yet. I had to keep my trainers on because there's still little bits of grit etc in the carpet from decorating. I bet I looked a right pretty picture doing the washing up!