One year on

A year has now past since we started to renovate the flat and it does not seem like it at all.  We have done loads to the place since we got it and there's still a few odds and ends to complete.

What we have done

New roof in living room

New central heating

New bathroom

New Kitchen

Floored 3 rooms and halls

New doors

Removed old gas fire, replaced with fireplace.

Wallpaper/painted

 

Still to complete

Door finishing's (painted and handles)

Dishwasher fitted flush and plinth attached.

Bath panel to be bought and fitted.

Floor the 3rd bedroom.

Door bell and external light fitted

As you can see from my previous post most of our time is focused in the garden just now, these sort of jobs can be done once the autumn arrives and the weather is not so nice.

Photos of start to current status

Blinds

Finally its no longer a peep show at our place as we finally have blinds!  We placed the order in January for blinds and then we changed our mind and wanted to get double glazing.  After a few quotes we decided just to go back to getting the blinds and to get the double glazing later.

Garden Update

Its been a couple of months since we started to attack the garden, things have been moving on slowly weather permitting of course.  My dads friend Andy came and fixed the fence at the bottom of the garden, there was a piece removed and he welded this back on for us.  This stopped folk using our garden as a shortcut.

When we cut the trees down all the branches were left sitting in the garden, these would have to be tidied up before anything else could be done in the garden.  The same guy who welded the fence back on loaned us a shredder which allowed us to shred some of the branches.  The bigger branches got cut into logs and piled up.  My dad has bought a fire pit which allows him to fire in our logs and burn them in his backyard for warmth through the summer nights.

Next thing we done was remove the fence that partitioned our land off, this was a pointless fence in my view and allows the kid above us to play in more of an area instead of all the toys in the communal area for the washing.

Once all this was completed, the lady above us paid for the grass to be cut at the back.  Meanwhile we started to plant plants at the front of the garden.  The front lawn is very mossy and after killing a lot of the moss and weeds has left the lawn patchy.  We planted some sort of bush into the middle of the lawn which has now started to blossom.

Fast forward to last weekend grass had grown again and a tree stump was still to be dug up.  I got my lawn mower out the cupboard and cut the front and back grass.  The lady above us land is too hard to cut with a lawn mower as there is loads of hedge stumps and stones under the grass so I decided not to break my lawn mower.

Digging tree roots up is hard work we have managed to get part of the root dug up and are moving places with that.

Not long till I get a shed, before we do that I fancy painting the wooden fence!

What our garden currently looks like.

New PC

I have finally took the plunge and bought myself a new PC.  About a year ago there was very bad thunderstorms in the area.  I decided to turn everything off in my room and watch the lightning from my bedroom window.  One of the bolts hit the telephone pole which is located at the bottom of the garden there was a flash of light and then a big bang.  Odd

Once it was all over I turned on the TV and PC, the TV came on ok yet there was nothing from the PC, something had went I tested out the memory, graphics card PSU on my brothers machine which was sitting spare as he was in Canada.

While he was away I stole his PC and fired my HDD in to keep me going, I have been struggling along with this until it just stopped working.  I had to buy new memory and a new graphics card to try and get this machine to stay stable.  Still no joy at this point I had lost myl rag with the machine and decided to buy new parts.  I was trying to stay under the £400 budget and get a semi decent machine.

Antec Sonata II Piano Black Quiet Midi Tower - With 450W SmartPower2.0 PSU 

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3P Socket 775 1333SFB iP965 SATA 8 channel audio ATX

OCZ (OCZ2G8001GK) 1GB (2x512MB) DDR2-800 PC2-6400 CL 5-5-5-12 Gold XTC Dual Channel Kit (LIFETIME WARRANTY)

XFX 7600GT 590MHz 256MB DDR3 Dual DVI PCI-E

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 - 1.86 GHz 1066Mhz FSB Retail New 

I managed to stay under the £400 mark, fired in my 500GB sata drive and my DVD writer and started to build this.

I have to say I do really like the case and it is well worth the money to buy a decent case, normally I skimp on this part and go for a budget case.  Not anymore I can no longer hear when my PC is on and its black finish is very nice for the eye. A review of the case can be found here.

With all new machines there is a little bit of tinkering to get it to run stable.  I have not yet tried any games out although I have ran some benchmarks to see how well the PC performs.  I have read that the gigabyte motherboard and the processor are good for overclocking another thing I may try out at a later date.

New Car

With my old Ford Focus 1.8 Zetec W reg was starting to feel the strain (more like the tax and MOT was up at the end of the January).  There were a few bits and bobs wrong with it.

1. Suspension was gone
2. Remote Key Fob not working
3. Power Steering Leak
4. Exhaust almost rusted off
5. Door locking randomly while driving

I decided that it would be more cost effective to get a new car.  So I started digging about the Internet looking for decent car deals.  I am not a fan of Arnold Clarks so I was trying to avoid them at all costs.  With some Internet digging I came across motorpoint, had a general look about there site and cars in which I was interested in the new ford focus 3 door 1.6 - 1.8 Zetec with climate pack. .

They had a couple of 3 door 1.6's on their website, so decided that I would go to the showroom in mount florida to see what these looked like.  On arrival at motorpoint we were not hassled by any sales person to look at cars, we were given a brief chat about how motorpoint work.  We were given a pit of paper and told if you like any cars then come back and see me and we will give you the keys to check over the car.  At this point I mentioned to the guy I wanted to look at 1.6 focus they had on their website. 

Turns out that this car was sitting in Wales and I would have to pay for transport and if I never wanted the car then the money would be refunded.  Couple of days later I got the call that the car was indeed transported and was ready for my inspection and a test drive.

After an inspection and a test drive I was sold, so much more comfortable ride (not hard with broken suspension) and bought the car.  The car was ready for pickup a week later.

 

I have now had the car a few months and there is some things that annoy me about the new focus.

1. The interior is not as nice as the old one
2. Handbrake is on the wrong side
3. Cup holders are smaller
4. Clock is on car radio.

Number 4 is a right pain as I have an aftermarket head unit, the pioneer deh-p77mp.  Now this does not have a clock on it so I have now lost my clock.  Which is not the ended of the world when you pick up a small clock from halfords.  I plan to add a mp3 player to my radio as there is a nice little slot that I could sit one into and hook up to my head unit with ease.  Another project that I will undertake one day.

The pros for the new focus are:

1. Comfortable seats
2. Air conditioning
3. Quick clear front screen
4. heated wing mirrors
5. Better fuel consumption.
6. More leg room

Couple of Photos of car.