Monday 20 August 2012

Hurting Like Hell, or How To Realise How Unfit You Are...

A very low spend weekend this weekend, just some food. More on that later.

For the last few weekends, The Chap and I have been working hard outside at his place.

After we come back from our holiday, I will be spending a lot of time at my flat packing everything up and hopefully will be moving in with TC before Christmas. Hence the reason I have been changing the front door and hob - getting everything up to code so I can rent it out.

With this in mind, TC had his drive paved a couple of weeks ago so we could fit both of our cars.

In doing so, he had to sacrifice his front lawn for my little Polo, displacing 3 tons of topsoil which was then wheel barrowed round to the back garden, ready for the next project.

A few weeks ago we demolished the shed / workroom built by the previous owner which encompassed about 20% of the garden, TC then borrowed a jack hammer from his father and split all of the concrete whilst I donned my pink gardening gloves and put in into the skip.

We were left 2 weeks ago with 3 tons of topsoil in a massive mountain in the back garden. Last weekend, after I replanted the front garden around the newly laid drive, We spent 4 hours shifting the lot into a level space to meet the other half of the lawned garden.

This weekend after demolishing all the garage cupboards (to make room for TC's new toy...a punching bag) we then had to go to the tip with the fruit of our labour and popped to my parents for more tool borrowing. 

A roller.

Me looking very glamorous rolling the damn thing. 

It took hours, rolling, picking up stones, then more rolling, more stones... TC seeing a lump and levelling it out, more rolling, stones, rolling, stones .. well you get the idea.

Followed by raking and sowing of grass seed, then more raking and finally
watering. Ta Dah!

Our new lawn, or hopefully it will be by the time we fly out to Espana.
Back breaking labour that today and last Monday has left me shattered and stiff. Still money saved by doing it ourselves and a few brownie points banked.

About two weeks ago I spent 25p on a bottle of Tesco Everday Value All Purpose Cleaner (750ml).


This weekend my old cleaning spray ran out, and I decanted some TEDV into an old spray bottle. Excellent product for pennies. Cleaned the kitchen work surface and all the bathroom a treat, plus a cap full in a sink of hot water also bought the kitchen floor up to sparkling shinyness (sic). 25P!! You'd be mad to buy anything else.

A quick stop off at Iceland again for some frozen food on Sunday and that was the only cash to leave my pocket - £9.50.

STOP PRESS..... Washing machine broken.....sigh

Frugally yours
Abigail
x


6 comments:

  1. Ah... so that is your good news - moving in with TC. Hope it all goes well, especially with getting your flat ready.

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  2. Wow, that's a huge project. You are definitely saving money doing it yourself.

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  3. Thank you ladies, we were both very pleased with the result even more so if we can see it growing in the next 2 weeks.

    Very pleased to be moving in with The Chap, I love him dearly.

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  4. My you have worked hard. We also have a huge mound of topsoil waiting to be used to level up the back garden. Not looking forward to that job :(
    By the way, the birdies do like to eat the grass seed from my experience. I usually have to cover it with netting.

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    Replies
    1. A good idea, I will mention it to The Chap.
      For a small fee (hmmm say a new washing machine)I will gladly rake your topsoil..... :o)lol

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I really love reading all comments. So please tell me what you think. Abigail