Well, in terms of updating I thought it was about time I did some. The house remains a hole, we’ve been working hard on getting it looking right for sale – and finally we overcame our fear and put up the wall paper. And I have to say, much to my amazement, it’s pretty damn good.
Not professional standard, and there’s a couple of spots which I wish were better, but all in all, it’s neat and it makes the wall – and by extension the room – look much better. Much more of a finished article. We’re now preparing to clean up, final few spots of paint, carpet, curtains and then dress the room. The most frustrating thing is we attempted to get away with just touching up the wardrobe doors (‘cos they were planed by the carpenter) and that’s not worked at all. The colour just doesn’t match quite right, which is incredibly frustrating. So we’ll have to put *another* coat of paint on them. I’ll be doing that in a bit, I suppose. I’m hoping there’s enough paint for that.
Other than that, though, it’s coming along pretty well. I spent a bit of time scrubbing at the floor like some mad cleaning lady, and got the excess tile grout off, and cleaned up the base of the shower where it’s been waiting for me to remove the excess tile grout for, uh, years. There’s just the wall-tile-grouting and cleaning to do, and ideally if I can locate the down-pipe’s chrome’d doojit, I’ll pop that on (rubber protector thing), and a bit of touching up on the walls, and that room is done. Then there’s just the back bedroom, the stairs, and some painting of skirting. And the door. I’d nearly forgotten the pain-of-the-doors. One of them is stripped, primed, filled and needs a bit of a sand and then should be good to paint. The other is mid strip and it’s taking ‘longer’ than is desirable.
In other news, we took the CRT to the storage unit yesterday (aren’t they so light and portable), and apart from freeing up a mountain of dust (well, that’s the problem with things you don’t move, eh) it’s improved the appearance of the lounge an awful lot.
It’s all getting there, but it’s painful. As are jobs.
I have not heard anything, which is not entirely surprising because applications to NHS positions tend to be quite slow to respond. But nor has Kathryn as yet. This is particularly difficult at this point – because we could really do with both of us employed, gainfully, before we shove off to Bristol. I could also do with my inheritance arriving right about now, because things are quietly niggling in the background about money. Sometimes they’re niggling quite loudly.
All of this notwithstanding, we went away for the weekend, up to Lauren and Chrissy’s, which was fabulous. We actually went to collect a prop, a 42″ dead plasma TV (specifically a Vision 4241), unfortunately, it’s lacking its stand, which is a bit of a pain, but we’ll have to see if we can come up with something – or more accurately, we’ll come up with something. It also came from a smoker’s house, which is a bit of a shame too. It’s currently sat in the back bedroom with the window open and hte door to the house shut – in hopes of it’ loosing that stale smoke smell fairly quickly. The CRT came from a smoker’s house and it took a little while, but became inoffensive quite quickly. And the breadmaker, similarly, stank when we got it and is now fine.
Anyhow, Lauren and Chrissy’s – so we saw their new house which has the potential to be excellent – it’s got really great bones and is in a lovely spot, complete with pretty views and a gorgeous old apple tree (which is incredibly productive) – and a eucalyptus tree which is a delightfully quirky addition :)
The whole place is being rapidly renovated by Chrissy and Lauren – putting our 3 year restoration to shame! We also spent Saturday basically chilling out (maxing, and relaxing all cool too, I suspect. We didn’t shoot any b-ball though) – a couple of hours wandering on the beach at Hunstanton was exactly what the doctor would have ordered, at least if we’d seen one. It was, to be honest, lovely to see old friends (and Jay-the-cat) and not really have to do anything (beyond collecting the TV).
On the TV front, if anyone wants to help me source parts for it, that’d be helpful. Online reports suggest the fault ties in with a dead ‘FMSD102A’ – which shorts and kills four resistors (surface mount, obviously, so that’ll be easy to fix – Kate calling John! We may need your microscope…) on the PC42V-PYS40-01 Y-Sus board. I’ve poked around the internizzle and not yet found any cheap sources of either the complete board or the FMSD102A, which is a shame, because yer man who we got it from reckoned that a place called maxsource could do them for $25 – which would be worth a shot. It is, incidentally (for anyone who feels like helping) a Vision PTS-4241, also sold under the brand name Conwa, and apparently the boards are made by Orion. None of this has so far lead me to success. When the house is done I’ll pop the boards out (it rattles, also, suggesting that previous owner may have attempted to fix it, and dropped a screw inside).
Searching for the board has lead me to a selection of people saying ‘it’s b0rked’, which isn’t helpful. I think I found a spares place a while back when I was thinking about getting it, but I can’t find it now – and they wanted £70 – which is a lot of money to spend on something where I’ve not actually looked for the fault. One doesn’t like to trust others judgements of what might be faulty when spending that much :)
Anyhow, I think at this point it’s time for me to shower and make some grout.
