Housework lists again

[ailbhe]

I hit "advance" on the heating at 1:30 pm.

Emptied, filled and ran dishwasher.
Cleared draining board twice.
Cleared east kitchen counter, washed it, covered it in stuff waiting to be washed...
Cleared west kitchen counter, washed it.
Cleared clothes-rack of dry clothes.
Hung two loads of laundry on clothes-rack.
Made own bed.
Washed two loads of laundry (bedding).
Hung one load of bedding on the banister.
Glued loose end of fridge handle back onto fridge as proof of concept.
It worked; retrieved freezer handle from storage, washed it, glued it on. Wish it luck.
Swept dining room in patches, moved furniture around to where it ought to be.
Folded clean dry nappies and put away ready to use.
Used them. We may not have enough dry, uhoh.
Adjusted heating time so that Rob doesn't get frozen until he actually leaves the house at oh-god-thirty.
Drank two flasks of coffee Rob made for me before he left.
Spent quality time with the happiest Astrid I've seen for days.
Dressed all three children, which involved finding clothes for some of them and actually putting them on others.

Edit 14:20:
Taped bubble envelopes under the front room window for insulation.
Made a draught-excluder from two knee-high socks stuffed with plastic bags; used it to replace the IKEA snake on the spare room door; put the snake in the front room by the bay window.
Emer put the plastic-bag holder, a fabric tube, along the edge of the floor too, tofill the gap; clever child.
Brought down a rug for the hall floor.

So the insulation is all increased, which should help. Tonight we need to glue polystyrene to the back of the loft hatch. The solar-heated hot water didn't get hot until the sun topped the houses at about 9am, but it rapidly reached 5C, so is probably higher by now; that's all degrees centigrade which the gas boiler will not have to provide, yayness.

Edit 15:10:
We've basically been looking at toys online and making Santa lists! Yippee!

Comments

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I'm amazed that with two children and a baby in the house you don't have the heating on constantly at the moment! Brrrrrrr.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

That doesn't read at all how it did in my head. Hopefully you know what I mean!

[ailbhe]

It's a warm house! mid-terrace, double glazing, minimal drafts on floors at ground level.

Edit: but if someone is ill, we put it on constant at 22C.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

That's something I've definitely noticed since moving- this house is harder to heat. But the heating on cool-ish, and then the fire on in the lounge where we mostly are, seems to work.

[ailbhe]

I've bubble-wrapped the front wall now!

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

*imagines children gleefully popping all the bubbles*

[ailbhe]

I cheated, I used bubble-wrap envelopes (because that's what I had, mainly).

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

Awww :)

Are there any small things or books etc that the girls (inc. Astrid) would like for Christmas that we could bring on Sat? I am very unpractised at buying for children but I feel like some sort of offering would be appropriate :)

[ailbhe]

They'd love it! I think they'd really like Christmas decorations they could hang instantly.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

OK, I can do that; I assume non-breakable tends to be more betterer!

[ailbhe]

Given the rate at which *I* break baubles... !

[ailbhe]

Or noisy toys, obviously - I have a special box for those and they're not allowed after 8pm :)

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

My house is also a nightmare to heat - it's a dormer bungalow and the end of a terrace. Three external walls *and* no roof space to insulate (and of course they didn't insulate the gap between the ceilings and the roof tiles, when they built it in 1974). Upstairs is actually warmer than usual because the foot or so of snow on the roof is acting as insulation.

This year I have a shiny new boiler and thermostatic valves I am still getting to the right settings. I have a controller than can be set on or off as many times as I want (so it comes on for half an hour every 2 or so hours overnight) but no advance switch, which I miss. On the plus side, it'll be much cheaper to run than the old back boiler.

[ailbhe]

I wonder is there injectable gooey insulation that solidifies suitably?

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

There probably is, but I don't own this house!

[ailbhe]

If you're there much longer, you could point out to the landlord that you own the bills? That wouldn't work with any landlord I've ever had, mind you.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

The plan is to buy next year anyway, when my mother and grandmother's houses are sold (I will get a very impressive deposit from them). And to be fair he has just put in a super-efficient boiler and thermostatic valves, which will hugely reduce the bills *and* bigger radiators up there which keep it warm without having to have the downstairs at about 30C. Not to mention a lovely new bathroom.

[ailbhe]

Um, "that's nice," in that your new house will be nice, and it's good you'll have a good deposit. The landlord sounds good, too.

[buzzy-bee.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he's pretty good really. He's a local estate agent, but this is his own house, which is a good combination because he is on the ball about what's reasonable (in both directions). In return I try to be fairly undemanding - for example I've said I will just move a bookcase to where the fire used to be and he can redecorate this living room properly when I leave.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Spent quality time with the happiest Astrid I've seen for days. LIKE

Astrid sounds like the most glorious-natured baby, so it must be utterly horrid to see her miserable.

[ailbhe]

D'you know, people have remarked for all three of my babies that they are unusually sunny-natured and particularly smiley? I think I am both very very lucky and doing something right.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I don't have children and I've never lived with one as an adult, so I don't know a lot here, but from where I'm standing you seem to be doing almost everything right. And the caveat's only because nobody's perfect.

[ailbhe]

Heh. If I had my PMS under control...

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I tell myself my kids were born with a lovely nature and I've not done much to harm it. But not back patting until we get through the teens.

[ailbhe]

There isn't any insulation in the floor here except the underlay, but we have click-together laminate flooring and that's draftproof, so with rugs we're ok. (We have a lot of machine-washable rugs and two which I need to handwash in the bath). Only one wall to the outside feels cold to touch, and that's the one on the bay window; I think it has more open space underneath it than the others because of the floor shape, or something. It also has a ventilation brick in the middle of it just under floor level.

The envelopes don't look very good but I have a lovely bit of fabric I can drape there (the gap is less than 2ft high) and it will look almost deliberate.

I think we're actually losing more heat through the drafty and underinsulated loft hatch; we'll start fixing that as soon as we can.

I hope we can get a Christmas tree this week; I would normally want to leave it until Christmas Eve but we're having a party at the weekend and the children are keen to get Christmas going as soon as possible :)