old things DIY stuff: paint brush stick Not our DIY tool for DIY - but a found artefact. The boys love it.
Day 22 -Hurricane Ophelia - the day after Hurrican Ophelia turned out to be a non-event for us. A bit windy but nothing to write home about. The house stood strong. Our neighbours were not so lucky:
Day 21 - Hurricane Ophelia Live Updates 8:00am Hurricane Ophelia, the most powerful storm east of the US on record, will be upon us today. It will be a good test of how the house fares in bad weather. Last night, I went to replace the car's headlight that had blown a few days ago. It
Day 20 - bracing for Hurricane Ophelia Hurricane Ophelia, predicted to be the worst storm to hit Ireland in more than 50 years, will be with us tomorrow Monday. What a great time to have just bought a nearly derelict period property! Michelle is anxious that the house will fall down. I’m excited to see how
Day 18 - Our first hands-on help Today Mariusz (the architecture graduate we met earlier in the week) and his assistant Darius started work to draw plans of the house. Having good plans will be very useful to start planning our future remodeling. We're not thinking of making a lot of structural changes. But we'll definitely need
plumbing Day 15 - The date that wasn't meant to be We both took the day off work today. It's been 15 days since we got the keys and we haven't stopped for a minute. That's on top of our full-time day jobs and looking after the two small ones. Today was meant to be about slowing down and finally taking
Day 11 - Plants We have plants growing under the plaster in our kitchen. Surely this can't be good...
Day 10 - Morning light With broadband installed and flying we can now work from our new house (we're both lucky to have jobs that allow us to work from home). Which means going there early in the morning after having dropped the boys at nursery and school and enjoying some lovely morning light: Can't
Day 9 - Geeking out about drains One of Joseph's key piece of advice was to fix our drains and gutters as a matter of priority as they were most likely one of the main reason for our dampness problems. One of our drains at the back of the house was blocked - it's possibly the reason
Day 9 - Virgin Broadband Day 9 was an unexpected whirlwind of activity on top of a full day's work at our day-time jobs. It all started with an incredible service by Virgin Media. Signed up for broadband yesterday. Our box was delivered first thing this morning. Coming from London where it took us weeks
Day 8 - paperwork Registered with the electricity company. Registered with the gas company. Registered with the waste collection company. Signed up for broadband. Booked a gas engineer to service the boiler, check the gas installation, remove the dodgy-looking gas fireplace in the back room and advise on how we might be able to
Day 4 - expert advice The boys and Michelle were pretty tired so they stayed in the apartment while I met with Emma Sides and Joseph Little, friends of Michelle and period property geeks, for some beers, pizza and expert advice. Joseph is an architect who's currently Assistant Head of School at the Dublin School
