Home and Garden – Page 8

Whites or Darks?

I know we’ve had this conversation before but I can’t remember the outcome. When I’m sorting laundry into whites and darks things that are striped stress me out completely. Do I put them in with whites and pray they don’t bleed onto all my white’s turning them a light hue of pink, blue or grey or do I put them in with darks and hope the white stripes stay white??

[polldaddy poll=4752070]

How to Remove Crayon

Bloody Hell! I can’t believe it worked! Madame had drawn on not 1 but 5 of our painted walls with not just any old crayon, but a heavy duty extra greasy whiteboard one! I tried baby wipes but they didn’t work. A few people on twitter suggested using WD 40.

I did think they were insane but tried it and it came off in a breeze, very little elbow grease required. Sprayed a bit on, wiped, then sprayed a bit more if it didn’t come off. I had all the walls clean in less than 10 minutes! However, I’m a bit stoned from the fumes!

Please note: It didn’t change the colour of the walls. The photos were take on different days.

When I Get Around To it!

My father was a very hard working man. He was a heavy duty welder who worked in the mines and on the oil rigs. However, when it came to doing stuff around the house he would always say ‘I’ll do it when I get around to it’. Guess it was kind of like a busman’s holiday.

So, one day, my Stepmonster, which is what I affectionately call her (do note the sarcasm) presented him with a circular piece of fabric with the TUIT embroidered on the front. However much I dislike the woman, it was funny, and from that day forward it was on display on the wall near the sink so he could never again say ‘when I get around to it’ as he now had one.

Not in a twisted sort of way but my hubby does remind me of my own father sometimes. We have a huge list of things that need doing.

May I present my case:

These are the chimney pots that were purchased when I was pregnant with Madame and as you can see they are still not in place and she is 3 and a half!

I put these paint testers on the kitchen wall two and a half years ago and the kitchen is still not painted. I’ve actually gone off the colours now!

And lastly, but more recent we had our windows replaced a few months ago, which was a disaster in itself. You can read the whole post here. We ended up with ply chipboard instead of window blinds for a week; we lived like mushrooms with no light. Unfortunately, the builder hasn’t come back to do the finishing off work so we still haven’t put the last wooden blind back up and the other one is only hung temporarily. It would be really nice to watch TV without the neighbours being able to peer in.

I could go on and on but no point really. I should just get on and do it myself or hire someone to do it for me! Alternatively, I could take up needle point and make him a round TUIT!

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Is There a Correct Way to Hang a Loo Roll?

I was a very strong believer that this was the correct way to hang a toilet roll, with the paper hanging down the back. So much so, that if I came around to your house and you didn’t have one of those fancy or lock and key toilet roll holders I would switch yours around. Do bear in mind that I’m the kind of person that will also straighten picture frames in other people’s houses. I don’t know if it’s the Libra in me but everything has to be balanced.

However, I’ve been doing some very scientific research (Google) and discovered in fact that I may have been wrong. Apparently, in addition to being more hygienic, it’s also more environmentally friendly, efficient and will make you a better person if you hang the loo roll with the sheet hanging over the top.

Reasons why:

When it’s hanging down the back it touches the back recessed bit or the wall, where if we’re honest with ourselves, we never clean. So, instead of cleaning yourself you are actually introducing more germs. Yuck, yuck, yuck.
This not something I don’t worry about that much, but I’ve read that over the top is much more conducive to one handed tearing??? Can someone please elaborate?
It reduces the stress when trying to locate the end of the roll. But, what if it’s a new roll and the first sheet is stuck in place with a bit of glue? Mine ends up looking like a hamster’s bedding!
It deters small people from unravelling the whole roll as there is less gravitational pull.
And lastly, if you’re inclined to do so you can fold the ends hotel style. However, if you do this you have far too much time on your hands.

Do you agree? Is there a correct way to hang a toilet roll?

Neighbours are at it again!

Our neighbours are at it again. We’ve been suffering their building works since Mar 2010. We are normally fairly laid back people and really did like our neighbours; we even drove the boys to the hospital when their father had a stroke. However, we’ve fought the extension tooth and nail every step of the way.

We objected to the plans on two occasions, the first set were refused they made a few small changes and second set went through to our horror. We’ve had the building inspectors out, called Health and Safety on numerous occasions due to lack of safety equipment, had Environmental Health out as they are burning everything including plastic and god knows what else, called the Fire Department due to unattended bonfires and had all my twitter buddies write to the local council. It did make them stand up and take notice.

Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do anything about it. Once planning permission is granted there’s really nothing you can do to stop it. It really is disgusting as they’ve been allowed to build on 70% of their garden and it grossly overlooks our property. I showed video to two planning officers who are friends of friends and they said they have never seen anything like it. We’re resigned to it but just want them to finish so we can get on with living undisturbed.

As its winter, we haven’t been spending a lot of time in the garden so we hadn’t noticed the latest infraction. Long before Christmas they were retiling the roof and removed the guttering. Tonight we noticed that they have removed approx a metre of our guttering, which means that the water from our house including two of the neighbours is pouring straight onto our flat roof extension, bear in mind we’ve had monsoon like rain in the last few days. For reference, our house is on the right.

I popped around tonight, to politely ask when the builders would be back to rectify it and apparently they’ve run out of money and don’t know when it will be fixed. I’m sorry, but this isn’t acceptable and not our fault so I will be contacting the council tomorrow and if I don’t get anywhere I will be contacting the authorities as this seems to be ‘wilful damage to property in my books!’ Following that our next step is a solicitor.

I have asked them to replace the guttering and if they don’t we will at their expense. I will only put enough guttering on so it runs onto their house! They have also damaged the rendering on our house.

Have any of you experience this?

Any solicitors in the house want to write them a letter for me pro bono?

What should we do? I don’t feel it’s fair that we should incur any costs.

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