Another update

I didn't get very much done tonight in the house because I helped my mam renew their house insurance online and saved them about £90. So it was about 7 by the time I got up there. I ran a new phone line socket. To my main bedroom and wired it up. I haven't fixed it back yet because we are going to plaster the walls so there is no point. My dad has done a few jobs in the bathroom and my mam took the last bit of foil/paper off the wall in the spare room.

Tomorrow night I will hopefully put the floorboards back down in the spare room and then its ready for my mam to paper with lining paper ready for painting. I think my dad is gonna skim the corner of the room as well so can't paper that part until its dry.

I'm slowly getting there, the kitchen is just about finished other than needing an air brick behind my cupboards and the walls need painting when the paper has dried properly.

I'm wanting to be in this weekend but don't really think it will be ready. Only need the spare room and kitchen livable and the bathroom useable.

The Player

The Player: I watched this on Tuesday night, its quite a complicated film with lots of hollywood insider jokes. Its fairly good film although I wasn't paying full attention to it. So I lost some parts of what was going on.

I'm kinda gonna ruin the film with here, its about about a movie producer who kills a writer and gets away with it.

I gave it 7 out of 10.

Run yesterday

I went for a run last night when I got in from work, its the same route I went last week but I did run it slighly quicker and managed to keep going only because I was listening to music. It certainly seams to help listening to music.

I am hopefuly going running tomorrow night after my training course in Darlington.

House Update

Tonight me and Nigel have refitted the front door now the cement has gone off a bit more on the brickwork. It still needs some cement render around the door before we can seal in with silcone. We also need to swap the screws we have used to brass ones because we have used steel ones at the moment that will rust very quickly.

My mam has painted my ceiling and coving in the kitchen and papered the walls with lining paper ready to paint. My dad has just about finished putting thw wood down on the floor in the bathroom to level it before tiling with vinyl tiles. He has also filled in the holes in the bathroom walls and sealed ost of it with PVA glue.

I took some pictures yesterday but haven't got the time to add them at the moment. They are uploaded to http://photos.stevenhorner.com but I haven't had chance to add any descriptions yet.

Iron Maiden Ticket

I bought a ticket to see Iron Maiden @ Newcastle Arena on the 17th December. I was going to buy 2 but had just looked at my finances 5 minutes earlier and decided I couldn't afford to buy another in the hope that someone will go with me. I know Val mentioned she would go but its a long way off she might not be talking to me by then. I am tempted to buy another and take it out of my holiday savings. Will think about it and might buy another tonight before they are sold out.

I have wanted to see Iron Maiden for years since I was about 12 or 13 when I started listening to them. Most people think they are shit but have never listened to the, I thought the same until mates at school got me into them.

Anyway looking forward to going in December, if I buy another ticket and you would like to go probably for free let me know...

Not a lot today

I haven't done all that much today in the house. I had a lie in until 10:30 if you can call it a lie in with the clocks going forwards. I then helped Nigel reinstall Windows and Office onto his Mothers computer.

Once I'd finished that, I went up the house and took some pictures & measurements. The measurements were for the drawing I did in the previous post. After that I filled in around some more sockets (only 1 left now). Then tonight me and my dad fitted some more plasterboard under the stairs. There is only 1 tiny piece to do now. Oh I also fitted my network switch into the cabinet.

I was intending to post some of the pictures I had taken but think I will go to bed instead and will post them tomorrow night instead.

Upstairs Plan

Above is the layout of the upstairs of my house, it is pretty much to scale. I have done a rough one for downstairs as well but have guessed most of the measurements and haven't marked the windows. You can see the downstairs below. The front porch is definitely wrong.

The last one I'm doing?

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Run

I went for a Run on Wednesday morning before work, I must of been totally psyched for it. I even kept waking up every few minutes thinking is it time to go yet, waiting for my alarm to go off. Once I was out I enjoyed it although I'm canny unfit so didn't run very far, not that I was intending to anyway.
The run is very short but it has a long gradual up hill from the Sports Centre back to Roddymoor. The up hill isn't very steep but I find it hard (coz unfit). I should of gone out again on Friday morning but turned over and went back to sleep when my alarm went off.

I will try to go out tomorrow morning but not sure I will be able to move in the morning from shovelling sand and cement all day today, should manage it though. Just hope the weather it better than it is now.

Please, let things be easier tomorrow...

As I said in my last post, I want to do some easier jobs tomorrow. So intending to fill a few of the little holes that are in the kitchen wall. So my mam can then paper with lining paper. I want to get the last 3 sockets fitted back and browned in. My mam & dad fitted my basin in my bathroom today as well. This was another job that we thought would be easy but had to drill a new hole in the wall for the waste because the old one was too high. There was also loads of other problems :-(

While I'm browning in the last of the sockets I will fill in the pipework and wiring for the shower. Then Nigel can get on with the tiling in the bathroom. Oh my dad also fitted some new plasterboard in the wall to replace the one we destroyed to fit the bath in the other week.

We keep making stupid comments like that's the big jobs out of the way. Then something that you thought would be simple turns into a massive complicated job. So I'm saying nowt now ;-)

I need to do some clearing up tomorrow as well, there is stuff all over the place. I was thinking about asking Ian (my godfather) to bring the trailer up from the farm, co I could put all the rubble and crap out of the garden in. There is no point now though as I can't get out the front door until the cement is set. My neighbour offered to make me some drinks today, declined like but she seamed friendly enough. They have lived in the street for about 4 years and never spoke until now.

I need to keep on top of my finances as well tomorrow. The money just keeps disappearing on small stuff, that soon mounts up. Spent another £150 in the last couple of days on nothing really just bolts, sand, cement and stuff like that.

Nothing ever straight forward

Today me & nigel were fitting my front door after fairly easily fitting the back door last weekend. I should of known it wouldn't be that simple twice. We started just after 8 this morning, and removed the old door and frame. That's when we started to notice the problems!!

There was no lintel above the door to holdup the inside layer of bricks up, they were just floating and had been sort of held up by the wooden door frame. To the side of the door it was also bodged together, there were barely any bricks to fix a frame to. It had just been filled up with cement, even the bag from the cement had been stuffed into the wall to fill the void. We had to spend ages destroying a lot of the brickwork (or rather cement work). Then built it all back up, so we could then fit a lintel to support all the brickwork above. All of this took a very long time :-(

It also caused another headache. I couldn't fit the door in properly because we need the cement to go off. Which will probably take a couple of days. We have managed to fit the door in temporarily but not properly. It will be a couple of days before we can fix the door frame into the brickwork correctly. Hopefully that will be the easy part (gonna regret saying that). I'm knackered now mixing cement by hand all day and carrying lintels, door frames, bricks and stuff about.

Hopefully gonna do a few easier jobs tomorrow, I hope. Hopefully I will remember to take a few pictures as well.

tired

a strange thing has happened recently, i have actually been tired when
i've gone to bed and managed to go to sleep fairly quickly. normally i
would lay there for hours thinking about anything and everything.

physical tiredness is so much better than mental tiredness. haven't
gone to sleep like this since i was a temp at electrolux and was
putting cookers onto to trailers.

although now i think i wish i could be somewhere inbetween. don't
wanna go to sleep so easily like to think a bit more and always have
loads to do. anyway will stop complaining, for a few lines anyway.

i went out for tea tonight with a mate while i was working in the
darlington office. had a good time, although felt guilty when my mam
and dad were working in my house, oops.

talking of mates from work, i am sad to see Robert from the Peterlee
office is leaving. i have got on really well the last few months and
will be sad to see him leave. although pleased he is going to be doing
something he obviously loves doing. he is going to America to coach
football, only problem with that is they call it soccer.

hopefully there's now somewhere to stay over there, cheap holiday.
wish him all the best.

anyway thats enough of that shit, whats been happening in the Horner
building site that is my house. hang on just pausing to wiggle my leg
to the music (Lacuna - celebrate the summer). if only someone could
see me now, lol. right sorry im diverting again.

right the kitchen finally feels like its getting somewhere. there are
few little bits to patch up on the walls then can paper with lining
paper ready to paint. there are a few tiles to grout but hopefully
nigel will do those tomorrow after we have fitted the front door. i
got a new glazing unit fitted in my living room window today. nearly
finished plaster boarding the ceiling under my stairs where my server
and networking equipment is to be located.

i managed to electrocute myself the other night when filling around a
socket with browning. some fell in the socket so tried to flick it out
but ended up with 240 volts through me instead, oops.

erm what else, the toilet is in and working or i hope its working
because my niece and nephew used it tonight!

lots of little things, its getting there but my deadline of the end of
the month to move in is fast approaching. not gonna be anywhere near
finished but want i+t just say livable.

went to b&Q with val from work the other day on dinner to look for
some paint. i didn't come away with much and the couple of test pots i
got looked shit, sorry val they did. can't see how the hell blue goes
with my kitchen either. are you sure you're not colourblind val?

joking aside i do need some help with paint im useless at trying to
imagine what a room will look like. i have a mate coming over next
week to help me choose some paint. i like what she has done in her
house and know she has very similar taste to me. think val is too
adventurous for me, im on about paint val!

my arm is falling of typing all this on my phone, yes its from typing
nothing else. guess i should go to sleep have to be up early to fit my
front door.

Chatting

I was going to go to bed early tonight but ended up chatting to Val from work again on AIM (finally a mention). We have been chatting a fair bit recently, probably coz we are both sad and have nothing better to do (awww).

I've also been chatting to Jeremy who I used to work with at the Red Cross with a few years ago. Its about time we caught up we always have a good laugh when we go out, usually from something stupid one of us does. As long as he doesn't start dancing to Robbie in the middle of the pub in Crook again. I wont do some amazing Rave dancing in Durham either ;-)

I have been listening to loads of dance music again recently, used to listen to it for years until the last year but getting back into it. I would love to go clubbing again, but none of my mates would go (boring bastards). Fancy going to Tenerife again, not as in your face as Ibiza but would love to go there as well.


Well I better get my arse to bed hopefully I can get up for a run, if not I've decided I'm stopping at Brancepeth on my way home and running along the old railway line, then can't get stopped when I get in like tonight.

thinking and house

laid in bed thinking. i took today off from the house, other than
taking all tiles and grout out of my car. decided to leave the car
outside parents and carry the tiles the few doors to my house. didn't
seam too bad at first but by the time i had finished my arms felt
twice as long.

otherwise i just watched the newcastle match and some of the chelsea match.

i made a list tonight of the jobs to do in each room. most of the big
messy jobs are done. we are going to concentrate on the bathroom and
kitchen this week and finish them off. not sure how long the tiling
will take, with nigel doing it.

i want to be in at the end of the month no matter what. cant afford to
keep paying board at parents as well as my own bills. that is money i
could be spending on the house.

a friend from work text me yesterday to say they had been rushed into
hospital with his appendix and he had done something stupid and
checked out against doctors advice. think he was told to stop drinking
or was gonna kill himself. hope that is a wake up call but we will
see..

when you hear stuff like that it always makes me look at my own life
and helps me make decisions. you never know what is around the corner
so enjoy yourself while you can and do the things you have always
wanted to.

talking of things i want to do, i still haven't got off my arse and
been running yet. i need to, i am running my first race at the end of
May. thats about 9 weeks, shit that's not long. i have set 2 alarms
for 6:30 so i can get up and go running.

Getting Somewhere?

Today me and Nigel fitted a new UPVC back door, it didn't take as long as I expected. We were finished about dinner time. Only took us that long because we didn't really have a powerful enough drill. Ours was 550w and we struggled to drill the holes but got there eventually. It looks good and certainly makes a difference, there is no draft anymore :-)

This afternoon my mam & dad plumbed a new radiator in the bathroom while me and Nigel went shopping for some tiles. When we switched the heating on, none of them would work, oops. Eventually we found out that the header tank was empty and wasn't filling back up (the valve had stuck closed). We cleaned the header tank and the hotwater stop tap and finally got it all working. Well almost one of the radiators isn't working but that isn't anything to do with adding the new one in. They need balancing or something.

We also need to change the hotwater stop tap, when we took it off to check it we realised that even when open it hardly opens and there is a tiny hole for it to trickle through. This means there isn't very much pressure for the hotwater. My dad is going to change the tap on Monday (he is off walking tomorrow).

I filled up some of the holes we had chased into the walls for my network cables as well.

Not sure how much I will get done tomorrow because the Newcastle match is on at about 1. Hopefully go for a run in the morning if my knee and feet hold up.

I'm happy I have the new back door on and I got a few other little jobs done today, feels like finally I may be getting somewhere (where I'm not sure?).

House Update

I again haven't posted anything for a few days.

It seams like we have managed to get a few things done in the last couple of days, as always not everything goes to plan!!

Anyway I now have all network and power cables ran in the house (I hope). Most are fixed back, although a couple that still need the browning around the sockets/back plates. My dad has fitted all my internal doors. He had some hassle yesterday with the handles I bought. They were badly designed and couldn't be screwed in correctly, so swapped them today.

My brother-in-law was also up the house todsay with my dad while I was at work. He did some tiling in my kitchen where some tiles were missing and patched a few other parts up. He also planed some cupboard doors and put some filler in on one of my walls where it has some horrible would panelling. They also have my toilet more or less fitted in as well. The bathroom was put on hold while we sorted all the wiring.

The new UPVC doors turned up today, so Nigel and me are gonna fit them (or at least the kitchen) tomorrow. It was gonna cost £150 per door to fit, not paying that bugger. The house is gradually starting to look a lot better. We are getting the major jobs done.

Tomorrow my dad is going to get a small radiator for my bathroom and fit that, then hopefully finish the toilet and basin. Then we can sort the flooring, after that Nigel is going to do the tiling in the bathroom.

I feel like a spare part most of the time and seam to stand doing nothing which I don't like. I prefer to be doing something but my dad seams to want me to be his labourer even though he doesn't need any help with most things. I could be on doing something else. Don't really want to complain though as he is working all the hours of the day for me.

New Drive

I have just ordered a new Hard Drive (320GB) from Dabs to go in my server. I already have 6 or 7 in it but all are getting very full. I decided to buy a new one to store my movies on, or at least some of them.

I decided to make better use of my Xbox and store a lot of my DVDs on the server as XVIDs and will stream them to my TV using the XBOX. I do this now and again for TV programmes that I Have missed but will be excellent if I can sit at the TV scroll through all the movies I have (or some of them). View the plot, play time, rating, etc..
Then just press play rather than now having to look down my list, browse IMDB, check out ratings and stuff. Then try to find where the hell I have put the disc.

It may mean if I can persaude my parents to buy an XBOX they could stream any of my movies to their house as well, over the WI-Fi we will be fitting between the two houses.

Old work friends

Today I was called by Alison who I used to work with years ago at Directions in Bishop Auckland. I didn't actually get the call because I had my phone on silent, but she left an answer phone message. She wanted to know if I could fix her computer for her.

Haven't had the chance to ring her back yet. Hopefully will get a chance tomorrow but I don't really have the time to fix computers for anyone. Too busy trying to get things done in my house.

Alison got my number from Julie who I usually catch up with a couple of times a year, usually when her dads computer needs a tune up. Just emailed her asking how she is doing.

Wiring the house network

I spent 3 hours tonight working on the network in my house. I have fixed the face plates on in 4 rooms (8 ports) and wired them into the patch panel in my network cabinet under the stairs. Some of the time I was fitting the network switch and testing a few things.

Tomorrow night I will run 2 cables to the attic (for future expansion) and 2 more just through the wall into the living room. There is already one face plate in the living room but the other side of the room. Hopefully tomorrow night the network will be finished other than the wireless connection to my parents house but that needs the outside wall drilling both at my house and parents. Hopefully do that at the weekend.

The only problem I have at the moment is the fan in my network switch is VERY noisey. You can hear it throughout the house at the moment. I will see if I can change it, looks like it is replacable. If not I will get another switch off Ebay.

Once we have finished running the last network cables tomorrow night we should be able to put the floor boards back down. I will feel like we are getting somewhere then!!

Absent

I think this must be the longest I have gone without posting anything on here. As I've said enough times recently I'm busy working on my house. Not that I have done much during the week. My dad has been busy working away during the day for me (he must really want rid of me, lol).

Yesterday was the first day I really felt like I had done a lot and was knackered by the end. I was running network wires, changing sockets and chasing walls.

It seams things that should be small jobs ending up turning into big jobs. Yesterday we were wiring in some new sockets and found out the old ones hadn't been wired up correctly. Someone had broke the ring circuit, so spent a couple of hours trying to find out where the problem was.

Today I was fixing back the sockets and ended up having to chop out 2 sockets where the metal back boxes where damaged (couldn't screw the fronts back) and fit new back boxes.

I had hoped to have the sockets all fixed back and it all covered with browning today but haven't. My dad is gonna do it tomorrow.

Probably all sorts has happened but can't remember now, so going to bed

from bed

this is the first time in a while i have done a post using my phone from bed.

tomorrow night i am out in newcastle with some mates from work. im
staying at craigs house meeting at his having a drink in spennymoor
then getting the bus to durham having a drink there then the taxi to
newcastle.

hope its a decent night cant see me drinking very much anyway with it
being spread out in 3 places and only gonna be im newcastle for 4
hours.

getting dropped off and picked up by my mother at craigs was gonna was
gonna drive but dont wanna be over the limit in the morning. i am
gonna go and buy some doors first thing in the morning when i get
picked up. i mean wooden internal doors. thinking about it i haven't
had my quote for the other doors was supposed to have it yesterday or
today. will give them a ring tomorrow!

supposed to be out on saturday as well with mates but they haven't
said anything else :-(

Slow day

Today was another slow day, a lot of the work we have done in the house this week you can't really see. Like today we ran a new wire for the cooker but I guess its a job well done if you don't notice it. Although you can see it at the moment because its not boxed in yet.

My parents went to my uncles to pickup my cooker, tonight. so the first job tomorrow is connecting it up. Then we are going fit the bath, finally!!

iPod

I received a replacement iPod this morning from Apple. I gotta say the service was excellent. I can't believe how quick they were. The only delay was because I wasn't in the first 2 times UPS called to pickup my old one.

Today the UPS driver even called me to make sure I was in when he was 20 minutes away. Actually he was 5 minutes away in Crook having a cup of coffee but who cares I was well impressed when he called.

I was pissed at Apple before because my iPod had crashed quite a few times and they brought a new model out 2 weeks after I bought mine but they have sort of redeemed themselves with such good support :-)

Four Brothers

Four Brothers: I added this to my DVD Rental Queue a while ago before it was released and forgot about it until it turned up this morning.

Sometimes its best watching a movie when you don't know what its really about or have any expectations. That's what happened with this.

I quite enjoyed it, it was a bit slow at the beginning but soon picked up.

If you wanna watcha n action film with some sort of story this is worth watching. Mark Wahlberg seams to really aged, he looks in his 40s yet he's only 34. Christ can remember when he was Marky Mark!!

Oh, I gave this 7 out of 10.

The Net 2.0

The Net 2.0: Decided to watch this as I normally like a techno thriller. The story was OK but the acting was crap and was like a not too good TV movie.

I was at least hoping there would be some decent gadgets or good surveillance stuff but about the only surveillance was a bald bloke with a big mustache.

Could of been so good but wasn't. I gave it 5 at IMDB.

iPod on its way back

I've been keeping an eye on my iPods status at Apple's site. Today a replacement has been sent out to me using UPS so hopefully I will receive the new one.

The only problem is I wont be in to receive it, because I will be up the house doing work. They will only deliver to the address Apple gave them which is my parents house.

A network switch I bought off Ebay turned up today but I wan't in and it was taken back to the depot. I will have to drive down to Bishop again and pick it up tomorrow.

Today

I've been fairly busy today fitting the new shower. It's now in and working, although as I thought I'm disappointed because the water pressure is rubbish. I originally wanted a nice power shower but instead had to go with an electric one. This would be fine if the water pressure was good but it isn't. Anyway at least the shower is in.

I did just take some photos and have uploaded them to flickr, see the latest ones here.

You will see that the house is a total mess with stuff everywhere and everything ripped apart. There are descriptions on the pictures so no point me repeating myself!

Tomorows job is moving a junction box that some idiot has put under the bath right next to the bath waste pipe. I'm sure you know electricity and water don't mix well. Then from this junction box we will be running the new cooker cable, which will be fun and games getting it into the kitchen. I'm hoping this wont take all day, I want to get at least one part of the bathroom suite fitted. Will feel like I'm making progress then.