Well, to bring things up to date.......
If anyone can remember back that far we were looking into doing the great room shuffle. The existing third bedroom would become a new bathroom while the bathroom and utility area would be knocked together and become the new kitchen. The existing kitchen would be converted into a dining room / whatever space.
We started the year by looking at getting the bathroom done as a complete piece of work by Dolphin bathrooms. After the initial shock of their prices had worn off we cancelled that plan and will now look at doing as much of the work ourselves and bringing in the plumber, plasterer, and electrician as needed. That alone will cut the costs in half leaving us enough £££ left over to get the kitchen done this year, I hope, maybe.
None of this will start now until the summer as we will be having house guests off and on over the next 3 months. I love house guests. (but I can never eat a whole one, boom boom) They are the perfect excuse to put off working on the house and to crack open a few bottles of wine.
In the mean time I'll be updating all the crappy little annoying jobs I've been doing.
And now a rant. I've recently had to throw 2 rather expensive power tools into the bin, with a third one on life support. There was nothing wrong with them at all, and in the case of the sander it was practically new. Why did I have to waste money? Batteries, that's why. Bloody rechargable batteries.
The first tool was a cordless Clarke drill. Nice bit of kit. Variable speed, good torque, etc. The battery died and wouldn't hold a charge. Replacement battery you say. NOT! Try to find one for that model was like hunting for the holy grail without the help of an enchanter called Tim or the Knights That Say Ni. I finally tracked down a source in the US. The shipping cost alone was more than what I paid for the damn drill in the first place. Bye bye drill.
Its replacement was a Black & Decker one. Its lasted 4 years now but the battery is fading fast. Even the usual tricks of deep draining and freezing the battery have stopped working. Trouble is, the drill is still in great condition. A replacement battery from B&D is more than the cost of replacing the whole drill.
The last item really p*sses me off. Black & Decker came out with the Versapak battery system some time ago. Great idea. Interchangable batteries. Trouble is they stopped making the batteries a long time ago. Anyone with a Versapak tool is now basically screwed once the batteries go. Nice one B&D. b*stards.
At least Makita's replacements are a reasonable price, not that I've had one of their batteries die on me yet.
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