Getting My Mojo Back

Good Day Everyone,

I hope you've all had a great start to 2016. I am pleased to say that I am finally starting to feel like myself again. In fact, I feel like I'm getting my mojo back :o).

The last couple of months of 2015 were very difficult. My arthritis flared up severely and there were days where I felt like I couldn't carry on living with the excruciating pain I was experiencing. In addition, both my scalp and body psoriasis were also flaring and I was suffering from more migraines than usual, all whilst living in what felt like a building site! The despair that I felt at the end of 2015 was reminiscent of the despair I felt back at the end of 2011, when I made the difficult decision to give up my career so that I could work on my health full time. I felt like I was living under a dark grey cloud surrounded by a thick fog - I couldn't see where I was going, there was no shining light in the distance, and I could feel myself heading into a downward spiral of depression. If you've read my previous blog post (read here), you'll know that I slowly but surely started to take positive steps to move forward during the last few days of 2015.

Juicing again :o)

Over the past few weeks I have continued to make good progress with small positive changes to my daily life. I am now in a place where I'm starting to feel happy about my life again. My health is starting to improve and whilst I am still struggling with my arthritic shoulder, I have seen small improvements. I feel like I now have a better understanding of what I need to do to help my shoulder get better and accepting that it is going to be a long slow battle is easing my frustration.

Having a fully functioning kitchen has been a huge contributor to me getting my mojo back. I always feel better when I have greater control over what I eat, as I know from experience that what I eat greatly affects my arthritis. Living in a caravan for six months with a restrictive kitchen meant that we were eating foods that didn't take long to cook as the cooker wasn't particularly powerful, and foods that were convenient to store as we had a very small refrigerator. Basically, we lived of a lot of processed carbs like pasta and bread. We were eating some fruit and vegetables, but it wasn't as much as we would typically eat, and there were a few too many treats. My hubby is a sugar junkie and would often snack on chocolates and biscuits, whilst I relapsed on my crisp addiction (although to be fair, I think I was comfort eating as I was unhappy with my whole living in a caravan situation). Whilst hubby would burn of the calories from his vice due to all the physical work he was doing, I on the other hand, developed a rather rounded midsection due to my sedentary lifestyle ;o). However, all that is now changing. We have a fully equipped kitchen and a dining table with chairs, which means that we actually have something to sit on, other than our bed, and that has made the world of difference.

 Below are some of the steps that I have taken over the past few weeks that have resulted in me getting my mojo back;

• Exercising daily: I have made a conscious effort to get back into the routine of exercising daily. Exercising really helps with my arthritic pain and joint stiffness which in turn helps my mobility. Some days I will go for a brisk 40min sea front walk, other days I'll hula hoop or do yoga based stretching exercises at home if I'm too tired for a walk or if it's raining (which it has been a lot!).
• Baths: One of the side effects of suffering from chronic pain is insomnia so I am trying really hard to take regular bath soaks in the evenings to help me sleep better and help with my joint pain.
• Bedtime: To help with my insomnia, I am trying to go to bed at the same time every night and get up at the same time every morning, even on weekends, so that I can condition my body and mind into a sleep routine.
• Food: Now that we have a functioning kitchen, I am cooking from scratch and we are eating healthy, nutritious food again which makes me incredibly happy, oh and there are no crisps in the house! Breakfast toast is now replaced with smoothie bowls and we juice most days so I get a good chunk of anti-inflammatory ginger into my overly inflamed body.
• Cooking in bulk: Because I never know how bad my body is going to be from one day to the next, I have started to cook in bulk. I will often cook enough food to last us for two days and if it's freezable I will make enough so that a couple of batches can go in the freezer. This way there is healthy home cooked food in the fridge / freezer so that we don't resort to ready meals / takeaways. Plus, it means I don't have to cook every single day, meaning I can use that energy to write blog posts like this one :o).
• Medication application: To deal with my flaring scalp psoriasis I have resorted back to a routine of applying my scalp medication daily (read more here). This means having to wash my hair every single day which is an incredibly exhausting task when you suffer from chronic fatigue and exhaustion, but I am seeing such great improvements that it's keeping me motivated to continue. Hopefully, soon my hair will no longer look like someone has emptied a snow globe on it and I can temper the medication application down to just a couple of times a week. I am also doing the same with my body psoriasis.
• Drinking more: To help with my migraines I am making a conscious effort to drink more water. Aside from food / scent triggers, I know that being dehydrated can cause me to experience more migraines and lets just say that having to use a caravan toilet for six months wasn't the greatest incentive to drink more!
• Silence: This is slightly more on the meditative side but I am consciously taking time out of my day to simply be in silence. I sit without the radio or laptop on (we have no television and you can find out why here) and just listen. It is incredibly calming. Being surrounded by trees and public gardens mean we get a lot of birds around our house, especially at the back and sometimes I just stand and listen to / watch them. We also have squirrels at the back of our house and they are always fun to watch.
• Acceptance: I am actively accepting the things that I cannot change and learning to let go of the negative emotions they cause me to feel. One half of our house still looks like a building site and walking through it used to really upset me. The other half, whilst it's progressed significantly, it still isn't finished and not having a single room that is finished really grated on me, but no more. I have accepted that this house renovation is taking a lot longer than we ever anticipated and being upset about it doesn't actually change the situation. There's no point in wasting valuable energy in being upset. I just have to ride it out whilst appreciating all the things that are working, like the kitchen and having a regular toilet and bath. I am also accepting that getting my health back on track is going to be a long journey, but at least I am moving in the right direction now. 

Over the years that I've lived with Arthur (aka arthritis), I've been forced to learn (and accept) that things are just going to go at a much, much slower pace for me, compared to others. Having a mind that is fully functional, but a body that is not, causes a great deal of internal conflict and frustration. I have so many ideas of blog posts that I want to write, content that I'd like to create for my YouTube channel and photographs that I want to take, but alas I barely have enough energy to shower and cook most days. My life now is so different to before Arthur invaded my body. I often reminisce of when I used to have a career that led me to travel the world (well Europe and the US), work crazy hours and always be on the go socially. My world has shrunk so much, as has my identity, but nonetheless, I have learnt to treasure the days when I can cook and shower for I have experienced days when I haven't even been able to do that. Having an attitude of gratitude (and acceptance) is definitely key in learning to be happy whilst being chronically ill.


Love Sheen xxx

Why Today Had To Be Different

Good Day Everyone,

It sure has been a while since I sat down to write a blog post. The past few weeks have been incredibly tough, primarily on the health front, although the house renovation has been another source of stress, and therefore a contributory factor to the aforementioned. I'll do a separate blog post updating you on the house soon as a lot has happened, and not always in a good way!

Coming back to the health issues, I've been firing or rather flaring, from all cylinders. I've been experiencing more migraine attacks than usual, and my body and scalp psoriasis has been going crazy. On top of this, my arthritis has flared up quite badly and I've been struggling with severe shoulder pain, as well as intense fatigue and exhaustion, despite doing very little physically. Things got really bad a couple of weeks ago and after several days of wallowing in teary self pity of "Why? Why is this happening to me?" I realised that I actually knew the answer to why, but more importantly, I took the mental step of acknowledging that no-one could put this right other than me (even though I already knew this too). You see, the thing with chronic illnesses is that you are battling those illnesses every single day, in fact it's every single minute of every single hour of every single day. The battle is continuous - there are no breaks, and it is absolutely relentless! With hindsight and some reflection (after all what else was I going to do when I'm in bed day after day), I can now see that I simply got tired of battling. I had no more fight left in me. I had surrendered, not only to the disease demons, but also to the temptations around me, which I fight on a daily basis.

So with the realisation and acknowledgement that I, and only I, had the power to change things, I...  started to change things ;o). Initially, the changes were all in my head as my body physically wasn't well enough to do anything, but over the last few days, I have started to turn those mental changes into physical action. They started of small, like me taking over juicing duties from hubby or being well enough to accompany him on a supermarket shop, but hey a step in the right direction is a step in the right direction, no matter how small, and slowly I'm moving on to bigger achievements.

Having been stuck in a bit of a negativity rut towards the end of this year, I didn't want to start 2016 on a negative note, no matter how bad my health maybe. And this is why I woke up today after a relatively decent night's sleep with a view that today had to be different. It just had to. I didn't want today, the last day of 2015, to be like the past few weeks. The same mundane routine. There had to be something new and there had to be some sense of achievement, no matter how small.

So the first thing I did was to check the weather forecast as it has been raining almost every single day this month and seeing that rain wasn't forecasted for a couple of hours, I suggested a sea front walk to hubby. We used to do these walks most mornings in Japan and found them to be very therapeutic mentally, as well as physically. Despite living next to the sea we haven't actually done many sea walks as hubby starts to work on the house as soon as he is up in the mornings. There was something very inspiring and awakening about today's walk- I started to feel like a weight was being lifted off my shoulders as I took in the crisp morning air and marveled at nature's beauty. The walk turned into a little breakfast stop off, and hubby and I used this rare quality time (we've had a great quantity of time together these past few months but it hasn't been of good quality) to reflect upon 2015, and discuss what we would both like to get out of 2016. Walking back we did get caught in the rain but it was worth it.

Once back home I took my first ever bath in our new bath tub to help my sore joints and whilst it only made them feel a little better and only for a short period of time, I think bath soaks will start to help the more often I do them. After my soak I made our daily juice and then set to work on doing some cooking. We very recently got to a stage where we have a fully functioning kitchen and yesterday hubby got our dining table and chairs out. This has made such a huge difference to the quality of our lives. So even though I was feeling quite tired physically, I decided to push ahead using my mental energy which was buzzing after the walk and bath, to be productive in the kitchen. I made fish pie, for the first time ever. I even made my own butter and parsley sauce, and it tasted great (even if I do say so myself ;o)). I made a batch of them so some can go in the freezer, and I'll be taking a few to my mum's this weekend as she's recovering from knee surgery (cue good daughter points lol).

I did a few more things that I won't bore you with but suffice to say, as I sit here typing this at 10.30pm on new year's eve, that today has been different to all the other days I've had lately. I have felt positive and got a real sense of achievement with today. Even though tonight is a quiet night for us, I feel excited, inspired and ready for 2016 to be a year of positive change for hubby and I. And on that note I shall leave you. All that remains for me to say is, thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this and all the support you have given me, and I hope 2016 is a fabulous year for you and your loved ones :o).

Happy New Year Everyone! 

Love Sheen xxx

Singapore Vlog Part 2: CBD & Orchard Road

Good Day Everyone,

Today I share with you the second vlog from our stopover in Singapore. On this particular day hubby had work meetings and so I headed into Singapore's CBD (central business district) with him. I thought it might be interesting to show you some of the architecture of the CBD area. In and amongst all of the high rise office blocks there are streets of traditional shop houses which have now been converted into office spaces, cafes and and restaurants. There are also places of worship for the different religions within the CBD area including a mosque and the oldest temple in Singapore, the Thian Hock Keng Temple which is dedicated to Ma Zu, the goddess of the sea and protector of seamen.

Thian Hock Keng Temple

One of the things that struck me the very first time I walked through Singapore's CBD area, back in 2011, were the palm tree lined streets and green spaces. There are lots of small parks and gardens for people to enjoy and have their lunch. When we lived in Singapore hubby always used to say that it was a real joy to step outside at lunchtime, after being cooped up indoors with the air conditioning, look up and see bright blue skies and palm trees, and just feel that initial heat rush. Aside from the shop houses and green spaces, there are also numerous water features, some with koi carp, and art installations around the CBD area.

Water and art feature

Shop houses in the CBD

From the CBD, I jumped on the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) which is Singapore's subway system and headed to Orchard Road - the famous mall lined street for a spot of shopping. Singapore's subway system is very easy to use as it is in English. Hubby and I still had our EZ-Link cards which we just topped up with cash upon our arrival back to Singapore. With the EZ-Link card you simply tap on the entrance and exit gates at the MRT stations. It is a cashless travel card which can be used on the buses too, and is available for tourists to purchase. Apparently the Oyster card system that we now have on the London Underground is based upon the Singapore EZ-Link card. You can see more in the vlog below :o).

Once at Orchard I went to one of my favourite malls, ION. This mall is full of lots of familiar brands like Zara, H&M, Victoria's Secret, Mango, Uniqlo, Muji,and the mothership aka Sephora aka makeup heaven ;o). It also houses a lot of the designer/higher end brands too. The basement levels of most malls in Singapore are full of food courts and lots of different restaurants and cafes. I stopped off at IndoBox for a spot of lunch and to rest my joints.

Malay food for lunch at IndoBox

Orchard Road is home to numerous department stores such as Tangs, Isetan and Takashimaya, as well as all the malls. The road is tree lined and is particularly beautiful at Christmas with all the decorations and lights. If you're not a fan of crowds then the best time to visit Orchard Road is definitely during the day in the working week as it gets very busy in the evenings, and ridiculously busy on weekends. There is always something going on at Orchard Road, be it pop up exhibitions, promotions, events or temporary art installations. On this particular day there was a display of Gundams. The Gundam Series is a Japanese science-fiction anime series featuring giant robots and these were absolutely huge!

  

The shopping malls in Singapore offer a good mix of western and Asian brands, and every year there is annual two month sales event, known as The Great Singapore Sale, which just happened to be on when we were there :o). After lunch I made my way down Orchard Road to Plaza Singapura which is another mall that I use to go to when we lived in Singapore, and this mall had a huge dinosaur display at its centre! I didn't vlog the rest of my day as we were meeting some friends that night for dinner and I didn't think it would be that interesting for you.

I hope this blog post and the accompanying vlog gave you a bit more of an insight into what Singapore is like. Have you ever visited Singapore? Did you enjoy it? I'll be back with the third and final part soon.

Love Sheen xxx

Singapore Vlog Part 1: Dinner & Night Sights

Good Day Everyone,

When hubby and I left Japan, we did a stopover in Singapore where we had lived prior to Japan, before returning home to the UK. It was an absolute joy to be back in Singapore. It felt so familiar and comfortable, and best of all communication was easy :o). Singapore has four official languages of which English is one. Although living in Japan was an unforgettable experience, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy being back in a country where I knew my way around, could order things of a menu without having to resort to a translation app first, and use public transport with such ease that it was as natural as breathing. Oh Singapore, how I missed thee!

The Gateway Building

The Gateway looks two dimensional from certain angles

I vlogged bits of our time in Singapore so that I could share some of the sights and architecture with you. Singapore is a great place for modern, contemporary architecture and is home to some iconic structures. I love The Gateway building which you can see in the photos above. These two structures actually look two dimensional from some angles, almost as though they were made from a thin sheet of paper due to the particularly sharp angles. You can see the first of the three Singapore vlogs below.

As we arrived on the weekend, hubby and I spent some time catching up with my cousin and a couple of our friends. In this particular vlog, we headed out for dinner to the Arab Street area of Singapore where there are lots of colourful shop houses. We had some delicious Turkish food, including this vermicelli dessert that was topped with crushed pistachios and sat in a pool of ever so slightly sweetened cream - yummy! After dinner, we headed to one of Singapore's oldest tea places so that hubby could have his favourite teh tarik - a milky sweet tea made with evaporated/condensed milk that is served in a plastic bag with a straw! The elderly man at this stall has been serving teh tarik for decades and his little stall is always busy.

Vermicelli Dessert

Now no trip to Singapore is complete without a night time visit to the Marina Bay area. This part of Singapore is home to some of it's most iconic buildings and the whole place looks incredible when it is all lit up. I've always felt that Singapore looks particularly beautiful at night, and it's so much easier to enjoy when the temperature and humidity has dropped a little, although I was still a sweaty betty ;o).

Singapore Flyer (ferris wheel), Helix Bridge, ArtScience Museum (white lotus flower shape) & Marina Bay Sands Hotel

Whilst walking off the calories from dessert, we saw that there were numerous Ferrari cars parked outside the iconic Fullerton Hotel (which is a stunning building and used to be the old general post office), and naturally the boys wanted to go take a closer look.

Ferrari on Tour

I hope you enjoyed this little peek into our stop off in Singapore and I hope to have the next post up soon :o).

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: We Are In!

Good Day Everyone,

I am beyond excited to type these words - we have, after almost six months of living in Cora the Caravan, finally moved into our house! We are no longer living in a space that was about the size of our bathroom in Japan. Hubby and I can now move without bumping into/stepping on each other and it feels wonderful :o).

Apologies for the poor quality photo but I've not had chance to take any recently

Whilst the sense of space feels wonderful, the reality is still some way away. The house is very much a building site. We have no internal doors, no finished rooms, nothing to sit on bar the bed but we are inside, and that is the most important thing. It has very much been the weather that has accelerated our move to the inside. The torrential rain was one thing, but coupled with the gale force winds, it was becoming increasingly difficult to sleep in Cora. Especially when we could hear the trees creaking as they swayed crazily above us. Oh the nights when we've laid awake debating the possibility of a tree coming down on us! The wind has been so severe on some days that Cora has actually rocked and swayed herself, and I've wondered if we'd wake up finding ourselves drifting in the sea in our metal home... dramatic I know, but very real in my dream let me tell you!

In an ideal world, we would have liked the renovations to be a bit further along before moving in but the temperature has dropped significantly this week, and with there being no end in sight on the rain/wind front we decided to take the plunge. Luckily the basic necessities are in place. We have heating, hot water, a working toilet, sink and bath (no shower yet), and we have a kitchen sink and hob (but no refrigerator so we continue to use the one in Cora), oh, and a bed of course.

Now that we feel a bit more sheltered from the elements, we can hopefully start to sleep a little better - once we become accustomed to all the strange noises the house itself makes ;o). It also means that we (when I say 'we' I mean hubby, for the most part) can carry on working later into the night and make some good headway in the coming weeks.

If you're facing weather conditions anything like what we have here in the UK, then I hope you manage to stay safe and dry :o).

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: #4 General Update

Good Day Everyone,

I finally have another update on the From Stables To House renovation. If you missed the previous update then you can catch up here. I haven't done an update for a few weeks and there are a number of reasons for that. Firstly, a lot of the work has been a bit more behind the scenes (like sorting out the wiring, plumbing and reconnecting our mains water supply). Secondly, hubby and I have been finding living in a caravan a bit tough lately. We have been living in our metal tin for five months now! Five very long months! The weather has turned colder and we've had a lot more rain recently, which means we barely get any sleep on rainy nights because the raindrops make so much noise when they hit the caravan roof. Even if the rain stops, we then get water dripping from the trees above falling onto the caravan. We are also experiencing some very severe winds at the moment, and being by the coast means we are getting the worst of the crazy weather. I've spent nights wondering if the trees at the back of the house are going to come down on top of the caravan!

Aside from that, we miss being able to take baths and having a nice bathroom... actually forget bathroom, we just missing having a nice home. A home where we have a fully functioning kitchen with a decent sized refrigerator, and our personal belongings around us. Another thing that's been making me a bit unhappy is that our diet isn't as clean and healthy as it usually is. We find ourselves snacking a lot more (on the not so healthy stuff), and opting for the convenience and ease of cooking pasta or eating bread/wraps, given the kitchen limitations in the caravan. I am so carb-ed out right now that I cannot wait until we can start using our new kitchen - I'll be gorging on oven roasted vegetables, smoothies and salads :o).

We now have painted window frames

Finally, we've just had a bit of a challenging time with some of the tradesmen. We've had people accept jobs and then not turn up or turn up a week later than agreed... a whole week late! This obviously has a knock on effect on the works schedule. We've also been a bit frustrated with some workmen just being very careless when onsite. We've had several packs of tiles broken, wires have been drilled through, walls have been damage... all accidentally of course, but nonetheless it still costs us money to then put right other people's mistakes. I guess people aren't that diligent when it's not their money or home that's at stake.We are currently a month behind where we should be and that delay is purely down to people not turning up for work on time and rectifying mistakes made by others.

On a more positive note, we've had our boiler installed and being able to run the underfloor heating is a real joy as a lot of the work we are doing now is inside the house. Things are progressing as you'll see in the video above, and this is keeping hubby and I motivated to push on.

Due to the wet weather, we have been prioritising getting the gutters and drainpipes up. Restrictions from the conservation officer mean that we have had to replace all of the plastic gutters and drainpipes with cast iron ones. As these are quite expensive new, hubby has been collecting second hand ones for over a year now from ebay and various online sites. We've had to buy some new pieces, but overall, hubby's initiative of searching for these months before we actually needed them has helped to keep the cost down significantly :o). In the photo above you can see hubby cleaning up a second hand drainpipe that was painted bright green. Once the paint was removed, we painted it in a rust coloured primer for additional protection from the sea air, before painting it in our chosen colour which is lichen by Farrow and Ball. Lichen is a beautiful sage green that we've used not only on the gutters and drainpipes, but also on the window frames and external door frames. The colour looks slightly washed out on the gutters and drainpipes due to the rusty coloured primer underneath, but on the window and door frames it is a little bit darker and a bit more green. Hubby and I both love the colour and feel that it compliments the natural stone of the building really well with it being quite an earthy and muted green. 

More recently hubby and I have been busy painting the upstairs. The transformational effect of painting the walls and ceilings is quite amazing. All of a sudden we feel that the upstairs isn't too far of from being finished. Hubby has also been working on getting the family bathroom fitted and tiled. As soon as a bedroom and bathroom are ready, we can move out of the caravan and into the house, whilst we complete the rest of the work, and that will be a momentous occasion indeed :o).

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: #3 Stairs & An Exciting Delivery

Good Day Everyone,

We have stairs!!! I recently came back onsite after over a week at my parents to find that our staircase had been installed. This is very exciting indeed! I have not been upstairs for such a long time that I'd actually forgotten what it looked like. As well as stairs, we also had a very exciting delivery. Our cast iron radiators arrived. We took a bit of a gamble on these as we ordered them online without seeing them in person first, but the gamble paid off. These are absolutely stunning - I love them :o). The intention had always been to go for matte black cast iron radiators... until we saw these. We loved how these had a modern twist and we also like the different colours and how they change depending upon the lighting.

Cast Iron Radiator

A closer look (please excuse the dust)

In the above vlog, I take you upstairs and show you how we have split the upper floor. Historically, the upstairs was split into two rooms - one very large open room with a dividing wall and door that led to the smaller room with cupboards and a kitchenette. Each room had it's own staircase.

The old larger room with it's own staircase

Door way from large room into smaller room

Old small room had cupboards & a kitchenette

Old small room had it's own staircase too

The upstairs space is very rectangular and when it came to rejigging the layout we had to work around the existing windows. We were not allowed to change the position of the existing windows nor could we install any new window openings. So we decided that the best way to maximise the space would be to remove both staircases at either end of the rectangular space, and install one that was slightly more to the centre. This way when you go upstairs you could have rooms coming off to either side of the landing as well as in front - it makes sense when you look at the photos below of the new layout :o).

Reworking the space allowed us to create a master bedroom with an ensuite wet room, a family bathroom and two further bedrooms. We were allowed to install skylights into some of the rooms with no/very small windows as they do not change the overall silhouette of the building, thus adhering to the conservation restrictions. The whole of the upper floor is built into the roof space. This means that every room has sloping ceilings, making the rooms feel quite cottage like.

The new layout

The new layout

Originally, we intended to have painted floorboards in the bedrooms and landing, however, most of the floorboards turned out to be very rotten. Not surprising given that the building is over 130 years old. In the end, we managed to salvage about 25% of the floorboards. As our floorboards are so old, they're a different size and thickness to what's currently available on the market. After ringing around a few reclamation yards we got lucky and found some that matched our existing ones. The reclaimed floorboards are from an old hospital, and aside from being dirty, they are in immaculate condition. There are no holes or nails in them whatsoever. In fact, hubby cleaned and sanded a small part of one and the wood looked so good that we have decided to sand and oil them, instead of painting them. Don't you just love it when things work out differently but better?!

I hope you enjoyed this little update on our renovation project.

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: #2 Underfloor Heating

Good Day Everyone,

I never thought that something as nondescript as underfloor heating would ever get me excited - but boy was I wrong! To say that I was very excited would be an understatement. Perhaps it's because summers in the UK never actually get that warm... you can forget about hot! Also, having spent the last four+ years living in temperatures of 30+ degrees C, the thought of actually getting some warmth into my bones was just too much for me to remain calm about ;o).

Hubby and I are always cold. You'd think that having been born and raised in the UK, we'd be accustomed to the climate, but no. You will always find us in front of the fire or sat with our backs to the radiator whenever we are in the UK. Growing up, my bedroom was the only bedroom in the house that, as well as a central heating radiator, also had a gas fire. As a child I was always cold, even in summer. In fact, me feeling cold all of the time was seen as being completely at odds with the rest of my family (who feel warm very easily), so much so that my mum actually took me to see the doctor about it when I was a teenager. She felt it just wasn't normal to feel this cold, all of the time - but it was. This is just the way my body is. My mum has always said that having a hubby who feels the cold as much as I do, was a real blessing for me because now there are no arguments in our house about the heating, unlike when I was a child ;o).

When I used to work (pre severe arthritis) there was a joke in the office that I had the world's most traveled hot water bottle because I used to take her (yes, my hot water bottle is a pink and fluffy 'her') on every overnight trip, and I traveled quite a lot with work. Not only that, but I also used to and still do, take her on every holiday even if it's to a hot climate like Australia or Dubai because often I find that I can never get the air conditioning in hotel rooms warm enough. The thought of feeling cold is just too much for me.

Needless to say that it came as no surprise that hubby and I opted for underfloor heating in this renovation. The idea of walking on warmth pleases me more than I can explain! Not only that, but it also meant that we would not have to have radiators on the ground floor which gives us so much more freedom on where to place furniture, and what we can do with that unoccupied wall space.

Underfloor heating pipes

Now, there is no way that I can write this blog post without giving a massive shout out to my amazing hubby because he laid all of the underfloor heating himself, having never done it before (with a little help from Andy, our carpenter). Hubby spent many nights researching, reading and watching YouTube videos all about underfloor heating.

Insulation being laid

The ground in our house was prepared with a concrete base that incorporated a damp proof membrane. Hubby then started by laying 100mm thick foil faced rigid insulation board all over the ground floor which buildings control came out to check, as this is a requirement in the UK, in order to meet energy saving regulations. 

Ground floor insulated

Over the insulation board, visqueen sheeting (the black sheet you can see in the photo below) was laid to create a waterproof membrane. Hubby then spent days on his hands and knees laying the water pipes in accordance with the design provided by the underfloor heating supplier. Basically, he was creating continuous loops of pipe with no joints, that started and finished at the underfloor heating manifold. Hubby laid over half a kilometer of pipe which was pinned down into the insulation by white barbed pegs.

No underfloor heating pipes under the kitchen island

Hubby created different zones with the underfloor heating pipes so that we could pick and choose which areas of the house had the heating on at any given time. There were specific areas such as the kitchen cupboards, kitchen island and the corner where the wood burning stove would be going in the living room where he didn't lay any pipes as those spaces don't need to be heated. The pipes were then pressure tested with water to ensure there were no leaks. 

Screed being poured with laser leveled tripods

The day before the screeding mix was poured over the pipes, workmen came to place metal tripods all over the ground floor. These tripods were set up to a pre-specified level that the screed would be poured to, and they had been laser leveled to ensure that we would get an even and leveled floor throughout. The screed is a liquid mix which covers the water pipes and sets to form a solid floor that we can then lay floorboards or tiles upon.

Lorry with screed mix

Screeding day was very exciting, particular for hubby who loves all the machines and gadgets involved, and because he'd literally worked his socks off getting the floor to this point. The screed came in a large lorry which was then poured into a machine with a sieve in it to sift out all the big pieces. The liquid screed was then pumped from the machine via a large pipe, into our house's ground floor. You can see it in action in the vlog below.

Once the screed had been poured and leveled it gave the floor a glass like, reflective finish. The screed was then left to set for 48 hours before we could walk on it. As it dried, the floor lost it's shiny finish and became a lot more matte. Over the course of those two days I had a bad arthritic flare so hubby stepped in with the vlogging and shows you the finished floor in the above vlog.

The floor just after the screed was poured

I hope you enjoyed this update. I can't imagine underfloor heating is something that most of you reading this would be particularly excited about but it was exciting for us ;o).

For mini progress updates, don't forget to follow me here on Facebook. The rest of my social media links can be found to the right of this blog post, when viewing on a desktop :o).

Love Sheen xxx

From Stables To House: #1 Living In A Caravan

Good Day Everyone,

If you’ve seen this post (and I recommend you do before proceeding :o)) then you’ll know that hubby and I are currently in the middle of renovating what was once a horses stables into a house. It’s what we have been spending our time/energy/money (and everything else) on since our return from Japan, earlier this summer.

Some back ground on our building - historically, the two part building was a stables along with a gardener’s house. Together, these two properties belonged to a large estate home with its own fruit orchard and gardens. Unfortunately the large estate home was, at some point, knocked down and replaced with a small apartment block. The land has since been turned into public parks and gardens. All that remains of the original estate are the stables (which we own) with the gardener’s house (which our neighbour lives in), and another building nearby which has been converted into a house. From talking to our neighbour and some of the local residents who have lived in the area for decades, we understand that over the years the stables was used as some kind of storage building, and then a vehicle depot before being left vacant for many years.

The old stables block

The stables building we bought is near the beach, in a conservation area which means that the area, and buildings with in it, are considered worthy of preservation or enhancement because of their architectural/historical interest. What that meant for us was that we had numerous restrictions/conditions on how we could renovate the building and the materials that we could use. One such condition was that before any work could begin we needed to call out the batman to conduct a bat report. Luckily for us no bats or evidence of bats was found, otherwise no work could have begun until the bats were safely removed and rehoused, as bats are a protected species in the UK. Other conditions focussed on restoring the building to the way it would have traditionally been. We've had to replace all of the plastic guttering with traditional cast iron guttering, and all of the windows with traditional handmade wooden sash windows. The local authorities want our building to be preserved as close to its original state as possible, so we couldn’t create an opening for a front entrance. To access our property we have to go round to the back and use the entrance that the horses would have traditionally used.

Our neighbour has the upstairs, whilst we have the downstairs

As you’ll see from the Youtube video below, there is a natural divide between our building and our neighbours due to the height difference, with our stables block being the shorter building. However, our building also came with half of the ground floor space that sits under our neighbour’s bedrooms. It’s quite strange because we now own half of what looks like her downstairs space and she owns the upstairs. Our neighbour has lived here for over 30 years so we assume that this is how the buildings were originally split. Perhaps because traditionally, more of the ground floor space was used to keep the animals, with people occupying more of the upstairs sleeping space? Who knows!

When we bought the building it was very much derelict with just the roof and outer walls. The inside was dirty, rundown, damp and falling apart. On the ground floor there were two stair cases, two toilet cubicles (random!), and the space had been subdivided with some rooms bricked up and partitioned off from others, and some of the windows had been boarded/bricked up. Upstairs there was a large room, and a smaller room with a kitchenette. There was also an old garage in the garden. I have inserted photos of what the inside of the building used to look like in the above video. We bought the property with plans to turn it into a family house. We subsequently gained permission to convert the old garage into living space, on the condition that we matched the exterior to the existing building. We had a little bit more freedom to make changes at the back of the building as it is out of public view, so we were allowed to brick up one of the doors and turn it into a window.

The old garage

The old garage being renovated

We have completely changed the layout upstairs by turning the two rooms into three bedrooms (one with an ensuite) and a family bathroom. The upstairs rooms are built into the roof space with low sloping ceilings and small windows. Luckily we were able to insert skylights into a couple of the rooms as skylights are quite a subtle addition. Downstairs there is an ensuite bedroom/study, a living room and an entrance hallway in the double storey part of the building. At the single storey end (the part under next door neighbour’s bedrooms) is an open plan kitchen and dining area which lead on to the main living area (that used to be the old garage).

Dining area (to be) with kitchen area blocked of by the grey bricks to the left

Dining area with bricks removed to open up the kitchen area

The building work started on the property whilst we were in Japan but when our time came to an end there, we decided that it was an ideal opportunity to come back to the UK and live onsite, so that we could manage the project ourselves. It wasn’t easy to manage the project when we were living on the other side of the world, especially with the time difference. Putting our trust and faith into the hands of strangers doing the work was also quite difficult, especially when it involved all of our life savings and more! Plus, with it being summertime in the UK, we thought living onsite in a caravan wouldn’t be too bad.

We’ve been onsite all summer so far and whilst work has been progressing steadily, the renovation hasn’t been smooth sailing that’s for sure! As is often the case with such projects, there have been delays, unexpected costs and problems that just could not have been anticipated. Needless to say, it is costing a lot more and taking a lot longer than we expected, but with all of the structural work now complete, we are finally getting to the stage where we can actually see the progress. This has been tremendous in giving us the motivation to push on. As the temperature begins to drop, and the novelty of living in a caravan wears off, hubby and I can finally see the light at the end of this very long tunnel :o).

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and vlog of our renovation journey. I will share more as things progress over the coming weeks. Have you ever done a renovation or restoration project? What did you renovate/restore? What was your experience?

Love Sheen xxx