Manky Monkey Motors

Dave and I saw the New Year in, with moans and groans, but not in ecstacy unfortunately, more like in agony!   :(

We were last night reduced to sleeping on the base of our bed, because the mattress had been whisked off it quickly during the day, raced downstairs and thrown onto the dining room floor, before a massive lump of concrete from an old chimney breast fell and possibly damage the wooden floor boards.  For those of you who don't know, we were flooded in August 2006, and the underlay and carpet had been rolled up and thrown outside.  We've had bare floorboards ever since.  Our new mattress arrives next Monday!  ::) 

oh my god. Not a good way to start the new year. At least you are both ok. I have an inflatable mattress you can use if you want until your new one arrives.

did the concrete just fall? or was u and dave planning it?

Good job your Dad's a builder Janie. Give us a shout if you need a hand -oh, & Happy New Year by the way!

The original fireplace and chimney breast had been taken down before we moved in.  On resurfacing our dining room ceiling yesterday, we peeled back some of the old plasterwork to find this offending piece of concrete. It looks like it has been wedged between two wooden joists.  Dad couldn't see what was keeping it up there, and he didn't fancy chipping away at it from underneath.

so we went upstairs, moved our furniture out the way, peeled back the carpet and underlay to find the concrete had a metal pole through it, and it was all just balancing on the wooden joists we had seen from downstairs!  Dad was speechless, he couldn't believe anyone would do such a stupid thing.  In his 45 years as a builder he'd never seen anything like it.

any chance of demonstration on the finer points of sleeping on a blow up............bed taz, ;D

 ::) no but Marcus and PD can as they used them on the clearence weekend.  ;D

I once priced a job of removing a chimney breast to be told that a neighbour had had it done for half my quote so I went and looked at what she had had done.It looked fine downstairs so I checked upstairs to find the rest of it still there and was told there was no work done to keep it up,it was litterally just hanging there.I couldn't get out of there quick enough

Had these sent to me by my step dad Ross. I thought of you when I saw them Janie  ;D

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oh my god!!!!!!!!  :o  Those pictures are just unbelieveable.  Its got to be computer wizardry, surely!

At least we know the guys who are coming to plaster our dining room.  Dave grew up with them, and one of them was a postie in Fleet for a short time.

I was a plaster's mate before I joined the Post Office. That's a plaster's labourer, not just someone he went to the pub with. When nailing up plasterboard, he called me Lightning -cos I never hit the same place twice. :D

pmsl

Look what I just bought!  ;D  Not bad for £400, just waiting for a phone call from the guy to arrange collection.


"ORDER NO. 59!"

nice where's it going? in the kitchen? whats yer kitchen look like then ? :)

er not enough room for that. I'm guessing in the dining room at the front of the house  ;D

Looks cool Janie & Dave. So where do we place our orders  ;D

I'll be very disappointed if we don't get our coffee & Jaffa Cakes served by a rolling skating waitress next time we call in -have you bought Dave the uniform yet?

 ;D ;D That's a very bad bad image I have in my head now. Probably won't be able to sleep because of it  ;D

 :D

and i thought you couldnt sleep no matter what i was wearing. ;D     and andy,why buy what i already have !!!!!

 :o

 ;D

You're a truly scary person Dave. :o

As you can see, we weren't quite ready for this, as we're still decorating. Just minor things like walls to be painted and floor covering to be chosen! But we've got it home and it fits in a treat with what we're trying to create.

And we 'christened' it last night with a chinese takeaway (laughing), just the sort of thing you'd order from a diner! Yes I know it looks like the curtains don't fit, that's because they haven't been made yet, I 'clothes-pegged' the material to our net curtains for a bit of privacy.    Do you see anything in the background Rick?  :D

Here's a close up of the original 50s material I've bought, to be made into curtains at a later date (when i can afford it).

Hi Janie looks great, is that Betty B. trying to put something in your Mums ear :o :D

Janie, Brock spotted this stall on his recent USA hols.

Janie thought i might have spotted BB in her Airflow amongst that lot ???

Cool, loadsa Betty.  Can't see the airflow in the picture Rick.  I do like the large betty at the front though wearing a red headband, wonder what that was - a cookie jar maybe?