Before & After

I just spent time catching up with my friends blog and one of her postings reminded me of something that I was going to post quite sometime ago.  The trouble was I wasn't happy with the pictures after they were taken. 

I have just looked at them again and decided well this is me, this is what I do six out of seven days a week sometimes all seven.  Now most times we don't look at people as close as these pictures are, but this is me.

Those that know me will know that I am self conscious of my receded lower jaw line, due to bad dentistry when I was in my early teens.  The dentist said I should have my back permanent molars removed to give me room in my mouth.  The only thing that did was to stop my jaw from growing in proportion to the rest of my face.  My teeth are crooked due to my jaw problems and wearing a lower splint 24/7 for a couple of years to save my mandibular joint, as I have TMJ (Temporomandibular Joint Disorder).  I now only wear a splint at night just in case I grind my teeth.  I also now have very noticeable tilt to my head due to being rear ended twice in one week in 1989.

This is me when I first get up in the morning (my hair is not layered now) at least my hair was like this a few months ago.  My face always looks like this.  No eyelashes to talk off, spidery blood vessels around my nose and the shadows under my eyes.  I must say though my hair is my own colour, it does not come out of a bottle.  It does look darker than actually is in this picture but the grey doesn't really show, what grey I have.  I don't like this look so every morning depending on what I am wearing I use a selection of these product.

The three products at the back I use after washing my face; a toner, eye serum and moisturiser.  The others are the ones used on this particular day, it looks like I was wearing purple that day. The only item I never wear is lipstick, I may in the winter, wear a coloured lip gloss.

 

 Now I could have chosen any other one of these products, it depends on the clothes that I wear.  I've changed a few items and added some other items, but not much has changed since these pictures were taken.

This is me now ready for work or Church or just to go out.  A few years ago Evette told me I wore too much make up.  Maybe she is right.  But my nose is not red, the shadows under my eyes are gone, I have eyelashes and my hair has a small curl to it.

Laura you reminded me that I had done these pictures months ago.

Out with the old! In with the new!

OK, so I've talked on Facebook a lot about our new boiler system, but it's one thing for me to talk about it but if you don't know what I'm on about, it is hard to grasp the concept of what is involved, the cost and the difference from the old to the new.  That being said I thought I should post pictures of the old system that was, yes was, in the house when we moved in and the new system.

Now we had hoped the boiler would last at least for this winter if not next.  As it is a costly endeavour to replace, but when we called for a service on the boiler the repair man informed us the system was not worth paying to have it cleaned and serviced, at least two sets of burners were no longer working and the others did not look much better.  Actually when they moved the old boiler the burners were disintegrating to say nothing of the rest of the machine.

Now remember we want to try and keep the house as authentic as we are able and can afford, that meant taking out baseboard (skirting board) hot water fin heaters and putting back radiators that are almost or are 100 years old, no way we can afford to purchase reconditioned ones or new cast iron radiators.

This is the old boiler, now it is small considering what is the norm for these older houses.  This unit was built in 1956 (the plumbers found a date on the unit) and was installed in 1957 (we found the original tag tied to one of the pipes).  As you can see the bottom section where the burners are is pretty grungy, and very sooty and mucky. 

The red item is the pump that circulates the hot water, as you can see it is really mucky with lots of oil leakage onto the basement floor.

This round section and another one further down is where they need to connect the new system, because it depends on where they could tie in as to how much the final bill will be (we don't have it yet as they haven't finished).  You will see later that they did manage to tie in the new system to these areas.

This is the hot water tank which really didn't need to be replaced, but we understood that if we were putting a new boiler in then we should put in a dual system.  One that heated the hot water heating system and would also give us hot water on demand and save on our gas bills because we would not be keeping this large tank constantly hot.

This is what the hot water heating pipes look like in the ceiling of the basement.  Where you see the blue pipe connecting to the copper is where the plumber replaced the last piece (at least we believe it is the last piece) of galvanised household water piping that was still in use.  The plumber had run out of red pipe for hot water but said it was just the colour that was different so he used what he had, blue, we just have to remember that that is a hot water connection. 

This, for anyone who is interested, is an old Hillman gas space heater that heated the basement.  All the radiator pipes are in the ceiling and as heat rises you end up with cold feet, when we are down where our TV is located.  This heater is also being disconnected and removed and we are putting a radiator on it's own line in the TV room.

This is the new system it has (I believe) three pumps and pipes galore.  You don't know when it is running as it is very quiet.  At lease it is now, the old radiators introduced some crud into one of the pumps so it was making a bit of noise the other night, I woke Richard up to go and check it for me.

Just another view to show you that that ugly big pump is now gone.  So this small unit not only heats the house but also gives us hot water on demand.

And yes they did manage to hook it up to those round sections that the old boiler was hooked too which is great.

This is just one of the radiators we managed to find and purchase.  It weighs a lot, I can't move it, I watched one of the young plumbers moving it and he had to walk it on those little legs that you see.  This is the one in the basement.  Now it appears to be hooked up but it is not working yet.  This one will have its own thermostat control, especially for when I am down here working or watching TV.  The radiators are dirty, didn't dawn on Richard to use the power washer to clean them off, but they are authentic with the age of the house.  We are hoping this one does not leak.  The largest of the four is in the master bedroom and I noticed today writing on the side which states 'leaks'.  It will mean it will have to be disconnected and taken back to our source and hopefully she still has all the others and will let us pick a different one.  Because these radiators have been taken out of another house, just a couple of blocks away from our own, we do not know until they are hooked up if they leak or not.

These four radiators we paid $700 for them.  Richard went and got them, one at a time, in our vehicle and brought them into the house placing them in the rooms where they would be hooked up; at least three of them.  The fourth one, which is the one that leaks, he strapped to the appliance dolly and walked home with it, that one he had to get help with getting it upstairs, needless to say he is a bit, no, very upset that that is the one that leaks.  So if you are reading this and have one of these radiators and would like to give it to us, please let us know.  I'm not sure if the lady we purchased them from will let us choose a different one once we tell her the reason why we want a different one.

I'm sure this saga of our radiators is not over yet.