TOILET FINITO

Snow. Yay!

Let it snow

A touch of the white stuff is the perfect excuse for slacking off DIY or anything else. Schools out. Cancel those trains. Call out the gritters. Everything grinds to a halt if so much as a flake falls. Although quite a few large flakes fell across the rooftops of Chi recently, the flurry lasted almost as long as a wine gum.

As the only way to keep warm is to continually move about (heating’s for the rich) then it’s back to El Boggo for what I hope may be the very very last time.

With the templated pine-board primped to an inch of its life, time for the moment of truth. And breathe. It now sits proudly on top of the back-to-wall loo unit, fabulously covering all our bodged handiwork as I hoped it would.

Painted panel fits perfectly across all units

Stand back to admire the end result. Definitely passes the ‘Fusspot’ Test. All units brought together in perfect harmony with a piece of painted pine. Who’d have thought it!

Almost looks like one whole ready-made unit

Plenty of space for all that toilet themed reading material, knick-knacks and the regulation potted plant beloved of interior designers showing off room layouts.

Add finishing touches

I guess it’s time to show off my poopy palace in case anyone out there wants to copy the idea for themselves. After all, the best ideas are those you’ve nicked or should I say ‘borrowed’ from elsewhere.

Anyway, if you did fancy a toilet like this one then here’s how to pull it all together. On the left-hand wall, there’s a vintage wooden mirror rescued from a charity shop for a second life in our heavenly haven. I toyed with the idea of a large circular mirror as these appear all the rage in bathrooms of today but felt that the lovely geometric design of this old boy would fit in better.

Given a second lease of life

Keeping to that geometric theme, a couple of gold metal hexagonal shelves fixed to the wall space next to the mirror. I think these shelves co-ordinate well with the gold shapes on the wallpaper. You can find similar ones on Ebay or Amazon for less than £15, in different colours too. Not suitable for very heavy objects as the frames are quite flimsy but you could use it to display a small potted plant.

Gold metal wall shelves

Gold coloured vintage style light-pull handle purchased from Ebay. Nice and solid to hold. Goes well with the other gold-coloured fixtures.

I like the solid feel of this light pull

Splash out on a few special items for a touch of decadence such as these wonderful swan loo accessories I bought in a sale from Anthropologie. They were the closest things to flying cranes I could source but look fabulous on the wall.

Anthropologie Swan towel holder

The only thing that’s a pain, is the toilet roll holder which does stick out quite a way from the wall and thus has a tendency to catch on your arm as you sit on the throne. Would have been a better design with the bar positioned closer to the wall.

Sticks out way too far from the wall

On the right-hand wall, a couple of framed Metropolis posters. You could probably also get away with some nice oriental themed artwork to go with the flying crane wallpaper design or some Japanese style bamboo wall fans. Be as creative as you like with your wall space, you don’t have to follow the herd.

Metropolis

And so, after almost 12 months in the making, I now declare this downstairs loo totally and utterly finished!

Finally finished

POLICY OF TRUTH

One interesting development to come out of this year’s Budget on the back of the continued freezing of tax thresholds is what to do about all those oldies whose only income comes from the state pension as they inch closer and closer to the tax cliff edge.

The Chancellor has said that people whose ONLY income comes from the state pension will not have to pay tax or at least not pay it until the year 2030.

Really?

Now I’ve highlighted the word ONLY because how is the Treasury or Revenue going to ascertain that you don’t have anything other than what the state provides to live on? Unless there is going to be some kind of ‘income assessment’ carried out on the over 65/67s then the Government has to rely on citizen truth and in my mind fessing up as to where you got your ‘readies’ from could be very nebulous.

I’m not saying old people are liars but almost everyone would do anything to avoid paying unnecessary tax including stretching the truth a bit. It’s not so much as ‘lying’ but the sin of omission. That cash-in-hand cleaning job, a few quid now and then from the kids, spare room or driveway rental, selling junk at the local car boot every week. I’ve even seen Silver Deliveroo collectors in the queue at McDonalds. I’m sure they’re not doing it for the love of or to combat loneliness but to supplement their retirement income.

Rachel then went on to explain that SMALL tax sums would normally be collected via a Simple Assessment process completed by the Revenue and we all know that nothing that ever spews from the mouth of HMRC is ever ‘simple’.

This time, I’m focussing my attention on the word SMALL in her statement. What would be classified as a small tax sum that would not be worth the administrative hassle to collect? Are we talking fifty quid or a couple of hundred?

There would have to be a benchmark amount below which any tax due could be excused or above which, the tax would need paying. For clarity and fairness, you simply cannot apply a random approach to this issue. A numerical line needs to be drawn somewhere because if there isn’t one then a pensioner falling into this category is always going to be living in fear of a brown envelope landing on the doormat with a tax demand.

Let’s look at this situation with a practical example. In this example, the tax threshold has been frozen at the current level of £12,570 until the year 2031.

Just for arguments sake, I’ve decided to increase the state pension amount every year from 2026 by 4% (slightly less than this year’s 4.8% increase). An increase of 4% would boost the annual state pension by about £500 or so every year.

Next year, a person with ONLY the state pension to live on would be £22 under the tax threshold. However, from 2027 onwards a 4% pension increase gives rise to taxable income. If the income tax rate remained at 20% until 2030 you’d lose a fifth of your income in tax.

So, back to my question – at what point would you send out a tax demand? Do you let people off a couple of hundred quid or not?

Multiply that couple of hundred quid by millions of state pensioners claiming they’ve got nothing else to live on and suddenly that’s a helluva lot of tax going uncollected.

Fairness doesn’t really come into it because a part time worker earning the same amount in annual salary is not going to be let off paying small amounts of income tax because it’s too much of an administrative hassle.  Definitely not.

Freezing tax thresholds was always going to give rise to this scenario so it should have come as no surprise to whatever party is in power. They should have already been working on a solution to this issue rather than now being caught on the back foot.

It remains to be seen how the Government take this forward. Will they:

Consider a form of Income Assessment for all pensioners? If they do, this could lead to a means tested state pension with lower amounts paid to those who paid into private pension schemes.  

Set a Tax Benchmark Amount to define which tax liabilities will be excused.

Or alternatively, will they create a new separate Tax Code purely for those pensioners with no other forms of retirement income but then you’d have to go back to the first point to identify those who qualify for a tax exemption and continue to re-assess their income until they no longer do.

The Chancellor is taking a big gamble relying solely on the policy of truth to determine how to take this forward.

If you didn't spot the article on the BBC website, you can access it in full from here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cev8ed9klz1o

SMORGASBORD

‘Invitation, please.’

‘Invitation? But I thought this Smorgasbord was for everyone.’

‘Not everyone madam. Just those with the broadest shoulders and besides, the event finished two days ago. Now clear off. And no, you can’t have a doggie bag.’

Well for those of you who bothered to sit in front of the telly Wednesday lunch time to watch the Budget, I can tell you it was only marginally more entertaining than Bargain Hunt only there were no real bargains to be had unless you’re the fifth child in a deprived family or a bingo player. Eyes down, look in as bingo duty scrapped!

If you happen to be a rich smoker, drinker, gambler who lives in a palace and drives an EV then my advice would be to downsize, trade your motor in for a dirty diesel and give up all those filthy little habits. This budget is homing in on you like a heat-seeking tax missile.

Let’s just say, I breathed a huge sigh of relief at not having to contend with any new levies, duties, taxes that hadn’t already been rumoured or leaked out prior to the main event which of course, thanks to the Office of Budget Irresponsibility was pretty much everything. Whoever pressed that ‘publish now’ button on their computer is in for a good kicking.  You just couldn't make it up, could you?

What this does mean is that I can still afford to continue my wood panelling project since there are no additional levies raised on home improvements or MDF. Phew.

Now that the budget dust has settled, we can all get back to those all-important Black Friday sales or Crimbo shopping. Even super scrimpers like me get seduced by the ‘dark’ side of Black Friday.

My rock n roll deals - a couple of discounted bottles of wild rhubarb floor cleaner (Amazon) and cheap tickets to the Jurassic Park Experience at Battersea Park (Wowcher).

Woo Hoo! Gotta love a bargain!

CORRIDORS OF POWER

Not content with having lots of niggly snagging to do in the downstairs toilet, I’m already percolating a new DIY idea for the corridor.

Exploring these posh country estates always gives rise to delusions of grandeur, inevitably leading to what I like to call a statement refurb project. Secretly, there’s a Mrs Bouquet in all of us and I’m no exception. I want a posh gaff even if I have to do it myself!

After a millionth trip to the downstairs loo, I looked around our corridor and naturally my eye was drawn to all those vast empty wall spaces. 

It's all a bit plain isn't it?

Surely, there’s something I can do to elevate this seemingly plain corridor into something grander.

This corridor needs to make more of a statement

How can you bring the best out of plain, boring old walls? Bit of MDF wood panelling, that’s how. It’s Changing Rooms all over again. Laurence, where are you when I need you most? I think it’s time to bring back this show.

Anyway, back to business. Wood panelling always begins with a tape measure, pencil and paper. The last time we embarked on a similar voyage was 2018 in our old house but I’ve slept since then so it’s a case of searching through the vintage blog vaults to see how I tackled this before.

And to add to the MDF challenge, our corridor is full of kinky bits which are going to make things a lot trickier to deal with than if we just had a couple of nice long walls. Still, if we can make a corner bookcase then we can do some kinky stuff. I’m always up for a bit of kinky even at my age!

How do you panel around kinky bits?

But first things first. Golden rule before rushing off like an over-enthusiastic puppy chasing a bluebottle is to draw up a cunning design plan.

Now, where’s that empty cereal box as I need to come up with a panel plan then raid the coffers before the Chancellor does.