That sink!

Well, it arrived today..... a bit unusual, but nothing special.........hmmm.

A Blanco Modus M-90 in Anthracite Silgranit apparently!















Maybe this makes the point a bit better!!!! IT IS HEEUUGE..... What a beast.



The oven is nice, but pretty ordinary in comparison - hopefully they'll deliver the other one soon!



Geoff has had a busy day! The porch looks great even without glass and a roof.


And the Bow window looks nice all lit up!

Tomorrow is BATH DAY!!!!! Wahey.

Painting... at last

It's been a busy weekend. The main room plaster has dried so we have been painting - the first time I have wished we didn't have the vaulted ceiling with the Velux!

Anyway, the electrics are progressing - although not fast enough!! This is the current meter and fuse board.....


Soon to be replaced by this monster!!!

We've started stripping the stairwell since it was a mixture of fresh plaster and textured wall-paper.

Here is the main room in it's new white livery - I need a wide angle lens !!!!


Some of the kitchen units are here, ready and waiting


And on Saturday this arrived. We were worried that it woudl look huge in the house, but it looks quite small - maybe we should have bought a bigger one ;-)


Yes - this was that much fun to paint.



Parlo has been putting skirting boards and architrave on - what a difference it makes. Now it's starting to look like a room.

Completely Plastered.....

The rear porch is the only major bit of build left to do. We're going for a flat roof to save some money, but the top half is conservatory style - just waiting for it to come from the window company and be fitted.


Here is the cupboard at the top of the stairs. It's a bit smaller than we hoped because the landing needed cutting down to give us clearance up the stairs for building regs, but the cupboard in the bathroom is pretty big which will make up for it.


The ensuite. It looks a bit cramped on the photo, but it isn't in the flesh - the gap into the cubicle is 800mm wide.


This is the secret door at the bottom of the stairs so we can get things up without going round corners.


The main room - not my best photo, but it's all plastered now.


The new front door - it's brown on the outside to match the windows.


All those wires..... New consumer unit is huge to accommodate them all.



The new drain outside. Inspected and passed yesterday so ready to be finished off.



All of this is (almost) just in time. The fridge comes tomorrow, the appliances Monday and the bath on Tuesday. Flooring is booked in for 16th feb - we've found a really good deal on Amtico at T J Flooring (via eBay)

Honey Oak - Ground floor (except snug):



Ceramic dark tiles - bathroom floor:

Jan 16th Update - almost plastered...

Well, downstairs is practically plasterboarded. We are just waiting until Gary the sparky comes on saturday and he can hopefully finish up the kitchen area and Geoff and the guys can finish plaster boarding the big room. The bathroom is boarded and we have a little cupboard at the top of the stairs.

Hopefully not too much electrics work to go, apart from the big switch over when we stop using the old board and cables and move to the new (as yet unfitted) consumer unit - which will be huge going by the cables hanging in the front hall..... then we can get the new light fittings up and have something other than a single bulb in the main room.

Cooker hood is due today, going to order the fridge this afternoon, ovens, sink and hob on order from Biasco due week after next, bath due next week (in stock, but no taps yet), flooring company coming on sunday to measure up and show us some samples, and Hilarys are coming on wednesday to measure up for blinds...... should be a busy couple of weeks.

Plus the rear porch should start going again next weekend and when the wind dies down we'll get Geoff to replace the ridge tiles and do the last of the flashing on the rear roof.

January update - visible progress

These pictures were taken on 12th december last year. You can see how much cable has gone into the main room...

Some plasterboard was up, but not a lot.

The woodwork is the false ceiling to level the main room and hide all the beams.

This is the vaulted ceiling. We have 2 lights going on this vertical wall so we can put up some pictures.... gonna need a long feather duster!



On the 19th december it looked like this before we went away.



By the 10th jan it looked like this:
This is the re-instated snug wall with a new doorway.

The doors to the front hall and the kids room.

The guys working in the main room - you can see all the plasterboarding on the ceiling. This is the the only light in the room!

The vaulted ceiling and Velux look really good now.

This is the new door from the rear hall into the main room. Going through here is pretty risky at the moment as there is almost no floor whilst the soil pipes for the downstairs loo are re-laid - they used to block as they join another pipe - urgh....

Recycling in action - the door from the kid's bedroom does duty as a temporary back door. At least we're warm now. Thanks to Joe and Eric from Churchtown plumbing and heating for getting the new boiler and tank up and running last week. Upstairs was warm straight away even running the rads at the 50 degrees the UFH uses, but after 3 or 4 days the UFH has really started to work and downstairs is comfortable in a t-shirt most of the time now. Considering the state of the back door and that the front door hasn't been fitted completely, and we have no internal doors, that's really good news.