Regular readers (I know – but there may be one or two??) will remember how hard we all worked a few weeks ago doing lots of decorating, especially finishing off the lounge, with lots of help from Becks and Phil. Well this weekend daughter number two came home. And she brought her creativity with her. So…

I’m a little worried because last week we painted the kitchen – Charlotte hasn’t got started there yet so maybe we have dodged a bullet there.

We actually had a request to do a post – our first request. YAY!!! But there was an ulterior motive – the post had to include the ‘Room of Shame’. Well its not really our fault – we are still waiting for the floors downstairs so haven’t put lots of furniture out and haven’t been able to put out lots of our possessions, books and photos…and we have to put it somewhere. 

Maddie and I have been living with the build for over seven months now, and while the house is now more than habitable – and even approaching becoming a home again, the whole thing has been really exhausting. So last weekend, we took ourselves off for a weekend away at Lymington on the South Coast. We’ve been there before, staying in a pub called the Bosun’s Chair – largely because of the pies they serve for dinner!

So we did our bit to live up to the idea of the mad English and headed down to the beach. Not too sunny and very bracing, but incredibly refreshing, relaxing, peaceful, and absolutely lovely to spend some quality time together away from the pressure of the house.

So we had a night in the pub watching a not-at-all tense game of rugby against the French, eating pie and drinking beer. Then after a hearty and thoroughly deserved (no honest) breakfast, we headed off to the nearby Exbury Gardens. They are probably much more colourful later in the year when things start to bloom, but a day strolling  about beautiful woodland away from the crowds did the two of us the world of good.

And there were some splashes of colour around – lucky I discovered a close-up mode on the camera.

It’s been a long time since I posted here – as I said last time, essentially the build is finished and we are down to finishing touches – there are just a lot of them. We haven’t touched what used to be our garden – so there is a fair amount of landscaping to be done. But the biggest change left to happen is the wooden floor which will go throughout the open plan space downstairs. Once we have done that we can empty the storage units and make the house feel even more like our home. In the mean time we are spending a fair amount of free time decorating. The girls have been home over the past few weekends, so Charlotte and Chris mucked in as we decorated our old bedroom.

Then Becks and Phil have been home over Easter and have gone mad with the white paint. Between the four of us we have pretty much covered all of downstairs. Just the kitchen to paint downstairs – it needs too much careful taping and dust sheeting to protect all the work surfaces so that will be a job in itself. But the downstairs looks amazing. Much, much lighter.

And we’ve stolen an idea we saw on the TV during the week and painted the surround of the roof lantern a different shade – and what do you know, it looks fantastic.

And for those of you who have seen Maddie and I decorate previously, will not be surprised to hear that we have had a bit of a match pot frenzy – unlike us however, we made a decision in a single day and so won’t be living with patchwork walls for months on end as we have in the past. 

Second post this weekend and back on the house project. After a pretty quiet week, the week just gone has been anything but. The biggest change has been the second fix of electrics downstairs. So we now have lights downstairs and working electrical sockets. No more extension cables or temporary lights hanging from any convenient surface. And it makes such a difference.

The tiling is all done in the new bathroom, just waiting for the grouting to be finished before the shower and the heated towel rail are plumbed in. But we are really really pleased with how the wall and floor tiles look.

And Maddie and I have been able to do something . So we’ve spent this weekend painting. Partly so that all of the downlights can be finished off, partly in advance of the new staircase going in, which we hope will happen this week, but also so that we can achieve something ourselves in our new home. At the moment we are painting everything white – ultimately we’ll be adding some colour, but until the house has finished and we have lived with it for a while we aren’t going to know what colours will work where.

And as you can see, we’ve had the bifold doors open today. Its hot and smelly work painting. The cats however seem a bit confused as to whether they can use the big 5 metre hole in the wall to come in and out rather than the cat flap. Bless.

We are getting towards having rooms complete… very exciting! Our bedroom has been painted. White at the moment, while we live with it for a  while and work out what colours we can have where. Maddie bought some of those day light bulbs, but it felt much like what I imagine standing on the surface of the sun (possibly not as hot) – so we’ve replaced them with warm lights. But other than the carpet, which won’t be in until the staircase is fitted, our bedroom is pretty much there.

And the new feature in the view from our bedroom window – the flue is up and that can mean only one thing.

Yup – our new multi-fuel burner is in and it is fantastic – as is the chimney breast around it. Not sure about the pink – but that’s the colour of fireproof plasterboard… Mark Cunningham is the man who sourced and fitted the burner and built the chimney breast around it. All in one day!

And the installation of the burner coinciding with us finally getting all of the radiators fitted. So we have all the central heating up and running again. Did lead to a slightly eccentric Sunday afternoon though.

Few other rooms moving on – in the upstairs bathroom we gave up on the sinkless approach – the tap looked odd on its own… The loo is plumbed in and the guys are hoping to tile it in the coming week before fitting the shower and the towel rail next weekend. The downstairs loo is plumbed in. No lights and no door as yet – so still a bit of an adventure. And the utility room is set up. Hopefully second fix of electrics downstairs in the next week so we will have lights and sockets sorted for the whole house.

Finally, Maddie found a couple of photos of the builders and her new duster. Sometimes I don’t think they take everything seriously…  🙂

Plenty of space, not really any oddities – but this week it felt appropriate to take artistic licence with the Post title.

So we are entering the final few weeks of the project now (I think). There are probably fewer major changes now to see, so only a short post this week, but every little step moves us a bit closer and gives us a better of idea of what the new places is going to be like to live in. So the new third bedroom has had a lick of paint and its curtains put up – and even though it is just primer it is staring to look like a finished room. The bath is plumbed in to the new bathroom as is the tap for the sink – although in an interesting development in bathroom design, no sink as yet…

We have had the girls home for the weekend – a bit manic yesterday when plumbers and plasterers descended, but the guys have pulled out all the stops to clear space for us. So we have been able to use the lounge – ok only half of it and we had to share it with a mountain of plaster, but boy is it a light room!! The dining room space is also opened up and the final kitchen units put in around the fridge freezer. And finally, Gareth fabricated us some folding doors to hide the boiler and pipes in the utility room, even doing some simple router detailing.