Here is the new mirror in the living room.

This next picture shows that we're still living in what looks like a building site. The dado rail has just been fitted and the decorator is due to start on either this Monday or a week Monday. I can't wait to get the carpet down afterwards.

Carpentry

Two carpenters were working at the house on Wednesday. We've had the dado rail fitted in the hall, stairs and landing and they've also fitted the frame and door for an airing cupboard in bedroom three. One of them will be back next week to finish the airing cupboard and fit the skirting in the kitchen.

We had thought that getting someone in to fit the dado was a bit lazy but now it is up, we're so glad we didn't attempt to do it ourselves. There are way too many corners or angles for us to get very wrong.

Now we're just waiting on the decorator to give us a date to start then we'll be able to order the carpet, which is a stage I thought we'd never get to.

Plumber, Carpenter & Decorator

Plumbing - Finished (almost) on Friday so we now have the water softener working, the cloakroom all plumbed in and the bathroom is just waiting on a replacement hose and thermostat valve, which were faulty.

Carpenter - We think we've got him booked into to do the dado rail in the hall stairs and landing and airing cupboard in 3rd bedroom for Wednesday but haven't yet had this confirmed.

Decorator - If the carpenter can do his work on Wednesday, we can book the decorator if we can decide on what we want. Am thinking Dulux Overtly Olive for the wall paper at the bottom and something like Natural Calico for the plain wall above.

Some finished rooms (now and before)

Here is our lovely living room. Quite a transformation from a year ago. All we need is a mirror to go above the mantle piece.


Here is the kitchen. This turned out way better than I could have imagined and we spend most of our time in here. It still needs skirting board and a proper pot for our big plant.

This is what it was like before.

And this is what it looked like at Christmas last year. Needless to say we weren't living here at the time.

The studio is finished!

So good to have another room finished. The flooring was fitted today and as you can see Alan has already started setting up his equipment.

And a view of what it was like before

We've just got to saw the bottom of the door off so we can rehang it and we're ready to rock!

I know it's been ages...

However, looking for a new job and planning a wedding, then starting a new job and getting married slowed us down a bit on the house front. We figured that as we hadn't killed each other doing this big task then we might as well commit to each other forever and become our own little family.



Hopefully we're going to be moving a bit faster again with the house, as the (almost unrealistic) target is to have carpet down before we freeze in the winter.

The electrician has finished. We've had some more plastering done. The plumber has been back and we've had the paint brushes out. The next room to be finished is Alan's studio, which just needs the flooring fitted next Friday and we can start moving stuff in ready for Alan (no pressure here) to make some fantastic music so we can both retire on the royalties.

The cloakroom is about half way there but getting the plumber back is proving to be rather difficult, even though he left a leak in the bathroom that needs sorting pretty sharpish.

I think our next priority is going to be the hall, stairs and landing and we plan to get a decorator to help us out on this one, as our spare time is becoming so precious now I'm working more.

We had hoped to do something with the garden too, as it gave us a right shock when we returned from our honeymoon. Everything was at least two foot high! Instead of working on it, we use the meadow by the river as our front garden and try to forget the jungle we seem to be cultivating so well at the back of our house. It'd be lovely to have a garden we can use but the house definitely takes priority right now.

This is the only house picture I've got available at the moment but I'll get some more soon.

A couple of favourite things in the bathroom

An update on the kitchen

The flooring was done last week and it looks so much warmer now. When I took this picture, only the undercoat had been put on the walls. We're in the process of finishing the painting. We really love this room and have already had some friends round for a bit of dinner. It is great to cook in and we can easily spend the evening chatting at our borrowed kitchen table.

This one is for mum

Here are the curtains you made us. We haven't exactly done them justice with the hanging but at least I'm certain that they'll stay up. Yet to finish off the hems but they'll get done some time. We're really pleased with them and they look great with the furniture. Thanks!

We're in!

After an exhausting Sunday lugging the bed (in bits) to the house and a few car trips, we've moved in. Could have really done with a lie in this morning as I now have muscles where I have never had them before.

It's taken over four months to get to this stage. The house is far from finished but now we're in there, it'll be easier to work in the evenings. I'm not sure how much I'll update this blog now for two reasons. I haven't yet moved the computer in and for security reasons, it's not a great idea to have a all of a furnished house displayed on the web.

A real house!

I'm amazed, at last it is actually looking like somewhere we can move into. Over the last week so much has been done.

We've almost finished painting in the living room (it looks a bit pink here but isn't) and the fireplace was fitted yesterday so we'll soon be able to have open fires. Some chairs would be good but we have some great floor cushions that my Mum made.

The gorgeous bedroom furniture has arrived but we've not moved them into place yet.

We now have a kitchen sink after months without one.

I haven't disapeared

There hasn't been much to update but I plan to post some pictures soon, possibly next week. Workers have been in to do plastering, putting up a ceiling in the 3rd bedroom and working on the kitchen.

We've been painting the living room so the fireplace can be installed next week. Just the glossing is left to do this weekend. The sofas are arriving end of Feb/early March.

By the end of today we should have central heating for the first time in well over a month and a water softener and radiator in the kitchen. Next week the kitchen tap and hob will be installed, finishing off the fitted kitchen. We've got a few quotes for the flooring and the plaster should be dry enough to paint soon.

Happy New Year!

After a few weeks off for the holidays, work has started again. The kitchen units have arrived and are being fitted. Also, the water tank has been moved from the dodgy beams above bedroom three so it won't fall through the ceiling any more.

This is how the kitchen currently looks:
Unfortunately there was no time to paint the walls first as the rendering and plaster needs a little more time to dry. We also have a few issues with the state of the plastering so I'm hoping that they will come back and touch up some bad parts.