Two and a half weeks?!

Yes that’s right. We are moving house in 2.5 weeks and at this stage we aren’t particularly confident that the house will be liveable, so it’s likely we’ll be staying with Sarah’s parents for a short spell.

That being said, this weekend things have moved on leaps and bounds.

We managed to find time to travel up for the weekend and on arrival we were excited to find the bifold windows in place!

Landing to balcony

Bedroom

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Plus the first fix electrics and plumbing have been taken care of. Now we can see where the shower head & controls are going to be.

It’s all rather exciting!

But that’s not why we were there. It was time to actually get stuck in and do some work for ourselves because the kitchen walls and ceiling were plastered and the floor was tiled, so it was timed to get the first paint on the walls before the kitchen fitting begins!

Saturday am

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Doorways

After the small trickle of construction in the last post, it feels like the flood gates have opened. There has been some further progress in the kitchen which I’m sure is not as major as it feels, but it feels huge.

The door between the dining room and lounge has been blocked up and the party wall has been constructed between the kitchen and the WC – also forming the new kitchen doorway. Now we can really see the shape and size the kitchen will be.

 

 

 

The holes left by the chimney in the dining room ceiling and floor have also been covered over. Now we will find out if we have enough spare wooden bricks to complete the parquet floor.

We’re off to Edinburgh this weekend for a friend’s wedding, so we’ll stop at the house for a couple of days on the way home next week and get to see the changes in person again.

More destruction

The destruction continues!

May dad sent me a message today asking if there was any more progress on the house. “Nope” I said, only to be proved wrong when Sarah got home and declared “The chimney’s gone!”.

It’s extremely exciting to see and hear about progress happening, but also really frustrating that we are so far away from it that we don’t really know exactly what’s going on and where it’s at.

Sarah’s mum sent us photos of the progress. The last portion of the chimney has now been removed meaning there is a hole all the way from the roof to the floor of the cellar.

Dining room floor

The cellar is slightly more roomy now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As well as the de-struction there has actually been a little con-struction happening. A lintel has been installed in place of the arch that used to separate the toilet from the rest of the bathroom. A partition wall will be installed set forward from and overlapping part of the existing one to allow space for a small basin to be installed. They have also added the brickwork and lintel which complete the new doorway from the kitchen into the hall.

Taking shape

We don’t know the order things will be done in at the moment, but I’m hoping that they’ll make good all the downstairs rooms before starting to work on the upper rooms and roof. That way we’d be able to think about some decorating during Easter or the May half-term. That would mean some rooms would be almost finished! Too much to hope for?

Pass the Sketchup Please

With the demolition started we’re beginning to get a feel of what the space in the kitchen will be like. This combined with a trip to a potential kitchen supplier has got us starting to think about the specifics of what it might look like. Any excuse for me to play with sketchup will do, so at the weekend we sat together in my office and got to work modelling it out.

Like this maybe?

We’ve got as far as choosing the colours and the placement of the tall units, but we don’t yet know how we’ll arrange the other units in-between.

The tall unit on the far right will house the fridge-freezer, the next one will house the oven and likely a microwave in the cupboard underneath (Sarah prefers it to not be visible) and the far left unit will be cupboard space, probably for things such as the vacuum and ironing board.

For the wall units in between we will most likely include some open shelves for glasses, but we are unsure whether we’ll split them all into two rows of vertical doors, or have standard cupboard doors.

There’ll be a dishwasher under the sink’s draining board, probably bins under the sink itself and then deep pan drawers below the hob.

The built in seating area and table were Sarah’s idea. She’d like us to eat together in the kitchen both for some evening meals (to get us off the sofa and away from the TV!) and for breakfasts at the weekends. It also gives me somewhere to sit and keep her company when she’s in the mood for baking. I suspect we’ll use the dining room occasionally too, but it will probably mostly be for when we are entertaining.