Two steps forward - but one step back!

 Firstly on a very positive note - the downstairs cloakroom is coming on and we have even put our first ornament in the house.  David still has to enclose the waste pipe from the upstairs bathroom but we now have the basin fitted along with a glass tap, as suggested by Ocean Bathrooms (when it gets manky you just lift it off and pop it in the dishwasher!).  The tiles were challenging to work with (they are 1m x 1m but only 3 mm thick) - needless to say we broke one which resulted in a delay whilst another one was ordered.























The lounge is now plastered thanks to our cheerful chaps from Adorn Plastering (Charlie has been replaced by Harry) and is drying out nicely.  However, due to the stunning weather this week, we opened the lounge patio door on Wednesday, the door dropped and the wood near the hinge at the top has cracked.  This was reported at 08:30 on Thursday morning, despite constantly chasing our old 'friends' at Ecohaus Internorm, two full working days later, we are still waiting to hear what their plan is for us - or even if they are going to pay us a visit to see the damage in the near future.  We believe that this door is too large for the tilt and turn mechanism.

Anyhow, David is making excellent progress in our bedroom.  The units have been supplied (as they were for Bedrooms 2 & 3) by Terence Ball Kitchens but we are putting an oak worktop (from Worktop Express) as believe this will be more durable and will also match in with our oak bed frame (still to be bought), the door and the step (which David is just fitting in this photo).

Finally, last night we had a visit from Marian & Gordon MacLean - being such old friends we didn't mind experimenting on them - so the steam oven was used for the very first time and we all seem to have survived the experience.

Lots of bits and pieces - but nothing very glamorous

Today we have hit another major deadline - plasterers are due in the lounge.  There has been an enormous amount of preparation work for their visit as the lounge is quite a complicated room, wiring wise.  It isn't always easy to keep up morale as none of the jobs show anything pretty or finished but all are vital - anyhow, we will move onto more glamorous jobs soon.

This house has minimal height ceilings as we had to follow the building line from the top of Woodview down to the top of the bungalow.  The roof is very complicated and in two halves - the lounge and bedroom 1 above it, are lower than the rest of the house so there is a step down into both of these rooms.  Here David has built up the step (which covers over the underfloor heating very nicely) and filled it in with concrete.

We had originally planned to have a chimney and a log burner but this added a significant amount to the cost of the build and as this is such a warm house, we decided we definitely didn't need the log burner for its heating qualities.  However, the lounge is quite long so we decided to keep the idea of a 'chimney' breast to break up the wall, but have turned this into a TV breast, so the television will sit in there and will be flush with the surface of the wall.  A much anticipated trip to Richer Sounds in Bristol (just up from David's old BBC stomping ground in Whiteladies Road) resulted in the purchase of a TV and speaker system.  

Three of the speakers are also being built into this recess (and will eventually be spray painted the same colour as the wall); you can just about see from this photo where David has built plywood frames for the speakers - the TV is going where it says 'DONT).

Here is a close up of the speaker recess, lined with sound insulation, before the plywood frame was added.

And here is the frame in the ceiling, just beside the doors to the dining area, for the one of the remaining two speakers - making it truly surround sound.

Because we can, we decided to have the curtain track hidden in the ceiling.  Whilst Vicki is quite happy to have a go at the study and bedroom curtains, the lounge curtains proved to be a bit too much for her limited sewing skills so these are being made by Dodge Interiors in Sherborne.  David made this mock-up panel for Daphne, to ensure that the curtains will fit inside the ceiling recess when they are bunched up.

Almost there - David has even put a little piece of wood to keep all of his cables in the socket holes, nicely out of the way for the plasterers.

And here we are ready.  Whilst we managed to do the ceiling in the kitchen, having seen the four strapping lads who are the plasterers, we decided that some things are just not worth it - so we have left the ceiling for them to plasterboard.  Note in the bottom right hand corner, the plasterboard doesn't go all the way down to the floor; this is so there is a cable run behind the skirting board to the chimney breast, keeping everything very neat and tidy.

And finally for now, progress is being made in the downstairs cloakroom.  We have some large (1 metre square) but very thin (3 mm) Grespania tiles which have proved to be a challenge (ie we broke one, so had to put this job on hold whilst another one was ordered as we didn't have any spares).  But, the wait was worth it and they do look very smart - we now just need to touch up the paint and the cloakroom will be finished this week - watch this space!

The Plumbing is Finished

We could not be more grateful to James Cook from ProPlumb and his apprentice, Chris, who have been with us to tidy up the last few remaining jobs.

It is never easy or satisfying clearing up someone else's mess (here they are trimming down the outside down pipe from Ensuite 1 which had been left bulging away from the wall), but these two worked with total professionalism and unremitting good humour to sort things out for us.

Thank you chaps - I am just about to give you a glowing review on Check-a-Trade!

Garden Furniture

The Boat Show, which we have been visiting for many years, proved once again to be an expensive day out for us - not from any nautical purchases but it is the place to find bargains for the home as well.  One item purchased will not be delivered until April (more about that then), but we did treat ourselves to some new garden furniture as well.  Our garden is pretty tight (we would not have had room for a leaky caravan had we needed somewhere to live whilst the build was happening), so we needed some compact furniture.  This fitted the bill perfectly measuring 1200 mm square.

Four chairs fit underneath the table, which when pulled out enables you to flip the back up.  Stored in the top part of each chair are three cushions (one for the seat, one for the back and one for the stool); the stools are stored in the lower part of each chair - so, hey presto, seating for 8 people of 4 people with a footstool.  This very clever design comes from Oakita.

The Cavalry Arrives

The troops arrived this weekend to give  
moral and physical support to our project.

Annabel and Vicki attacked the decorating in the study (yes we know the ceiling isn't plastered but that is to have a 'removable' ceiling at some future point so that we can access all the important plant in the roof void).

Meanwhile Andy (cool eye protection wear) put noggins in the ceiling in the lounge ready for plasterboarding in a couple of weeks.  Andy thoroughly enjoyed 'playing' with the chop saw - Christmas and Birthday presents are going to be easy from now on.








And now for the finished 'bespoke' shelving.
The two bottles, sitting in splendid isolation on the wine rack, being already empty, are for demonstration purposes only - but we look forward to putting these shelves to full use.  The upper shelves are for Cookery Books and the middle shelf is a charging station - no more hunting around the house for where we left our phones!