Dave the Builder, Vic the Decorator: Can they fix it? Yes they can!

We didn't get Sunday lunch until 9:00 pm the night before the carpet fitters arrived but we were ready.

 Three years ago we changed the interior plans very slightly to accommodate the Tapley furniture we have had since 1994 and is very much part of our home.  

Will it all fit in?

And here's the answer!

The walls are painted 3 shades (not 50) of grey and on the floor is a Sutherland Tartan carpet.  We were struggling to find the carpet and so contacted Andrew & Sarah MacNeil (a Peterhouse friend) who have lived in Edinburgh for many years - they put us in touch with Tom Forsyth at TartanCarpets.com - we have thoroughly enjoyed some very jolly conversations and e mails with Tom, who has quite a sense of humour!

 And here is the flooring in the kitchen - Amtico - shamelessly copied from the Deans who have had some in their entrance hall for about 10 years now and it still looks terrific.  There was a big debate about which way to lay the planks but in the end Vicki bowed to the opinion of David, Martin and Brad (the carpet fitters).

The carpets are coming a week tomorrow

The carpets are coming a week tomorrow and we still have 23 essential jobs on our critical list to be completed in the next 7 days.  However, we are making big strides now and the absolute excitement of this week is that the internal doors are being fitted.  Through searching on line (having visited a large door showroom in Ferndown where they were less than helpful) I came upon IQ builders Merchants who had exactly the sort of thing we were looking for - almost flush (to keep the dusting to a minimum) but with a little bit of interest.  I started an on line chat with James Bellett who has been fabulous throughout, answering all my questions and helping us to sort out some bespoke doors (for the cupboards) and also to locate some glazed doors of a similar design but from another company, which we can paint white.  

The doors between the lounge and the dining area have 

Parliament hinges (ie they fold back 180 degrees, 

which was the compromise as David wanted it all to be 

open plan and I thought it would be useful to be able to 

shut rooms off sometimes).

We have bought the door furniture from Spillers Architectural Ironmongery in Yeovil (we found them last year when we were looking for some coat hooks for the boat which could withstand salty conditions).  Fitting the doors is quite stressful for David; the doors are very heavy and as the surface is pre-finished he can't make a slip with a chisel in hand.  The first door took ages to fit as he had to set up a jig to cut the holes for the hinges but the rate of progress is increasing with each door.

An update on progress in Bedroom 1 is that the varnishing of the worktops is now finished (it has been hand sanded between each coat; this is now fixed in its final position.

In the centre of the floor you can just about see the grids from two of the speakers from the lounge which are being sprayed with paint in exactly the same Dulux colour as the wall in the 'chimney' breast has been painted - ordered from CJ Aerosols.

Finally, this is a speaker hole in the 'chimney' breast in the lounge.  This is lined with old car sound insulation from Frost Restoration - which will hopefully prevent the other residents of Tinneys Lane from being forced to listen to Wagner.

Livening up the Kitchen

The shelves in the kitchen, made from a worktop from Worktop Express were oiled, (as recommended) with Danish Oil.  However, it is also suggested that this should be repeated every three months - as though that would ever happen.  Jane and David Dean, have also just remodelled their study using the same worktop, but being very eagle-eyed came across Le Tonkinois varnish at the Boat Show.  This contains only natural vegetable ingredients and again is Linseed and Tung Oil based; being used on boats, it has the added benefit that should The Great Fludde ever re-occur, at least the worktops will survive (or more likely, having a glass of wine spilled over on them).  So this is what we are using for the top of the fitted furniture in Bedroom 1.  The first coat has gone on very nicely indeed - thank you Jane and David.

We had tremendous excitement this afternoon with the arrival of the glass splashback for the wall behind the hob in the kitchen.  Kathy from Opticolour has been extremely patient, whilst Vicki finally made up her mind as to what colour(s) this was going to be.  Here are the two fitters from Opticolour, carrying a 3.5 metre length of glass (which was surprisingly bendy) - rather them than me!