Bye Bye Egg Box Doors

The perfectly functional sapele effect eggbox doors are now in the wood-to-be-recycled skip at the tip - thanks to Mum & Dad for helping us get them there!
Instead, we have 9 oak veneered doors (FSC full CoC of course) with stainless steel furniture & heavy duty hinges.  We've owned them since December as I bought them when on offer.  I talked Phil out of fitting them himself - he is perfectly capable, but it would take him about 1 day per door with lots of swearing & frustration.  Found a chippy who gave a great quote, but his order book was full - hence only just fitted!  It took him 2 days to do all 9.
We then varnished them all with a satin clear varnish.  "We" was mostly Phil - I only managed to do 1 due to time constraints.
Very pleased with Mel & Tony's suggestion to put a glazed door on the kitchen which gives a weird dark corner in the hallway a little bit of natural light.
One more to sort out - the carpenter found out that although B&Q don't do the 2' width version, the manufacturer does, so we can get the airing cupboard done too.

Bedroom Furniture

We ended up getting IKEA freestanding furniture for the main bedroom having spent lots of our time talking about fitted units - partly because we couldn't afford the gorgeous wardrobes inspired by our friends' home in Winchester.  And I think that although it wasn't our first choice, it's worked out better as it keeps our bedroom feeling big and spacious - something about being able to see the wall behind.  There's enough space for Phil's clothes plus a chair (essential jacket/jersey/belt temporary storage!).  In an ideal world, the wardrobe door would not wobble when pulled open, but I think we can live with that!

Thanks Mum & Dad

I couldn't get the tallest of these 3 blue vases in our local IKEA - but my parents managed to find it in their's - so we now have the full set.  I wanted a little bit of colour for the room & blue glass on the windowsill delivers this nicely.

Bedroom - all done bar the wardrobes

All that's left to do in our bedroom now is to buy & put up the fitted wardrobes & iron the curtains.  The former task won't happen until after Christmas & I'm not sure when I'm going to feel like the latter - anything that need ironing in my wardrobe is rarely worn!


The oak effect laminate made a big improvement when it went down - I'm hoping that this will be our default flooring for most other rooms in the house.


Really pleased with the new bedside cabinets.  I have been trying fruitlessly to get hold of the same Habitat series cabinets as the bed, but admitted defeat.  These are John Lewis ones - but they go rather well with our bed.


The walls are more grey than I hoped - but the shade seems to go well with the oak wood colour.


We now each have a bedside lamp - something we never had at Edward Avenue!  Tried to keep to the vaguely 70s retro thing going on with our bed - and the house!


The thing I'm most pleased with is the pendant lampshade - chosen by Husband.  Plain hessian kind of thing when unlit, but has a fabulous bamboo design when lit.

4 unfinished rooms

John the Builder finished his first stint with us yesterday - so we now have an unfinished en suite, unfinished bedroom, unfinished lobby & an unfinished utility room - note the theme.... 


The lobby & utility are waiting for new exterior doors (John's sourcing).   Everything else is now at the level where we need to get the paint brushes out & ask Tony to start the flooring.


The main priority is to get the utility room finished as much as poss before John comes back in a couple of weeks as that will be our mini kitchen whilst proper kitchen is destroyed & replaced.

However, I think we're going to focus on getting out for a day this weekend - and then maybe some gardening.  Even I have to accept we've been jamming too much into weekends recently.


We spent most of last weekend shuttling green wardrobe doors, old bathroom & utility units to the household recycling centre (aka tip).  


Really appreciated Sunday's lunch guests taking the corner bath there for us in their estate car as I don't think it would have fitted into the Panda even after husband sawed it in two...

De-Greening continues

John the Builder started work today on the main bedroom & the en suite bathroom.  


He was very complimentary about our wallpaper removal work - very much appreciated as we only just got it finished in time.


I left the house for work just as he was ripping off the lovely green louvre wardrobe doors - great to see them all gone by the time we got home!


He's sorted out a sagging ceiling, but has found some electrical nasties to get sorted in the loft - nothing major though apparently.

Wardrobe doors are now outside waiting for me to take them to the wood bin at the tip at the weekend...

Lots of visitors & de-greening commenced

My running buddies came over this weekend to use the house as the start point for 2 extra curricula runs.  The long drive is perfect for warming up with a little screening from passers by, but being on top of a hill is rubbish for ending a long run - so mixed performance as a running base.
The house performed better on Wednesday when my 2 colleagues came over for lunch & to do some planning - so good for work.
And it did fine today when Adam came over to have a look & eat crumpets with us.
Lots of time stripping wallpaper from Main Bedroom today - it's so time consuming when it is covered in paint & doesn't respond to a steamer.  Still, the room is nearly de-greened....