En Suite Bathroom Finished

Drum roll......


En Suite is finished!  Our first finished room.


We removed the old suite - which included a corner bath too short to stretch out in and a leaky loo.  The carpet and a goldfish shower curtain were also consigned to the household recycling centre.


We kept the tiles - and managed to find a very close match to add in where needed.  The light, mirrors, towel rail, radiator & shelves were all good - so we kept them too.


Additions were:

• Large shower cubicle with a low profile tray and sliding doors.
• Thermostatic mixer shower, that thanks to the megaflow has a decent level of oomph.
• Oak vanity unit 
• Tile Loc flooring
• Non-leaking loo! 

It all works and it is so much more enjoyable to use than the blue, daylight free bathroom.

We moved into the main bedroom this week as we welcomed our very first overnight guests - my Fabulous In Laws en route home to Torquay after a long birthday weekend in Vienna (many, many thanks to Xis!).   Really good to be sleeping in a nearly finished room, but I'm so looking forward to having a kitchen so that we can be proper hosts.

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...

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....

Gardener has begun

If I didn't work full time, I'd love to have spent 3 months lovingly restoring the bindweed overgrown herbaceous borders that dominate the back garden - but sadly, we really don't have the time.  


Given our rat issue, we decided that living with the overgrown beds until we could find the time was not a great idea - so we've called in a landscape gardener who started today.


The guys have done lots today - all the plants are out although I think there is some work to do still on getting the roots out.

Boulders have appeared that were buried in the undergrowth - not entirely sure what to do with them, but I'm hoping that the gardener has some ideas...


We entertained our second visitor on Sunday - and this time, we managed to feed our guest!  James came over for lunch in between fishing and cycling - loved his ideas about using glass bricks, but I don't think that they are Husband's taste!

Our First Visitor!

We have hosted our first visitor!  "Hosting" may be overstating a tad as G was very wise and generous, bringing curry to heat in the oven rather than us cooking. 
But a major milestone nonetheless!
We ate in the dining room for the first time having given her the grand tour. She was very complimentary about the house - good to hear!