I haven't blogged for a while as there's not really been much to report as we trundle along our ambitious journey. We are now sleeping in the house, which is nice, although this comes with the complication of being woken up early by the girls' cats demanding breakfast, after 10 months with them sleeping separate from us in the garden room and having to wait to be fed when we chose to get up. The early wake-up calls are becoming tiresome! You might suggest shutting them (the cats, not the girls) in a different room, but we don't have all the doors fitted yet! And the girls are really enjoying having bedtime cuddles with their precious pets.
I've also come to the conclusion that I much prefer cold weather in a cosy caravan, compared to the recent hot temperatures in a confined metal box - especially when cooking. It's been a real struggle trying to keep the garden room and caravan cool this past week (29 degrees in the shade). In contrast the house has been remarkably cool (now that we've put makeshift curtains/sheets over the windows). Our daytimes are still spent down the end of the garden as the house has no downstairs rooms done yet.
However, Adrian has finally completed the staircase construction which will eventually need oiling (and two more bottom spindles after the design slightly changed and he ran out). It really does look beautiful.
I really hadn't appreciated the amount of work involved in this and the many hours required for so many technical details. (No wonder buying a staircase would have cost so many thousands of pounds.) As an example, these pictures show how between every single spindle Adrian had to cut and fit a piece of wood to fill in at the top, and also on the bottom along the landing.
Next job, plumbing in the downstairs toilet before we have a houseful of visitors to stay next weekend. Not sure how Adrian's going to do this as he's away again for some of next week, but he always manages everything somehow. This is why I've stopped asking 'when will everything be finished', because he can't work any harder than he already is, and things will be done when they're done. The kitchen will just have to wait a few weeks. I'll write another update soon ...
