September achievements

Adrian finished the staircase beautifully with a couple of coats of oil and (non-slip!) wax.

 

 

Next was cladding the porch ceiling (leftover flooring!) and installing lights... great to have now that the evenings get dark so much earlier.

 

Project Bridleways continues ...

Now that we're living in the house you might think that we can put our feet up for a while.  Not so!  There is SO much still to do in order to finish every room, many of which still have even no flooring.  (The rooms not in any way finished are: our bedroom and ensuite, the utility room, downstairs bathroom, study, family room and entrance hall.)

On a different note, can you see where we've had two beautiful owl 'splats' on the new window?  No bodies found to date, so hopefully they'll get used to the new glass without any casualties.

Due to the tragic Shoreham Airshow crash which was right next to Adrian's offices, Adrian spent his first day back after the holiday working from home, in the temporary office of Emma's bedroom!

Shoes were one of the final thing to retrieve from the caravan (up 'til then entailing many more disorganised daily trips up and down the garden path, in the rain), and Adrian's super shoe rack is doing a great job of keeping everything tidy in the new hall.

If you look back at my earlier blogs you will see progressive pictures of the downstairs bathroom, sometimes with no roof, sometimes no door.  It is great to have a second toilet plumbed in, as long as you don't mind sharing the room with a table saw!

Another simplification of domestic life is the retrieval from the awning of the washing machine and tumble dryer, now plumbed into the (otherwise untouched) utility room.  Much easier to sort laundry when it's all under one roof.

We are also looking forward to work on the outside starting in a couple of weeks, beginning with the front driveway.  Time to make our house look a little less of a building site!

We're in!

Back from a lovely holiday, and we were able to unpack our suitcases into the new house, rather than the caravan, which was a big milestone.  It took a few more days to get the kitchen ready for use (Hannah did sterling work wiping out all the dusty drawers and cupboards), and for a while the dining table was still in the Garden Room meaning that we had to carry our meals back down the garden - often in the rain - which didn't feel much like progress.  But, we have now had a week of (sort of!) 'proper' dinners, eaten in the extension at our dining room table. And, much to her delight, Emma has been able to do proper baking - yummy biscuits made so far.

I was adamant that my first food shop after our holiday was going to be unpacked in the new kitchen, not the caravan! This meant, for a few days, collecting ingredients from the house and transferring them back to the caravan for the final few days of cooking there, but at least I no longer have to unload my shopping with a wheelbarrow down the garden!  (I will also have to readjust the scale of my shopping now that I am no longer limited by space.) 

This first food shop was made all the more urgent when we returned from holiday to discover that the awning fridge/freezer had lost its power and all the contents were off.  I was so disappointed that my efforts at being organised (freezing milk, ready for our return, together with several days worth of meals) had all been thwarted, wasting a huge amount of tasty food - including much ice cream!

 

First home-cooked roast dinner in over a year - such a treat! 

 The TV is quite hard to watch from such a ridiculously long distance!  Also, we have found the acoustics hard to get used to in the new extension as everything now seems so boomy. (But great for music, as my first rehearsal with friends recently proved - just like playing in a chapel.)

 The cats have got a new meal place too - and a new cat flap in the utility room door which they are still getting used to.

Adrian is pleased with the LED strip lights hidden along the tops of the walls which create a lovely warm glow.  (The girls are glad that the family computer has finally made its way from the garden room to the house so that they no longer need to traipse down the garden.)

Beautiful kitchen taking shape

Adrian's week 'off work' has been incredibly productive, even including packing for our holiday!  The extension flooring has made a huge difference to the space.

Won't be too long before we can put furniture in and start filling the kitchen cupboards!

Skills in the kitchen ...

There has been a huge amount of diverse skilled (high risk!) tasks for Adrian to do in order to fit the kitchen ...

Tiling the cooker surround and fitting the extractor hood.

 Sanding and shaping the acrylic worktop, which came in two long lengths.

 Cutting out the sink space and routering draining board grooves.  (The white 'snow' is all the acrylic shavings - which attached themselves to everything!)

Plumbing in the new tap.

Biscuit-jointing together two huge pieces of oak worktop to form the kitchen island

 

 Routering a smooth curve to form the final island ('butternut squash' shape!) .

Moving everything out of the extension and kitchen ready to lay the flooring - including a big sweep. 

 

Boxes of flooring stacked up in the hallway awaiting action!

Next steps

Over the past few weeks I've spent quite a bit of time clearing up brambles and stinging nettles which had become a bit hazardous.

We've not been idle. All of the storage boxes from this downstairs room have been transferred either up into the loft, or into the adjoining 'furniture & kitchen boxes' storage room, to create space for a temporary 'shed' and decorating equipment storage.

This is an example of the amount of cardboard we recycle on a weekly basis, taking trailer-loads to the tip.

These boxes of salvaged parquet flooring, together with all our old kitchen cupboards, have been cleared out of the Rectory garage which is now completely empty of our stuff.

This is a selection of the oak flooring samples we've requested - almost enough to do the whole extension!  Such an array of choices.

The girls are now on their school summer holiday so it's nice not to have the usual daily routine.  And they are both enjoying spending time in their own new bedrooms.  (Emma's the first of us to get an actual wardrobe which she's very pleased about.)  We've enjoyed welcoming several family and friends to visit over the past few weeks which has made a nice change from the chores we're supposed to be getting on with! I've also managed to step back a bit from my responsibilities at Findon Village Pool (thanks to a number of fantastic new volunteers) but am still doing weekly supervisor sessions, instead of getting on with house painting.  The pool supervising gives you a better tan - weather permitting!

One Year On

No blog for a long while.  Partly because progress has been very gradual, and partly because I've been feeling a bit fed up.  Having paced myself to cope with the situation for up to a year, we now find ourselves looking at months before completing the whole project.  Yes, I know, it will be worth it.

Adrian's dad helped us with the kitchen plumbing (routing the drainage pipes through the utility room) ...

This is where we were up to at the end of July.... lovely outside lights installed, kitchen cupboards in, and the extension very much a workshop space ...

So, for those who were expecting my next blog to be a finished house ... NOT QUITE YET!  Adrian now has a week off work to stay at home working on the house, before we go on a well-earned family holiday to France for a bit of a break.  Adrian has promised me I won't still be cooking in the caravan by the time we get back ...