What a difference a year makes ...

It seems so hard to think back to this time last year when were all in the caravan and spending our daytimes in the garden room.  We were perfectly fine and cosy, but it is SO lovely (and far less complicated) to have our own space now.  Here are some pictures from October 2014 and 2015 to show the difference a year makes ... (at the time we remember thinking "what ARE we doing???"!

 

 

 

 

A year of VERY hard work by a great team of people.  Maybe we'll be completely finished this time next year??? !

October update 2

We have just installed much faster broadband this week, and now updating my blog is SOOOO much faster, taking just seconds to upload photos, rather than hours.  Hopefully I will once again keep up with regular updates.  Much credit is due to Adrian who has had a huge amount of work travel over the past few months (Japan twice, Paris, China) but still manages to spend every spare moment doing so many jobs around the house: we now have a kitchen door and dining room door which - very importantly - enables us to keep the cats OUT of the kitchen (otherwise constantly scrounging!). 

And, in anticipation of this weekend's lunch for 16 people, Hannah helped Adrian move the huge pile of unpainted skirting board which was taking up space in the dining room.  It is now in one of the unfinished front rooms, after most of the contents were transferred up into the loft (or sorted for our next car boot sale).  A lot of shifting stuff around!

We've also transferred the piano and drum-kit back from the garden room so that Emma can do her music practice in the comfort (and fab acoustics) of our lovely extension, rather than traipsing down the garden.  (Luckily for us she can use headphones, on both!). Time for duets is a lovely luxury.

October celebrations

It's been so lovely finally to use our new space for what it's intended - entertaining family and friends.

The first party was actually at the end of September: an 86th birthday party for a special village friend, Jeanne.

 Next it was Dad and Emma's joint birthday dinner.

And the Cake Master at work in his new kitchen.

 

 

 Then Emma invited 12 friends for a party in our new house ...

 ... followed by a sleepover with five friends squished into her new bedroom!

 And a beautiful sunset from our new bedroom window.

Next on the cards is Jen's 40th birthday Family Lunch for 16 this weekend!  Plus a Halloween Dinner with cousin Liz and family in half-term.  After a year in the caravan we have a lot of hosting to catch up on!!!

October update 1

Kitchen plinth lights installed - very jazzy with lots of different colour and phasing options!

Adrian had to retrench the mains water pipe (enduring jet-lag from Japan and a rugby World Cup hangover) before the driveway wall could be built.

Brickie neighbour Paul did a lovely job of our curved walls to edge the driveway.  Step one in the lengthy process of tidying up the front entrance.

 

Still lots to do before we can finally fill the area with gravel, including constructing the garage base ready for that to be built next year.  (Hannah impressed Adrian with her trigonometry helping to mark out the dimensions and angles.) We must also dig up the old concrete garage base at the side of the house so that the gravel level will be below the damp proof course.  In the meantime I've raked out the biggest rocks and stones so that it's slightly less of a hazard getting to the front door.  And cut back more brambles so that Paul could work without too many lacerations. No room for error when reversing into the driveway now!

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.)