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 ...

Still (half) in the caravan ...

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 ...

Kitchen delivery

We were very excited to receive delivery of our kitchen units this week, together with our new fridge/freezer and microwave.  It took Adrian and his dad ages to unpack everything and check every item, before wrapping it all up again.   Adrian just needs to finish the staircase (bannister, posts & spindles - taking much longer than I had anticipated!) before moving on to the kitchen.  I'm learning to pace my expectations, and not thinking each job is just a weekend long!

One exciting thing is that the house has been slept in for the very first time! Bob and Pam have been to stay for a few days, in our brand new guest room, and so the girls have been allowed to sleep in their new rooms, with nice big beds, and much-wanted bedroom doors.  Plus they've enjoyed having bed time cuddles with their cats, who are still cautiously getting used to the new space. (New back door cat flap ordered.)  Adrian and I will get to sleep in our blissfully comfy old bed tomorrow night once Bob and Pam have gone home (although I have to say our caravan bed has been really cosy these past 10 months).

Adrian and Bob have spent this Fathers' Day weekend continuing to perfect the staircase, eliminating all creaks by gluing, biscuit-jointing and screwing up every single step.  Nothing new to look at, but it's good to know it's solidly built!  I should also thank Pam for doing ALL the washing up in the caravan these past few days.  It's been lovely not to have to do it.

Adrian's spent an evening researching and ordering the next batch of required bathroom items: Hannah's en suite toilet, sink and shower, Emma's mirrored bathroom cabinet, the downstairs toilet and sink, our en suite toilet and shower cubicle, and the kitchen sink. Next job, ordering the kitchen work surface (after seeing exactly how the new cupboards were going to fit in), and putting in all the kitchen plumbing before the cupboards can be installed.  The grand project continues ....

Girls' rooms ...

Still in the caravan ... but check out the girls' new rooms - couldn't be more opposite!  They definitely reflect their characters beautifully.

 

 

 

And Adrian has laid the flooring on the landing and guest room which is now almost ready for Bob and Pam coming to stay this week.  We've said the girls can finally sleep in their rooms when there's grown-ups with them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our room still has some way to go!

And downstairs, we've had a big tidy-up in anticipation of the kitchen being delivered in the next few days.

 

All in all, a productive weekend ...