Well, we thought we’d spent a lot of time sanding and painting at the end of last month.  Think on!  This month has been torture, 8 hours a day 7 days a week of more of the same.  Worth it?  You bet.

We needed to vacate our bedroom for the works to continue so we managed to squeeze ourselves into bedroom 2 along with all the furniture from all the bedrooms. Chests of drawers, dining room chairs, spare beds stacked up, mattresses and pictures and mirrors.  You can see from the picture of Cheryl drinking her morning cuppa that we were literally climbing into bed.  However, it was for only 3 weeks and helped us make monumental progress this month. 

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It started with Paul finishing off most of the plastering in the dining room, hall and in our bedroom.  We discovered more names written on the walls but not clear enough to be able to make out who it was but one was definitely dated 1957.  Cheryl stripped the wallpaper off the wall between our bedroom and the ensuite to reveal that there was an archway there many moons ago.  This was probably when the house was split into two apartments but we’ve given up trying to understand things in the house.  The stripping was going really well until one wall revealed the dreaded many layers of painted wallpaper lurking beneath the top layer……aaarghhh!  2 days later it was gone.

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Then Climax windows arrived with our French Doors and proceeded to install them.  It took a few days but Andy the builder made very little mess and they now look great.  The area just outside is a real suntrap early in the evening so we’ve been making a lot of use out of the new doors.  

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Afterwards Stacy arrived to remove and brick up the old door and he also brought Jake the chippy who started to install skirting and architrave to those naked areas.   Finally Paul returned to make good and plaster the wall in the living room.  Wow, we have a living room again.

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This house has been through many iterations which means that the profiles of the woodwork vary.  In one case, the bullnose skirting in the kitchen varies from about 3’’ to 6’’.  Jake installed 3’’ to match the skirting in the pantry area but Cheryl decided it should match the opposite wall near to the door from the hallway.  ‘No problem’ said Jake, ‘I’ll get some tomorrow morning and fit it’.  So, next morning he wrenched off the low profile skirting only to get showered.  The day before, and without knowing it, he’d nailed up the skirting and put a nail through a hot water pipe.  It wasn’t his fault there was a pipe in the wall but we think his pride was hurt.  In hindsight, it was probably a good idea for Cheryl to want it changed as we would never had known until the pipe slowly began to leak, possibly several years down the line.

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While all this was going on Imran and Paul arrived to fit the carpets to spare bedrooms and we managed to give ourselves a bit more breathing space by putting some of the chests of drawers and beds into the spare rooms.  It’s amazing how putting a bit of carpet down and putting a bed on top makes the whole house feel likes it’s lived in rather than a building site.  We also finally had rooms that were complete, curtains ‘n all – woo hoo! 

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By now things were flying.  We were putting in even longer days to be ready for more progress.  The hallway, dining room, living room and our bedroom & ensuite were decorated.  Endless days spent sanding old woodwork, filling holes, more sanding and painting, painting, painting.   The dust and mess got everywhere, especially when the last remaining door downstairs was taken out so we could prepare the opening for the new ones to be fitted.  The new ones haven’t been ordered yet – but we’ve been living without doors for so long now we don’t even notice.

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Finally the day came for the flooring installation.  The kitchen floor was a mess of concrete in the pantry area where the house had been extended years ago and the original old floorboards in the main kitchen plus another patch of very uneven concrete which was the base for the AGA.  The main floor was overlaid with plyboard and then the whole lot covered in a latex based screed to level it off and left to dry overnight. 

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The next day the kitchen floor was fitted and the carpets laid to the living room, dining room and our bedroom. From chaos to order again, after lots and lots of cleaning and dusting. The bits and pieces of furniture look a bit lost in the rooms and we do need curtains, lampshades and all that stuff. We’re also looking forward to putting up some pictures on those very empty looking walls.

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Now to move onto a completely different subject.  You will know that for the last 12 years we have escaped the UK winter overseas and spent the UK summer in our touring caravan.  We have loved living a mobile life, exploring some of the finest scenery in the world and been to places we’ve never been to before.  Alas, no more, our wandering days are over…..for now.  With the house project taking over our lives we decided to sell the caravan to concentrate on our new home.  Then lockdown came and we thought that that was the end of it, we’re never going to sell the van now.  Wrong!  It has been sold, for a good price, and it’s to become the winter residence in Spain of a newly retired biker from Durham.  It’s a long story, but he’s paid his money and he should be collecting it in early August.   

What a month we’ve had.  We had originally planned to take our time and do things in a sensible order but you all know what happens to the best laid plans.  We’ve had to grab whatever trades were available and when we couldn’t get a decorator we had to roll up our sleeves and get on with it.  From what seemed like ages waiting for things to happen we then went into a frenzy of activity to keep up with deadlines for fitters & deliveries.  We’ve had so much to do we’ve hardly left the house………..we got out more during lockdown! 

We now have a nearly normal house and realised yesterday that we last sat down in the living room at the end of February. We will get the new doors fitted downstairs but the rest of the renovation, including the main bathroom, bedroom 2, study and hall, stairs and landing will be done as phase 2. There’s still plenty for to do now but it’s the pleasant stuff like choosing new furniture and getting the finishing touches and a bit of colour here and there. 

Enjoy what’s left of the summer, take care and stay safe!