We came prepared for the next weekend. After the abject failure to secure all necessary units in person the week before, we'd decided to place an online order for the following week to ensure it actually all turned up. Happily it was another sunny warm spring weekend so much of the assembly was done outside. …
Kitchen Week 1
Morning arrived with a great disgorging of the car. The kitchen and utility were stripped of their plastic coverings and one last tile stuck down ready to be forever covered up with a cabinet. For now was the time to start filling the rooms up and to get creative with cabinetry. Happily flat pack is …
Load Star
With layouts and battle plans drawn up and the electrical work finally finished it was time to make our move. All the Ikea order numbers were meticulously itemised and researched ready for us to go in and order. Thus we set off on a Friday night for a supper of meatballs and flatpack. It started …
Treading the Floorboards
One point of irritation has been the complete lack of anything to stand on in the dining room. Seeing as it sits between the front door, utility and stairs, it's almost impossible to move around the house without going through it. Thus, with the underfloor heating up and running it was possible to make strides …
Going for a Dip
Part of the restoration of the house includes the doors. Most had been covered with a layer of hardboard to mask their character in the last renovation; one which largely escaped this treatment was the kitchen door leading on to the utility. Coated in several thick coats of paint, it had survived fairly unscathed, including …
Meanwhile in the shower…
Alongside all of the rest of it, the shower's been ticking over in the background. Bits of pipe added. Plasterboard stuck on. Holes cut out. Radiators bought. Cisterns ordered. LED light strips sourced. Like a gathering storm it's all been coming together. Hopefully, just like the storm, lots of water will arrive from overhead at …
Setting Up Shop
We had spent a long time planning the kitchen layout. What to put where, how much storage we wanted, how the appliances should sit, seating and dining, lighting and how to tie the kitchen in with the utility. We’d made plans on paper, the back of envelopes, online planners and CAD models. We’d scoured countless …
Poor weather starts play
The snow started late Thursday evening. The forecast had promised some the week before but it never materialised. Imagine our surprise to wake up on Friday to a foot of thick fluffy white against the dark pre-dawn sky. Here's our lovely little village bathed in pow.
Paint and wire
Not very exciting this stuff, but important. Beth's been waging a campaign of whitewashing everything. If it doesn't move fast enough, her brush will smear it. Walls, windows, doorframes, ceilings, beams... Nothing is safe. And everything is starting to look lovely. Meanwhile, the wires are all strangely shrinking and divesting themselves of sheathes and being …
Papering over the cracks
Literally. Whilst the boiler was being manhandled, the walls were being womanhandled by Beth and Mother. The downstairs walls and ceilings were a bit of a mix of good, okay and flaky, particularly after the old wallpapers had been stripped off. The dining room ceiling in particular was a mess of old pain flacks and …
Chez Pouget 