The Forever House - overdue update

by Roz

So it's been a while since I have written a post about the house.  I'm still not entirely sure how we are in the third month of the year, let alone more than half way through that month.....

Our initial plans were to be in the forever house in June (B was always aiming for July, he likes to be right more cautious than me sometimes) and the later date certainly looks more likely at the moment.  If I'm honest I wish we could wave a magic wand and move in already.  We have spent so much time working on the house, I'm beginning to think we should have kept a proper record of all the hours we have spent working at the house, all with out ever having stayed the night :(  

We almost have the whole building to a first fit stage, it's just the central heating / plumbing for radiators that's not quite there yet.  But wow was it a painful few months...  The picture below is on the second floor and you can see three rooms and the hallway, can you see the floorboards lifted everywhere??  The bright orange pipes are for the sprinkler system, which is now fully installed and filled with water.  All tradesmen are being warned not to put a nail or anything through the pipes!!

This is the L-shaped room (on the first floor) and is typical of the mess that seems to be throughout the house at the moment.  There is still a few final bits of electric work that need to be completed in this room before we can put the floorboards back down, but the electrician is booked in for tomorrow which makes me so happy!

Some rooms are being finalised though and that just makes me wish I could speed the whole thing up even more!  The plasterer started work last week and on Sunday we actually started painting!!  It feels amazing to actually be progressing rooms to the painting stage :) Okay it's only undercoat painted on skirting boards and door frames but it's visible progress.  Many more 'painting parties' are going to be hosted over the next few weeks.  My poor folks don't know what they've let themselves in for!  

We will have a painter / decorator starting in a few weeks time, to help us with the awkward bits - painting ceilings and cornicing and wallpapering the attic hallway for us.  I think we will also pick a room or two and get him to paint the walls too - like the L-shaped room, it's just such a big space that being able to have it done for us (especially after the days on end we spent removing the 8 layers of wallpaper from the walls!!) will be such a treat.

Downstairs remains one of the messiest areas, it's a natural dumping ground for materials, tools, things that need work... but again we should start to see a real difference in this room as other areas of the house get finalised and we can move radiators and pieces of furniture back in to the rooms they are meant for.

This week I am hopeful that we will finally order our kitchen!  The room is getting plastered this week and then we need to paint the ceiling, cornice etc. so that there will be no more mess once the kitchen arrives.  I just hope the lead time between ordering and fitting of the kitchen isn't too long.

This last picture is the newly created pantry, oh how I have dreamt of a pantry with everything arranged in nicely labelled jars and baskets :)  At the moment it is also being used as storage, mostly for wood that we will be reusing around the house, but it too is now cleared out and is getting plastered this week and then I can paint it and get the new shelves fitted.  I may be getting ridiculously excited at the thought of kitting it out!

Roz xx