August 2015 – one more room

Door facings and skirtings.

The house is almost finished and looking great now that the door facings and skirtings are all on. The builders were back last week and finished off yesterday.

However, lots of filling holes, sealing edges and painting to be done. I have discovered decorators caulk and am loving how neat it has made everything.

Mark has painted everything in the living room and garage room. I am working on the skirtings on top of the new floor. Just taking it a bit at a time.

The biggest transformation has been the door to the new attic. Th builders have put a bit of window sill under it which will make a huge difference to getting in and out.
Before

After – just need to finish painting

Carpets have been ordered so hopefully will get fitted soon. We ordered six samples. We have chosen mineral (bottom left) for the garage room and stairs. It looks green in the picture but is actually grey and looks great with the floor. Then fleece (top left) for the living room.

E and I popped into dobbies while B at Gymnasics and found some fab chrysanthemum plants for a planter at the front and back doors.

Hopefully the flowers will all open up soon and add some colour.

When I was at my friend Katie’s she had a spare wooden IKEA shoe stand which I acquired from her in a bid to save us both stepping into IKEA and spending more money. It needed a bit of sawing to make it fit.

Think I might go and paint it white.

Just need to collect the rest of our belongings from mums spare room and my brothers garage.

Flooring – Day 2

The flooring is all down and what a difference it makes. We are all really pleased with it and have made the right choice. The furniture has all been cleaned and has foam protectors and the kids instructed to lift furniture. Here are some before and after shots, just need to get skirtings and facings to finish it all off.

Flooring – Day 1

After much deliberation we eventually chose our flooring a tile effect laminate quick step. After weeks of looking at a variety of options we ordered the very first floor we saw. We were hopeful it could be fitted before we went to St. Andrews on holiday but today was the first date they had.

It has been frustrating not being able to organise everything in the house while we waited but I am glad we took the time to make the right choice.

We haven’t been doing nothing while we waited but lots of little jobs that weren’t worthy of a blog post on their own.

When we were in St. Andrews Mark found a date block in the hardware shop. I have been looking for one for a while, I remember Colin and I changing one our Auntie Nancy used to have.

He also saw a great sign ‘you have the right to remain silent use it’ he didn’t buy it so he has got Emma to pick it up for him when she was there last week.

We had some great walks along the Fife coast. We collected some stones and shells. I have plans to put the shells in a frame and I have cleaned a rock I carried 2 miles home and is the perfect grey for our new shower room.

Last week I decided to paint the inside of the hall cupboard and old airing cupboard. What I thought would be a quick job took two afternoons but great they are all fresh. The airing cupboard is all sorted and managed to recycle some storage we had in the space where the hot water tank used to be.

I used gumtree to sell our old pans. I put them on for £20 and got an email offering £10 which I was about to accept until Lynda suggested haggling. I am not normally good at this but managed to get £15. Our old dyson finally gave up the ghost so I listed it as well for spares and got £10 today from a lovely lady who had the same model and her husband was going to use the parts to fix her one.

Lastly here is a picture of the floor, I am really please with how it looks and was definitely the correct choice

They have still to finish the kitchen and hall tomorrow. When the fitters moved the freezer they found a lot of water underneath. It looks like lots of droplets under the insulation. The concern is putting it back on the laminate. I am off to phone currys in the morning and hopefully the newspaper under the freeze will absorb all moisture so the floor can be fitted and we will put polythene down in the interim to protect the new floor.