2010 is here!

Wow, haven't updated this for ages. Lots has happened ... mainly all yesterday!

Had a lovely Xmas - not much rennovation work and lots of red wine :) Although I think we more than made up for it this week when we decided to re-do the kitchen. We'd managed to get a new but temporary kitchen for £100 so thought it was a good opportunity to get it smartened up.

I spend most of the week painting the entire thing from a horrible yellow colour to white. It did look a tad bright! We had the new cooker installed (freebie!) on Thurs and set to work on Sat morning. By this evening it's now finished and looking fab!! I think we may paint it again so the entire thing isn't white and replace the tiles but it's looking a million times better.

From this:






A bit of work:






It now looks like this:






I love it!!

Also the boys had a bit of a manic moment and decided to rip out the old bathroom yesterday evening and knock all the walls down. Wow .... lots of mess.

We have fire!!

Returned from holiday in the hope that our lovely peice of slate would be delivered for the hearth and everything ready to go for the stove installation today. No such luck!

Arrived back and the hearth still hadn't been delivered AAARGH. A few hours later it finally turned up (2 days late) and we took it home ready to lay only to find .... the inside bit was too big!!! Miles too big, it obviously wasn't checked at all.

We called the fireplace guy who advised us if he didn't install today it would be after Jan. grrrrrr Our only option was to cut the slate ourselves. Reza did an ace job and in the end it wasn't too much of a problem but it wasn't what we needed the evening we got back from our relaxing holiday!

Stove has now been installed as is burning away as I type. I have managed to set the smoke alarms off a few times ... whooops. I was told it will smoke for a bit until all the paint fumes etc burn off. Here's the pics. We do everything backwards and the whole room is totally un-decorated so there's lots more to come.

Windows finished and new front door

YEY! We definitely need to get the house painted now!

Fireplace

I realised I haven't posted any pics of our fireplace progress so here they are. Next week we get our slate delivered and wood burning stove installed which will finish it off.

Lovely new windows :)

Not much to say but lots of pics ..... We've had new windows in the back of the house today to finish everything off. Our new front door is being fitted tomorrow.

I'm so pleased :)

How many people does it take to hang a door?!

It felt like a really busy weekend!

Saturday, Reza was working all day so I had a mass clear up (although strangely it didn't look a lot different) and also tidied up the garden. The main point being that the window people are coming this week and won't be able to access the lounge window with all that rubbish in the way!! I did also clear the leaves from the lawn and swept up etc. Was quite pleased with myself :) Also glad I did it on Sat as it poured the next day!

Sunday ended up being a quite random day. We went to the cafe for breakfast with friends and one said they were going to B&Q so I thought it would be a good opportunity for me to buy the doors we need for upstairs and put them in his van. I got 3 lovely Oak (not solid!) doors for a bargain price. Reza wasn't keen at first but I think he's warmed to them. The boys then spend the whole afternoon fitting the bathroom door. Wow .... I just didn't realised how long it takes and how much goes into it. I'm so happy now ... it looks fab! Just need to stain the door and paint the frame. Only 2 more to fit but I think we'll get a professional in for those ;)





The best bit by far of my weekend was the fact I finally had a bath in the new bathroom!!! woop woooooop. It was so nice :) It still needs to be sealed round the edges etc but we'll do that this week and then use it again towards the weekend. Reza also had a shower in the new wet room bit. I think we're probably going to need a half screen along one side as the water travels to the basin and our guests will get wet feet if someone's had a shower!! We'll work on that but it's fine for now. Here's the cool taps ... (been waiting aaaaaaaaaages to get a pic of these!)



oooh oooooh I remembered something else. We got a new cooker for free!! Just a reminder that our current cooker is like something from the war so anything post 1950's would be an improvement! We need to get the gas guy round to install but can't wait to use it and it'll match our new kitchen :)

Operation 'Move the Loo' .... Complete :)

oooooh lots of new this weekend :)

It was the weekend we moved the toilet (well, soil stack) from the downstairs toilet to the new one upstairs. Chemical loo ready while the toilet was out of action and we were ready to go :)

We removed the old toilet (Yipeee it was yuck) and had to dig down to find the sewage pipe. I don't really know the details but Reza and Pete said it was a lot less stress than they thought. The pipe wasn't far down (we suspect as it wasn't the original one) and wasn't encased in concrete. Result!







Within a few hours they'd put in the new soil stack then in another few hours we had a working toilet upstairs. Who hoooo!



We've almost finished fitting the bath now so I think by mid-week I will be able to have a relax in my new bath aaaaaah :)

Oh ... only thing, there's no door on the bathroom yet!!

Other good news is that the double glazing woman came round this weekend. We knew the deal this time where they give you one price then a much better one if you can get them done asap etc etc. We knew this so didn't book her to come until we were ready and thought it might be cheaper over Xmas :) We were right! We're really pleased with the quote and are going to have french doors in the lounge instead of a window, a new back door, kitchen window, the two bedroom windows and a new posh front door. Even better, they're installing in two weeks time YEY I'm really happy :)

Lots happening before Xmas now, bathroom, windows, fireplace. woop woop