This is where the week by week rundowns will likely end, as it breaks down into single projects after we moved in at the end of week 4. We had to focus in on finishing things or progressing them rather than having 500 unfinished things and also having to live in the house!
Through week 4 there was less progress by us as we spent some evenings packing up our stuff and moving it in gradually and some evenings working on the house. At this point we just needed to get it reasonably habitable and make room for our furniture. Moving in was relatively uneventful, we don't have masses of stuff to move and had been able to move smaller things into the house in our cars already so really only had the larger furniture and the last few boxes to move. We even managed a pub lunch halfway through the day :)
We had a skip delivered and loaded this up, clearing the rubbish and rubble from the back garden and also putting the old carpets in there. From a waste reduction point of view we tried to reuse as much as we could from the renovation process (I will cover this in more detail in a future post) but a skip was unavoidable due to having to do demolition and construction, and the amount of work that was needed right away. We made sure to research the firm and use a reputable local company who recycle and appropriately separate the waste, rather than a cheap waste collection option who could leave it god knows where!
We also decided that as we had already pulled up the lino and the plywood underneath it in the bathroom we may as well go ahead and start the bathroom before we moved in. We had planned to do it shortly after but Fullfix who fitted the kitchen gave us a reasonable quote to fit a new one and could do it before we moved in (they tagged it onto the end of the kitchen fitting) so we figured why not. It would minimise the inconvenience to us of being without a bathroom while it was being done once we moved in.
We had the bathroom suite removed and refitted by them, but would do the decoration and tiling ourselves, we just wanted the functional plumbing done so that it was usable before we had to move in.
It looks better already though! My dad was a legend and came and stripped the wallpaper off when the old suite was removed. Full disclosure it still basically looks like this 6 weeks later although we have tidied it up a bit. It was lovely to have a nice new shower and bath in when we moved in though.
The kitchen also was finished off in the start of week 4, so we had functioning appliances and cabinets! We painted it in week 5 after we had moved in too. We went for quite a bright colour to contrast the white cabinets. The kitchen gets tons of light so we felt it could handle a block colour without looking too dark or imposing. I love the colour although the paint was not the best (Wilko kitchen paint) and took more coats than we would ideally have liked to do. In places now it still doesn't look great and needs yet more coats. Worth getting the slightly more expensive paint and only doing two coats for sure!
We also were trying to patch up the living room ceiling at this point, to be honest it still looks terrible and I think it will need to be re skimmed or we need to find some specialist paint but we will keep you updated on the solution if we find one! We have covered it with a few coats of white paint to just tidy it up but I am not totally sure how we are going to make it look better. This is it being scrubbed with sugar soap for the millionth time...
On the upside we also got the doors and windows replaced, and had some sunny days to do a bit of painting and planting outside so the outside of the house is looking much better and we are much warmer inside. I planted some lavender in the front garden with some busy lizzies around them, and some hanging baskets of heather and busy lizzies.
The new front door looks so much better! We need to pressure wash and tidy up the front of the house but the outside tap doesn't work so waiting to get that fixed.
I absolutely love the blue fence, it was such a quick way to add some colour to the garden without actually having to plant anything! Its B&Q own brand paint and I was really impressed with it, it went on well and this is only one coat.
We also got the bedroom wall replastered and the hallway skimmed too as the walls were too rough under the wallpaper to simply paint it as we had hoped.
I'll leave it there for now, the next post will cover adventures in tiling the kitchen floor and underfloor heating!
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