I love my house. I can finally put my hand on my heart and say that I am really proud of what Fi and I have accomplished with the house – it now feels a lot more like a home.
The oak flooring has been laid and all of the skirting is back on. The fitter did a grand job of dealing with the multiple oddities that our ground floor presents (especially the pipes in the media cupboard) and I was very pleased with his work.
Whilst the fitter was finishing up on Friday, Fi and I had a lot to do. We did our weekly shopping in the morning before collecting yet another hire van at lunch time. After lunch we headed to IKEA and spent the best part of £600 on a new bed and mattress for the master bedroom and a bookcase for the lounge. I had that sinking feeling once Fi and I tried to get our mattress up the stairs and realised that it didn’t seem to fit but a bit of “persuasion” from the fitter convinced it to squeeze through! Whilst the fitter was downstairs we built the bed. I love it – here’s a couple of pictures of the finished room:
Friday evening was hardly typical (or maybe it was given my recent DIY adventures) as we had to empty our storage whilst we still had the van. We were there until about 21:00 and didn’t finish unloading the van at the house until about 22:00 (bear in mind that it was pissing with rain too). Although an effort – it was worth it. I certainly felt like we had earned our glass of wine!
Saturday was another busy day. Fi and I were up by 08:00 and loaded the van with all of the cardboard from IKEA and as well as all the crap that has been sat in our driveway for weeks (things like old fridge freezers and doors, etc) and took them to the dump. We then dropped the van off at the hire centre and headed home for some lunch. After lunch we set about building the bookcase. It took a lot longer than I had anticipated, largely because I had to saw and plane parts of it to accommodate the skirting boards. We didn’t finish it until yestday but I think it looks fabulous. All that we need now is a cool goldfish bowl to put in the cupboard section and it will be finished… Here are a few pictures of the downstairs. Please note that I still have a lot of things to do to completely finish it off (stuff like caulking the skirting, touching up paint skuffs, etc):
We made sure that we had some relaxing time over the weekend though. Yesterday we went back to Westonbirt Aboretum (somewhere we haven’t been to for years) for a really nice autumnal walk. The weather held out for us and we had a pasty and got to wear our wellies – great fun.