Days 8 & 9 – more plumbing

Ah, the joys of no water for hours on end, and a loss of your washer/dryer for several days (soon to be a few weeks). Living through all that comes with renovation and doing fine. We shower early or late and clean when we can. Luckily, the plumbing work is done for the time being, so we’re safe for a while. The washer & dryer will be put back in place for a few more weeks until it’s time to make changes there…more to come.

For the last 3 years, our washer and dryer was stacked in this closet, which we repurposed. Most of the time, washers live in the kitchen in London, so it was a step up (and a lot closer to our laundry baskets). We had to remove the washer and dryer to put the controller for the digital shower which will end up in the big bathroom. Very excited about this shower!

Everything has been planned out – the height of the shower head (tall enough for someone 6′ 6″) to the location of the shower tray (which will be even with the tile for ease of access). The controller of the shower will be across on the opposite wall, so no need to get wet while turning the shower on.

The same was done in the small bathroom as was the plumbing for the toilets, sinks and radiators. All set to start getting the walls and floors ready for tiling. Wahoo! (And hopefully a washer and dryer again, at least for a few weeks.)

Week 25: more painting and electrical stuff

I passed on the paints to the guys on Friday, for them to do the work on Saturday and Sunday.  Here’s what we chose:

Dulux Trade (only paints we’ll use) Chiffon White 4 for the hallways and stairs:

It’s a good neutral which will go with both my mother-in-law’s vanilla based bedroom & bathroom colour, as well as the blues, greys and yellows we are using on the ground and first floor.

For the kitchen we’re using Dulux Trade Quartz Flint 4, a pale grey which will work with the cabinets:

 

And finally, the living room.  Yeah, we went for it. Bright blue.  It’s not as bright in person, painted as the tub of paint would make you think…but it’s still quite a lovely bright blue. Dulux Trade Royal Regatta 3:

Here is what it looks like in person with the new lights (chandelier and wall lights).

The kitchen and hallway/staircases haven’t been painted yet as they are still working on some plastering and prep work.

What has been done are a lot of the lights:

The entry/front hall light.  I wanted something that wasn’t too imposing but still was a bit different.

The shabby chic light in our guest bedroom (more off white than grey, unlike this pic).

I used the old living room light for the exercise/guest/tv room.

Our office light.

I’m going to hold off from sharing my bedroom lights mainly because the pics I took of them just weren’t great.  Next time you see the master bedroom, it’ll be fully finished.

A few bathroom details have been added, though neither my mother-in-law’s nor our master bathroom is fully finished.

My MIL’s bathroom – added the towel rack and mirrored cabinet.

Our lit mirror (which also has a demister).  It’s the same width as the cabinets which means I won’t have to share with my husband (yay!).

Our towel rack, which I love, love, love.  It is so different from anything else I saw out there.

And our shower…with an extra handset on the tub filler (which will make it easier to wash my hair while luxuriating in the tub).

We were meant to have our worktops in the kitchen put in, but there were a few issues that came up.  I’m hoping that we’ll be ready to get them by the end of the week.  We shall see.  We still have to have the ground floor waxed, which will take up two days of work and then need at least 2-4 days to dry enough to really do much on it.  We can’t move in until at least a week after this has happened.

Our carpet is scheduled to be put in on Dec 7 and we’d like to move in on Dec 16.  That’s only 2-1/2 weeks away.  Will it happen?  I’m guessing no.  I’d love to schedule the move but I’m just not ready to do it. Bah.

Week 10: almost there

Holy cow.  The work is almost finished, with an expectation that almost everything will be done by Friday.  Our builder is going away for the holidays, so we’ll come back together during the first or second week of January to do a final snag list and then the handover.  We’ll be able to move in February if we’d like.  This week I’m going to start really looking for carpet for the loft bedroom, small bedroom on the first floor, the hallway on the first floor and the staircases from the ground to first and first to second floor.  We’ll be keeping with greys for most of it.  I have a lot of pics of the work below.  Once we get the carpet in and furniture all set up, I’ll do another video to show the before and after.

As you can see the scaffolding is finally down, so you can see how the loft has been built up.  Here’s the before:

 

The hallways and small bedroom lights.  They fit with the other lights in the house.

The staircase going up to the loft.  Needs another coat of paint, but I’m liking it so far.

The handrail which will be painted a darker grey than the hall colour (which is a very pale grey).

The shower is being fit…still needs some grout work done.  But I love, love, love these tiles.  We’ll add some glass shelved for shampoo & that stuff.

Where the higher tiles end is where the glass panel will go for the shower. You can also see the grey floor tiles which I think compliments the teal metro tiles nicely.  I have to find a good toilet roll holder – not sure yet what to get.  It’ll be placed in front of the radiator.

The corner sink & cabinet (not fully in place yet) were chosen due to the small size of the bathroom.  I think they will work well in there.

I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but it will be the light fixture in the bedroom – there will be 8 bulbs and it will be placed in a pattern that works to light up the entire room.  Hoping it works and looks okay.

So glad that it’s almost over.  Next steps…the Vale house!

Changing your mind…

So we went in to talk to the builder and showed him what we wanted…

We decided against the Baumatic cooker with a single cavity, and are now going with a Caple gas cooker with two cavities – two gas ovens and a gas grill (in the top of the larger oven):

With two cavities, we’ll be able to cook two things at the same time at different temps, which will be VERY handy (especially if we want to do desert and dinner at the same time).  Thanks to all the UK-Yankee ladies for pointing this out!

We decided on this shower, but also added a fixed shower head above it.  We’ll have an adjustable one (like above) to use for cleaning the bath and also for help if we have dogs or kids.  I’m just used to having a fixed shower head…and it’ll be a nice one:

I’ve always wanted a lovely rainshower type of shower head!

We also made a final decision on our kitchen and went with the Keswick Kitchen.  While it looks less warm in this picture, it actually was a much better colour than the Shaker Winchester.  The door was nicer looking in terms of pattern and the type of oak used.  So we’re quite happy!  The handles that are suggested with it are the pitted pewter curved handle, which we’ve decided to go with…it looks a bit like this (though I think a touch more elegant):

It’ll be perfect with the traditional look of the kitchen as well as the black granite worktops.  The granite worktops are black with a touch of brownish bits in it.  I think it will all work out very well.

We’ve also chosen our colours for all the rooms and I’ll try to show you kinda what they will look like.  The entrance & hallways will have the colour of the wall on the left:

The study/library will be a golden yellow colour which will be lovely with the dark browns in the room:

The living room and eating area will be a lovely light green sort of colour with the kitchen being a slightly darker version:

And our bedroom is going to be a brighter green (though probably a bit lighter than this example):

We’re not yet certain about the second bedroom, though we’re leaning toward a clean light yellow or a pale sky blue.  Upstairs in the loft will remain a basic white.

So that’s it for now…more a few days later!

It’s the little things

Every day in renovation does not bring huge changes.  The beginning was big as everything was ripped out it was beyond exciting…it looked…big.  But right now it’s all in the interim bit…not so much huge things happening that we can see.  So you have to notice smaller projects that are going on.  Two were kinda cool last night…

All the piping from the mains water were lead.  Which is not so good (from what I’ve been told).  So all that piping is being ripped up and replaced by plastic.  So I guess it’s all begun…

This is our bath tap.  On the left is the water control, right the tap, middle bit stops the water coming out.  It’s much more modern than I would have picked out…but Roy was in charge of the bathroom (I got everything else, so it’s kinda fair).  But looking at it, and knowing the other hardwear that’s going to be part of our shower, I think it’ll be quite nice.  So we’ll have the taps coming out of the wall on the side of the bath and the shower on another wall…it’s going to be a thermostatic shower which is similar to many that you find in gyms in London (from what I’ve noticed):

 

The actual shower head is attached to a flexible metal tube which comes out of the bottom.  The strength of water is controlled by the left valve and the heat by the right (you can see a red button that you need to push in when you want it scalding hot…I won’t be using that).