Friday, December 10, 2010

Bathroom Day 16

We are so nearly almost there with the bathroom! Just the ceiling to go once I've organised the plasterer. On Wednesday the electrician came back and attached the electric to the underfloor heating and the electric element for the towel rail. He also put in the new spot lights and a very cool extractor fan.




On Wednesday after work we scoured Croydon DIY stores for a new shower screen to replace the damaged one that we had delivered. We finally found one in B&Q which isn't quite as good as our original one but it works which is the main thing! Means I could finally have a shower. Baths are nice and all very well but a good shower is hard to beat. Plus of course it's much quicker and more convenient. Our shower is fantastic. It's like standing under a waterfall.


Light Pull

We also have a sink with storage cupboard and we managed to get a matching medicine cabinet in B&Q as the one we had originally bought no longer fit in the gap between the window and the wall due to having to put up plasterboard. The gap at the end of the bath has been filled with plastic and everything sealed and made water-tight.



I'm really pleased with the end result. It's so much warmer in there and much less oppressive without those hideous peach tiles.

Ta Da!

Monday, December 06, 2010

Bathroom Day 12

Not much has happened in the bathroom today. We are still waiting for a sink unit and a bath screen. I am so angry about the sink unit. When I originally phoned up to say they had delivered the wrong one the guy at the bathroom shop said that the supplier could either deliver it in their usual run the following week or put it on a 'carrier' (I think this means send by courier). He said he would not recommend the carrier option as the tpye of unit we have chosen in easy to break and was likely to get damaged.

So we decided to wait. Last Thursday the manufacturer drove all the way from the midlands somewhere to deliver to Croydon, but none of the staff had turned up to the bathroom shop so they were unable to deliver it. So what does the manufacturer do? Put all the undelivered items on 'carriers' to be delivered tomorrow. I could have had that option 2 weeks ago!!!

I am hoping that the bathroom shop man can find me a shower screen that he can get to us asap, or we may be sending the plumber to Homebase!

Anyway, today we have grout on the floor and a loo roll holder!


Saturday, December 04, 2010

Following instructions

Mum will agree that I've never really been able to follow instructions. I will mostly follow the spirit of the instructions but most of the time I will just do my own thing.

This morning was no exception. The 'instructions' (well really the response to my question "How can I help") from Ollie were "Can you please take all the snow off the car and put it the other side of the skip?" In my head this translated to Kelly can you use the snow on the car to make a giant snowman in the front garden!




Ollie was most amused that the facial recognition on my camera recognised the snowman's face rather than mine. Of course he is a Spurs supporter snowman. I have never made a snowman all by myself this big ever! And this was just using the snow from the car. I know he won't last very long because the snow is starting to melt today and it will probably be gone tomorrow but I had a great morning!

We did really well, we have cleared the drive, the path and the road in front of the house and may be able to go out tomorrow. It just depends on how icy it gets over night. Ollie also cleared the ice from all the gutters round the extension as next doors gutter has given way under the weight of the ice and is hanging precariously from their house!

We did witness some really stupid behaviour while we were outside, from downright dangerous driving down the road (far too many revs in too low a gear) to the lady over the road shovelling snow from where her car tyres will run to the gap between the wheels (she now has a 2 foot pile of snow where the middle of her car will drive, how she ever thinks she going to drive out I have no idea).

Friday, December 03, 2010

Bathroom Day 11

The plumber yet again braved the elements (this time the same amount of snow plus ice) to get to us today. We now have a fully functioning shower, fully tiled floor, paneled bath and new central heating controls (Not really part of the spec for the bathroom but we are fed up with our stupid controls that you can't have varying temperatures during the day and it doesn't know when it's a weekend and we want heating all day.

We did have a few more set backs in that he couldn't get to the supplier to get grout for the floor tiles so we've got to wait for that and our shower screen is completely busted. I bought it off the Internet and when it arrived by courier the plastic at the bottom had bent. The company sent out a new one but what I had failed to notice was the hinge on the screen was also completely bent. It's obviously been dropped at some point. So we could have had a fully functioning shower, but now I have to source another screen instead. The plumber had said that in any other weather he would have just gone and got us one but trips to suppliers mean hours away from the job.

One solution is possibly getting one from the bathroom place and getting them to deliver it with the replacement sink unit. However, no-one is answering their phones. I guess that they have decided it's not worth opening in this weather.




Thursday, December 02, 2010

Bathroom Day 10 and yet more snow

Our plumber is insane. But I guess you don't really have any choice when you are self employed and it's 3 weeks till Christmas. He braved the 15 inches of snow that we have this morning and arrived at 8:30. I don't think he quite appreciated how bad our estate was as he said that we had it worse than anywhere else and he was fine driving over until he turned off the main road onto our estate.

He did really well bless him, he managed to swap the loo over and tile most of the floor. As the snow was still coming down hard all morning he called it a day then and spent an hour digging his van out of a snow drift so he could make his way home (I also think he was getting some grief from the misses as his phone kept going all morning!)

He says that he's had loads of offers of work from people with broken boilers and was considering getting a 4x4 so he could get to them in the snow. British gas now have a waiting time of a week for their 'same day' repair service which is a bit of a joke. How can you expect people to be without heat or hot water in this wather for a week!

Anyway, here are the piccies of the bathroom so far and more snow!



Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Snow delays play

There was no action in the bathroom today due to the copious amounts of snow. I can't ever remember seeing this much snow ever!

The plumber wasn't able to battle through the snow, so there is no bathroom update today. All of the busses have been cancelled around here so they haven't bothered gritting any of the roads either. You have to put up with snow pictures instead!






Amount of snow on top of the car

Depth of snow on the drive