Plastering

This is how it looks now the first layers of plaster have been completed. The ceiling is plastered in these pictures and the three walls as well. The pebble dash wall has about 4 layers of plaster with 2 more to go!

 

We are actually now at the point where the plaster has been finished (in fact the ceiling is almost dry) and the doors and skirting will be finished tomorrow (I added a few more jobs to the chippies list and forgot to tell him so he turned up without an oppo!) I can't take pictures as we haven't got lights yet (tomorrow or Saturday). Unfortunately we also had a call from DFS saying our sofa is ready and they can't store it. 4 weeks early! So we're getting it tomorrow.

Starting the lounge

Over new year we took advantage of the sales and the last of the lower rate VAT to order a new sofa. We have been using the ones left by the previous owners of our house since we moved in February and they are a bit manky and really uncomfortable.

Only trouble is that we need to decorate the lounge before the new sofa arrives in four weeks time.

Stage one was to rip the wonky ceiling down (and find out why it was wonky). The guys came in to do this on Friday. The good news was that the ceiling was not wonky because there was anything wrong with the roof. The ceiling was wonky because they had stretched garden canes across some of the beams to hold the insulation up, the insulation goes across some other beams and electrical cables across some more. They had also managed to screw a screw right through one of the cables to the lights which probably explained why they kept cutting out.

The next job was to channel a route through the floor for the speaker cables for the rear speakers and to get the cable into the kitchen for the speakers in the kitchen. This has created mountains of dust.

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!

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!

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).

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.

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!

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

Bathroom Day 8

Not a lot has happened in the bathroom on day 8. The plumber made his way through the inch or so of snow that we had this morning to make it to our house and got all of the rest of the grouting done.

Then at 9:30 he left to go get a piece of plumbing material for the new toilet. It took him 2 hours to get through the gridlocked traffic to the plumbing shop and then spent an hour getting half way back here when his wife phoned to say that she had taken the kids to the park and locked herself out. So by the time he had rescued them from the sub-zero temperatures and got back here it was 3:30 and as he needed 2 hours for the grout on the floor tiles to dry to install the new toilet decided to call it a day.

We had a bit of a mission getting home. 2 trains were broken down outside purley blocking both tracks so trains were backed up trying to get into East Croydon and there was another broken down train at Edenbridge meaning going to Hayes and getting the bus was also impossible. I managed to squeeze onto a West Croydon train after about 45 minutes of waiting at London Bridge. Ollie gave up with London Bridge as it was too busy and decided to tube it to Elephant and Castle and then get a train to Mitcham where he could pick up the tram.

My journey took a total of 3 hours and Ollie's 3 and a half. We got home to find that there is over 9 inches of snow here. We've measured it with a ruler so it's no exaggeration. I can't remember ever seeing snow that deep! Talking to the lady next door this is common for this area and they always get lots when it snows. I think we may be spending tomorrow working from home.

Bathroom Day 7

It's really starting to come together now. All the tiling is finished and the grouting has been done on the tiles that were done last week.

The radiator is also in and works! It gets quite hot too.

I'm sure that's not the cosiest place to sleep

Look what's asleep on the roof of our shed! We get a lot of urban foxes around here. This is one of the less scrany ones. We have one really skinny mangy one that prowls the back garden, one huge one (easily as big as a golden retriever!) that skulks around the front and this one that tends to hang about.
 

It's been really bitterly cold here today. We've got the heating on above 20 degrees (unheard of) and we're huddled under many layers of clothes and my feet are still like ice blocks!

Bathroom Day 6

A lot has happened in the bathroom today. We went off to Bluewater to do some Christmas shopping. When we got back we had a fitted bath and all the walls are almost fully tiled.

We now have a fully functioning bath although we have to wait until tomorrow before we can use it so that the silicon has a chance to dry properly.

I love the bath filler. It's great not having any taps on the bath to get all limescally.

Bathroom Day 5

Day 5 in the bathroom has been very productive. We now have one fully tiled wall and one wall partly tiled. I love the tiles and think they are well worth the money!

We even have perfect curves to match our stupid ceiling!

We are still waiting on the replacement bath and we may or may not have a working bath/shower over the weekend.