We've actually decided to take Christmas and New Year as holiday, as there is no hope of us managing to decorate in time for us to move in to the house, and we are both really tired (and I'm pretty fed up).
So, I'm catching up with blogging, in the hope that in the new year I will go back to updating more regularly whenever any progress happens. Here goes:
- Saturday, 22 November: We visited Benchmarx as it was the last day of their sale. Jason had recommended their kitchens, and said it would be a good reduction. We met with Dan, the kitchen planner, and he had priced up a kitchen from the CAD drawing/list of what we wanted we'd gone through with Howden's [not sure how Jason achieved that; not sure I want to know]. We went to the house to be met by an absence of (some) trees, and the presence of radiators in every room. Three conifers nearest the front door had fallen victim to Adam's chainsaw - yay!There was already an impressive pile of branches heaped up where another couple must have been removed by the side of the drive The radiators are (despite reassurance to the contrary) ugly, but if they are the most efficient kind, I will get used to them... The one in the kitchen was a mistake; it badly fouls the back door, so that had to go. We spent our time wallpaper-stripping; already the kitchen looks much better, but my shoulders couldn't cope, so [bizarrely?], I started sanding the walls in the study....
- Sunday, 23 November: I continued sanding the walls in the study, and left David to carry on steaming off the wallpaper remaining downstairs. I nearly finished the longest wall, but David got rid of the last of the paper, so that felt like wonderful progress.
- Monday, 24 November: I arrived at the house early [about 7.30, to avoid the traffic in Maidstone], and persevered with sanding the study walls and cornicing, and saw Adam and Jack at work felling more of the conifers opposite the front door. Adam said they'd already done two days' work, as the trees had many limbs growing where they must have lost their leads. They finished at lunchtime, as the mound of chippings-to-be had got too big; we needed to wait for Colin to come with his massive chipper to create some space for them to resume work.I, stupidly, continued with the sander until about 4.30, and managed to really aggravate my old rotator cuff injuries. I'm hoping that time off over the holidays will give me enough rest to be able to get back to working longer hours in the new year. At home, we had a really good think about the kitchen designs, and made some changes that we believe [hope] will make it work better for us. It's difficult, without ever having lived there, to know how we would use the space, but those extra hours will hopefully mean we've done the best we can, and irritations will be a minimum; fingers crossed.
- Tuesday, 25 November: We ordered the kitchen, and Richard was going to change the radiator brackets, so that they would be further away from the walls - we need to be able to tuck the curtains behind them, and the less-than-1cm gap was not enough.
- Wednesday, 26 November: Colin was due at the house with his shredder; I'm sad I missed that.
- Friday, 28 November: The kitchen was delivered, but we had to move it so that if there were a break-in, we wouldn't lose it; hard work, but worth it, we think. Rads still ugly... But on the up-side, there are fewer conifers, and we are getting light in the back garden.
- Saturday, 29 November: Darren, the plasterer to whom David had spoken, visited to pick up a key - he was able to do the work that weekend, but not until Sunday, and we weren't going to be there that day as we attended a Christmas meal near Milton Keynes, and stayed overnight. We did more sanding [by now we'd bought another orbital sander, so we could have one each!] until it was time to head home, clean up & brave the M25/M1. Thankfully, I had spotted the signs around Maidstone warning of disruption as they removed the Dartford Crossing toll booths, so we went the other way. Don't know if the diversions through London were bad, but didn't want to take the chance.
- Sunday, 30 November: We had a day off, and Darren and his mate took down the utility room [formerly the downstairs bathroom] ceiling and replaced it. We wanted that done before Richard installed the boiler. Having bitten the bullet, and sent British Gas a huge cheque to connect us up to the mains, we are now in the two-month waiting period for them to connect us up, so Richard won't be installing the boiler and connecting up the heating until they've done their bit. At least now the ceiling won't need to be brought down above a newly-fitted appliance.
- Wednesday, 1 December: We received notice to quit our rented place in Maidstone; we had the impression that it would be coming, but had hoped that we could get "Brookside" habitable before it arrived, and hand in our notice first! Oh, well, a kick in the pants to get (even more of) a move on.
- Saturday, 6 December: New ceiling in the utility, which looks brilliant, and fewer trees in the back garden, which also brings a smile to our faces.Darren came to collect his payment, and spotted a sparrowhawk on the pile of branches that Adam had left in the back garden. He says seeing one is pretty rare, so that made our day [although I'm not sure if I'd recognise one again]. He also identified the birds we had disturbed in the wood as partridge, so that is nice to know, too. We continued sanding.
- Sunday, 7 December: More sanding; surprise, surprise! We started scraping the glue off the walls of the utility room, as we have decided that getting that space finished will be the best use of our (now limited) time until we move in; if we can get a shower installed, we can be clean people, and a kitchen sink/units would give us somewhere to prepare food [we have a couple of table-top hobs in France that will be fine until we can get the kitchen installed]. That's all we really need once we have either heating or a woodburning stove working. As we need the boiler to heat the water, we will have heating as well, so we can live there quite happily until we decorate. Tim said not to do any making-good until the first winter of potential root-shrinkage damage is out of the way, so we can use that as an excuse to delay getting out the paintbrushes. We saw the mother cat, and two of the kittens [we don't know what has happened to the other two], in the garden, so that's another bit of "wildlife" to add to our list. What, can't I count feral cats as 'wild'life?
- Tuesday, 9 December: I met another Richard-the-plumber [this one recommended by Jason-the-joiner (who in turn was recommended by Jim-the-carpenter, who was recommended by Marcus-the-hypnotherapist)], at the house, to give us a quote for fitting out the utility room. We'd been unable to pin down Richard 1 for dates on doing the bathroom(s)/loo, and as he was on holiday, we decided to find someone else so that we weren't forced to stay in a hotel once our notice period runs out. Good news on that front: David spoke with Tom, who is going to live in the Maidstone house himself [with his pregnant girlfriend], and he has agreed to let us stay till the end of February; hopefully the extra couple of weeks will ease the pressure sufficiently. Richard 2 was going away to give us a quote, but said he could do the work before Christmas, as he was willing to give up some of his already-booked time off to help us out. He had a look at the walls upstairs [not sure how we got onto that topic?], and thinks they may have been skimmed [rather than the paper being pasted straight onto the board], so we ought to be OK to strip off the wallpaper up there, too. He said that the tile cement he uses will be strong enough to adhere to the remaining glue on the walls, so we don't have to spend any more hours scraping that off, which is a real bonus. By this point I was frozen through, and my shoulders couldn't take anymore, so I turned the car around & headed home.
- Saturday, 13 December: We started scrubbing the walls in the kitchen using an enzyme wallpaper stripper [not sure that it's any better than sugar soap - we will have to try that to compare] and wire wool, to remove the remaining paste. I had to give up after only about 45 minutes, as my shoulders couldn't take any more. It's left me feeling pretty useless, and that's led to being very demoralised.
- Sunday, 14 December: Jason came by to discuss the doors we want rehanging, the "frames" that need changing [they're not frames, that's why they need changing], and the eaves-openings we want enlarging. He collected a key, and will let himself in when he has a spare (half-)day or so. We all agreed that the floors could/would have to wait, and similarly the kitchen isn't a priority at this stage. Given how quickly my shoulders had caused me problems on the Saturday, David helped me start a bonfire, so that I could at least feel somewhat productive by burning the garden waste. He ended up bringing piles of trimmings and we both tended the fire. Change of plan, but it's made the garden a lot tidier, and helped me to feel less of a failure.
- Monday, 15 December: I drove to the house to get another estimate arranged from Matt-the-plumber, a Darren-the-plasterer recommendee. I suspect he's going to come in cheaper than Richard 2, but we would have to source all the materials, which I think will delay the process, and he couldn't guarantee being able to start work until mid-Feb, so we decided to ask Richard 2 to do the work [hotel accommodation could quickly eat through any saving we were to make if Matt comes in cheaper]. Fingers crossed it all works out!
- And in other news: UK Power Networks admitted to David that the replacement supply into the house had been sent to the works department, but had somehow fallen through the cracks. We're hoping it has now been rescued. British Gas are due to lay the piping starting the 19th January, and connect the meter on the 26th, and Richard 1 is coming back to fit the boiler some time very shortly after then. We are dithering about the woodburning stove [Niall has promised that Nick will visit first thing in the new year] - and are tempted to go for the bigger Dovre 640 to get the side-loading door as well. The nominal output will be too high for the room, but we could run it down between adding logs, and open the doors to heat the rest of the house... Our feelings are that the 11kW stove in France is marginally too big for the room it's in, but mainly because we've got such great insulation around all the walls and under the floor/above the ceiling... We also only have one internal and one external door, unlike in Kent where we know the insulation has been damaged/removed by rodents, and there are two internal doors and two sets of French windows. We've got a bit more mulling time, but I'm fairly sure that Nick said he wouldn't necessarily automatically rule out fitting a stove of 9kW in that room... Richard 2 couldn't get all the materials delivered in time to work on the run up to Christmas [and didn't want to start the job without being able to complete it], but is booked in for the second week of January, having re-arranged his diary; we are very grateful.
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