TOM AND BARBARA!

We are getting closer to being self sufficient!, we have agreed to have solar panel on the back of the house, Pete says we have to change the way we live to fit in with the sun so we have a have a roast for breakfast and cornflakes for tea, and if the suns out what ever I am doing I have to rush home to put on everything electric!!!!

We are still here plodding on feeling the pressure a bit now, as summer is here and we went to be in by the end of Autum, but its still lots of fun!

we are plastering downstairs, and hope to have it all plastered in about 5 weeks!

CURVED CEILING IN PORCH PLASTER BOARDED

WE HAVE PUT SOME OF THE COLOURED WIRES IN THE FAMILY ROOM

WE HAVE LEFT THE VERANDAH FOR THE TIME BEING BUT WILL NEED TO FLATTEN OUT THE RUBBLE FOR THE SCAFFOLDING FOR THE SOLAR GUYS

 

SHOWERS GOING IN - OUR ENSUITE

AND EVEN SOME FURNITURE!!!!

SHOWER GUEST ENSUITE

GUEST BED FULL OF KITCHEN

 

CURVER WINDOW CILLS IN PORCH

 

 

PORCH PLASTERED

NO TOY LOUNGE PLASTERED

FAMILY ROOM THIS MORNING BOXING IN THE GAS PIPES

UTILITY PART PLASTERED

THE KITCHEN HAS BEEN A MASSIVE JOB TO PLASTER BOARD

NO TOY LOUNGE

THE SNUG ENTERANCE HAS BEEN LOWERED

AND HAS A SLOPED CEILING, THE FLOOR WILL ALSO BE RAISED

SOME OF THE OUTSIDE LIGHTS HAVE GONE UP- WHEN PETE HAS HAD TO DO THE WIRING BEFORE BOARDING

PETES GHOST!

BOOOOOOOOO!

VIEW FROM THE BALCONY!

PETE HAS BEEN BUILDING THE WALL FOR THE BALCONY, BIG DISCUSSIONS ON WHERE THE STEPS SHOULD BE ARE CURRENTLY TAKING PLACE!, HE HAS GOT LOADS DONE IN THE NICE WEATHER, AND WE WILL BE ABLE TO USE THE SPACE TO CHUCK ALL THE RUBBLE FROM THE SITE, HE IS ALSO MAKING THE CONCRETE LINTELS HIMSELF, THAT WILL SUPPORT THE FLOOR.

REAR VIEW

THE BATH HAS BEEN INSTALLED IN THE BOYS BATHROOM.

THIS WEEK PETE IS TRYING TO GET READY TO TEST THE WATER, AND WE HAVE STARTED PLASTER BOARDING DOWNSATIRS, ..........WE HAVE HAD A QUICK TRIP TO BAMFORDS AS WELL SHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

SHAMELESS!!

FINN HAVING AGO AT BRICK LAYING

we  are now getting the boy's grafting for us at the weekends, and yesterday we even had cousin william here all day digging holes!!,

Since my last post, a lot has been happening the scaffolding has all been taken down, most of it has gone from site we are still finding it in the grass, makes mowing the lawn quite exciting!, ...
........so Pete has been able to bring the digger around to the front and we have now finished all the drainage and the architect and building inspector have signed them off and they wont be back on site now until completion.

The pipes have all been laid for the rainwater harvester, and yesterday whilst Pete could still remember where the pipes where we planned out and dug the trenches for the verandah,

 

Inside all of the upstairs rooms have had at least one coat of paint and the main bathroom has been tiled and the guest ensuite has a floor,

I have painted all the under cladding for the verhandah and, they have started plaster boarding downstairs, we have found a way to age all the age the new floorboards - set fire to them in a controlled way and then wire brush them, you have to burn them in a controlled way, and when Pete is ready to say goodbye to his fringe brows and lashes we will give it a go!!!, we have been to fletchers and found some nice wide boards for the family room and kitchen and slates for the fire places, I am back on with the idea of a boiling water tap!!!, and we cleared the garage to start building the furniture, started with the sink unit for our ensuite................

.............there is still an huge amount to do but it is all good fun and life in the caravan is much better with the  nicer weather and soon we will have water and electric in the garden room.

WOODLANDS

Well, I have got  new little camera, nothing as nice as the broken one, but at least it actually does what it says on the tin!, shame that there is not much to photograph!!!!!!,

.......just a whole load of plumbing pipes EVERYWHERE!!!, - Plumbing has started in earnest and to the untrained eye there isn't an awful lot to see, it does look like hard work though lots of drilling massive holes through the joists above your head and then wrestling with a reel of pipe.

I have had to order the paint for the main bathroom (Brighton) and our ensuite (Pale China blue), as the the taps etc go through tiles so you need to tile first and therefore you need to paint first and because of the design of the towel rads we have to lay the floors as well so those two rooms will look very different soon!

whilst I got the paint I snuck a few rolls of wall paper in the virtual shopping trolley as well, I have been busy and choosen most of what we need for decorating now, mostly the interior will be pure brilliant white, but I couldn't resist "William", "Cath" and "Orla" when it came to a few rolls of wallpaper! Pete has to dash down to homebase tomorrow as they have some great deals on paint this weekend, so I need to do the shopping list tonight, is it really wrong to choose a paint colour for the No toy lounge because it has a cool name ?! (Dance Hall), I will also be adding some magnetic blackboard paint to the list for the kitchen,- hope that it is successful.

Yuri Geller, Pete is now bending guttering as well as plaster board!, he did a fab job of the guttering on the curved porch, it cost about £20 as well instead of way over £1000 that we were quoted to have a piece of curved guttering made, now we should be able to get rid of the scaffolding and the annoying scaffolders!

We have got the wood for the underside of the veranda roof ,so we can start to stain it (white), and also the ensuite bathroom floorboards, who knows what colour they will be stained I really hate choosing stain varnish oil for wood!!!!

.... and without wishing to sound boring everythime I go into the house and see the staircase I am blown away.......
.................we actually still can't latch onto the concept that we will actually one day move into the house, everyone is finding caravan living tiresome at the moment ... come on Spring get Sprung!

GOING UP

HOT WATER TANK IT CAME WITH LOTS OF HOLES BUT NO DIAGRAM AS FOR WHAT THEY WERE ALL FOR, THEY HAVE NOW KINDLY PROVIDED ONE

I MIGHT HAVE A CAMERA BUT I CAN'T GET THE PHOTOS IN A SENSIBLE ORDER

FROM THE LANDING LOOKING DOWN

THE AIRING CUBOARD PAINTED BY ME JUDE AND PETE WITH THE SUPER HIGH SKIRTING BOARD!

ON THE LANDING LOOKING TOWARDS THE BACK GARDEN

FINNS BEDROOM

BOYS BATHROOM WITH BLACK BATH, DRAUGHT BOARD FLOOR TILES, TOILET AND URINAL!!!

LEIGH -WE LOVE YOUR CURVES THANKS!!!!!!
JUDES ROOM

OUR ENSUITE

REUBENS ROOM

LANDING LOOKING TOWARDS THE GUEST BED

PIPE WORK THAT WILL RUN ACROSS THE KITCHEN FLOOR

THE CHARNWOOD THAT PETE IS SPRAYING CREAM!

CURVED GUTTERING!

 

OH ORLA!, YOU SAW ME COMING DIDN'T YOU!!!!!!!

WE'RE PLASTERED!

The plasterers left last week they were here about a 9 days and they did the whole of upstairs and some of the hallway, they did a nice job and the curved walls look really great.

We have been to pick up the Chesny it was in a really nice place, and Pete has started to spray the charnwood stove and that is going well. He has also concreted the floor in the fireplace in the family room, and we need a trip out to a salvage yard for the stone slabs thet we want for the finished fire place.

WOW the stairs are looking good, after much discussion and a frantic search for a magazine picture we now have the start of a very modern curved staircase, the plaster board wasn't quite as accomodatindg as the plasterboard uptairs on the wardrobes, about 5 sheets snapped in half, whist trying to curve them!

The fabric cables have now been sent back from |Sweeden - earthed this time, hooray!

|Framefast are coming on tuesday to fix the bi fold doors, they were also coming last Thursday and then cancelled, so we shall wait and see.

The scaffolders have been round giving us grief, Pete has started to take some of the scaffolding down and it should all be down by the end of the week, as he has now finished the repair work to all of the upstairs windows.

UROLOGY- after the stairs are finished they are going to start on the plumbing, hence last weekend we took advantage on  some Tradepoint and Wickes offers and got most of the bathroom tiles, which the kids loved!!!!-not

I am trying to encourage Pete to start building the verhandah now the weather seems to be improving, - now it is officially spring we will never do winter again in this caravan- now that feels good!!!!!!

DANCING QUEEN!

The couloured Fabric cables arrived yesterday from NUD in sweeden- the colours are fantastic even if I do say so myself, but they have been sent unearthed, ( we ordered them eartherd) so now we are waiting for a response to the email we sent last night!

Pete has installed the built in hoover, and it all works, so now we have hidden the hose and all the different heads, just in case anyone thinks its a good idea to hoover up round the building site!

..... the last couple of have been quite exciting, all of the taps that we ordered have arrived as well as the two baths.  Pete, Reuben and I borrowed a tipper truck from a bloke up the road and went off to Newark to get our huge lime green hot water cylinder, the word gypsies srings to mind, which is totally fine by me except we went home the long way (after a flask in a layby!!!) via Mansfield to pick up our uber cool built in coffee machine!!!!,

on another trip out with Pete - to the tip and then the steel scrap yard- he knows how to treat a girl, ( actually if it was between a scrap yard or Westfield, the scrap yard would win every time)
we picked up a fantastic steel pipe that we are going to use in Finn's built in wardrobe to give it a New 'York Loft apartment' feel ...
..... Pete has build and plasterboarded the curved walk in wardrobes in Jude and Reuben's rooms and we are really happy with them, he has plastered the airing cuboard and the plasterers are coming next week to do all of the  upsatirs and the hall.

We are still waiting for the call to pick up the chesney stove, but the bargain basement stove has arrived today along with the spary paint, it looks fine but we will just have to plumb it in and hope the back boiler is not damaged.

The front upstairs windows are going in today, and Pete and Dave are cutting all the window cills and priming them ready for the plasterers.

Reuben and I went over to trade point on Monday to get a load of paint (.... i know! its all very exciting- it was just white, but I have started to look at the colours for the few rooms that won't be white) and while we were there we called in to Sainsburys where I found the perfect shades to make my own version of the Graham and Green bird cage shades (£350!!!! each) and Gardener Mark who has been hunting all over London scince christmas for the birds finally found some in Covent Garden (thankyou friend!)  and they will be arriving any day ( not really a priority???- depends what your priorities are!! )

.........talking of priorities we found the toilet we wanted for the main bathroom, and the ebay shop auctioned one every day we kept missing out so we put in a bid really early and won it for pennies!yipeee!!! now we just need to win the lovely victorian towel rail with a chip in the back- nothing that can't be hidden with a towel!!!!!