Finally, finally we have progress.
The wall is down and the steel is in, albeit it’s all a bit precarious as there are many supports holding up Cashworth Mansions.
We have a handy cement mixer and lots of holes in the floor.
The room itself though feels enormous and hopefully we’ll now start to make progress towards a kitchen as food has become a daily challenge.
Ready meals, microwave, cement mixer.
It’s been a tough couple of weeks as we soldier on through torrential rain, dust and construction.
The lack of bathroom has continued but we’re seeing progress as there’s plaster on the walls, we no longer have a tap in the ceiling and we’ve moved the door. Actually we no longer have a door!
These may seem like small accomplishments but to us, they’re massive.
Next stage is tiling so let’s hope things get finished in the next couple of weeks (or months!)
On Saturday we had a lesson in lighting as we ventured over to Chelsea to John Cullen, a lighting specialist.
It was illuminating in many more ways than one as we learned about a variety of lighting options for bathrooms and kitchens and suddenly understood the difference lighting can make to a space.
Of course it all comes at a price and our next step will be to try and find similar products for less money but what a difference it will make if we do it right.
This week I have become the squeaky wheel.
Having noticed that the bathroom demolition began in late August (thank goodness for dates on photos) I alerted the builder to the fact that we were over five weeks without a shower and we needed to pick up the pace.
That resulted in another chap arriving for a day and the installation of our new toilet. See, it wasn’t that hard! Squeak squeak.
It’s a very nice toilet and we were rather pathetically pleased with it. I suspect we’d be pleased with a toilet roll holder at this point.
Unfortunately the extra chap vanished after a day having done his back in and we were back to slow progress for the rest of the week. More squeaking required.
We’ve now been promised three chaps and a rubbish clear out this week as living conditions have deteriorated due to old pipes, rubble sacks, radiators and a large Japanese toilet cluttering up the hall and kitchen.
I’ve also mentioned the original schedule of kitchen installation by Christmas so let’s see how much squeaking is required to get that moving!
Popular with builders? Not so much!
As an experienced building site resident, I feel qualified to offer up a few nuggets of wisdom for any fool stupid enough to embark on a DIY project and attempt to live in it for at least a year…
1. A kitchen is the least of your worries. Set up a table with a hot plate, a kettle, toaster and coffee maker. Buy a mini fridge and install under table. When things get really bad, admit defeat and buy paper plates and a microwave. We have just bought a microwave.
2. Running water is a precious commodity. Keeping clean is very hard when you don’t have a bathroom. It’s amazing how clean you can feel if you can brush your teeth and wash your hands. Wet wipes are useful but not as good as running water. Anything is better than nothing.
3. Do try and keep a toilet working for as long as possible. If you get to the bucket stage you’re in trouble. We are not at the bucket stage but we have been there before. It’s not fun.
4. Love your launderette. Try to change your sheets every week as the dust and filth as well as lack of a shower isn’t doing you or your linen any favours. Unfortunately the sheets you’re using will never be clean again so dream of the day when you can buy new sheets to go in your brand new washing machine. We’re at the dreaming stage.
5. If your head itches, you need a shower.
6. Cleaning seems futile but keep fighting the resistance. If you give up, the filth will win. Dusting is essential and is an exercise in either sanity or madness depending on your state of mind. I’m clinging to the yellow duster of sanity.
7. If you can smell something, it’s probably you.
8. Always have a Plan B, exit plan, backup plan. Hmm, we seem to have forgotten that.
9. Do not buy a property which needs a simple renovation, you know, like just knocking a wall down to make a bigger kitchen.
10. Remember to have enough money to finish your project otherwise it will take years. Oops.
And with my top ten tips of coping I would just say the smartest thing is simply…do not live in a building site. Just don’t do it!
It’s been a while since I updated our living conditions mainly because it’s quite challenging.
We are now down to the old toilet on a piece of plywood for a bathroom. It’s been two months since the shower packed up but the pipes are in so perhaps there’s light at the end of that very dark tunnel.
The kitchen foundations apparently have to dry for twenty eight days. Which is a month so this is what the kitchen looks like.
There are lots of holes in the floor and it’s a bit precarious.
The hall is cordoned off with sheets and there’s a sheet hanging across the bathroom entry as there’s no door.
Unfortunately Big T walked in on one of builders having a sit down. I shall be coughing loudly (which I am anyway from the dust!)
Anyway it’s all a bit challenging and the photos don’t really capture the filth so here’s some parquet floor we looked at on Saturday. We can dream!
And it’s the end of September. Will we be finished by Christmas? Hmm…
Our final stop on the whistle stop tour of Iceland was the capital city, Reykjavik.
We were quite tired and hungry when we arrived but managed to find the old city centre hidden among what seemed to be massive recent development.
After being immersed in nature, the outskirts of Reykjavik could have been anywhere but the centre was quaint and we discovered a nice shopping area below the iconic cathedral.
Before long we were dropping off our car and boarding our cheap, no frills airline to return to the glamour of Luton.
We’d travelled by Wizz airlines, a budget Hungarian company which meant we arrived at Luton airport at 2am and finally got to bed around 3am. Luckily I’d booked a taxi!
Going into work that day was hard but it had been worth it!
