Our house

Our house
First family photo of our house

Tuesday 8 December 2015

We're in and have absolutely no wifi!

So we are in and we were actually in on the last weekend of November. It's been crazy settling in these past two weeks and unfortunately we have no wifi or any good 3G (bad BT line and too many steels blocking our signal!) So it's taken this long to get a chance to post on the blog. We're hoping for wifi to be with us next week. Watch this space! 

Without further ado, here are some piccies. The upstairs is pretty much complete but there's still a lot to do downstairs. 

Aaah - bliss! Carpet underfoot.

A vision of pink! Charlotte's happy place.

Sam's stripes. 

My spice draw - a moment of calm and order in an otherwise chaotic unpacking phase!


That steel line across the outside of the Windows is the Juliet balcony.


A small peek at the front door. I'll hopefully get a better pic for you next time! 


The inner workings of the under sink cupboard! Who would think you need 4 plugs for this space! 

The house is amazing but we're still sharing it with builders and decorators and so it's hard to relax. In fact today is the first day no one has been on site and whilst that's frustrating on one level it's been an easier day without fielding 101 questions from the joiners, electrician and decorators. 

We're looking forward to our first Christmas in our new house and hope that we'll see lots of you come and stay/visit over the years to come! 

Luv
Jo
X







Monday 23 November 2015

1 week till we move back in - aaaaaahhhh!

It's official. It's only one week until we move in and I can't quite believe the time is nearly upon us! Everyone keeps asking me if we are excited about moving in to our lovely new home and whilst I am truly looking forward to living in our new/old home, I am mostly terrified! 

I'm terrified of dealing with the chaos of builders still on site and a roaming toddler intent on exploring everything. I'm terrified of wet paint, wet concrete (which Ellie has already discovered!) and unpacking -again. I'm terrified we will have missed something crucial, chosen something awful or made a decision we cannot undo. But most of all I'm terrified that we're not quite going to 'live up' to this shiny new house and that anyone who meets us will wonder how on earth we get to live in such an amazing place. 

But you know what, I might be wrestling with all these fears right now and I'm sure I'll always be wrestling with some of them; but the one thing that puts my heart at ease is that I don't have to do this in my own strength. I don't have to face the next few weeks alone. By this I mean that each day I can wake up and trust that God will help me. 

I can trust that God, by His power, will sustain me through the chaos and that in the midst of painting, plastering, Ellie falling into wet concrete and a driveway that looks like a bomb has gone off, I will hear His still, small voice that says, "Keep going, you're almost done, you're ok, I've got it covered. I know what is to come and you'll be fine." You might think it's strange but I'm sure there's just a little place somewhere inside of us all that is glad to know the peace that God's care for us brings. He loves me, and boy am I glad that He's got the next three weeks in His hands as I'm gonna need the help! 

Luv
Jo
X

And so it begins - moving back stage 1 complete with the youngest removal team I've seen! 

With temps hitting minus 2 here I'm very glad of our underfloor heating!

Sam's new paint job 

Guest bed two tone

Newly re-tiled family bathroom using the old tiles afresh! 

An important piece of coving - last bit to go in the hallway - let the downstairs painting commence!








Wednesday 18 November 2015

Getting ever closer...

Here's some piccies to keep you all going! X









Less than two weeks to go and we'll be in this amazing new home! 

Xx








Thursday 29 October 2015

Getting ever closer to completion...

We're almost there! 

We've put our notice in on our rental property and are now in the countdown phase to completion - it only seems like yesterday that I started to blog and we can't believe how fast this year has gone! Whilst there still looks like a tremendous amount to complete, pace has quickened and there are at least 4-5 guys on site each day. 

Gas reconnection
Last week Rob was spending a lot of time on the phone talking to the gas company about our reconnection. Frustratingly when they initially disconnected our supply they never mentioned that the pipe was too old to be reconnected and that we'd need a whole new gas pipe. So when they came to reconnect they then let us know this crucial fact meaning we were delayed by a week whilst the builders laid a new pipe. Thankfully this was not as difficult to achieve as we thought it might be and the builders successfully managed to run a channel with the new pipe behind their large shipping container which looked like it might be in the way. So this week we now have gas! This means we can now get the heating going to dry out and warm up the house. 

Decorations
Work is continuing at a really rapid rate on the internal decorations, plastering and internal joinery. It's so exciting seeing the rooms coming together and taking shape before our eyes. We've been brave and selected our paint colours and we hope that they work well together and create a proper style to the house. It's a lot of pressure but our only consolation is that we can always repaint if we (or everyone else) hate the colour! 

Money
It's tight, really tight! We'll be hoping Santa pays for Christmas this year! 

So here are the all important pictures: 














Friday 16 October 2015

We've got windows!

Exciting week this week so I'm gonna post in instalments! First up its the windows:




Can't believe how much this transforms the house! At first look I was rather shocked by how dark they are but I'm warming to them slowly! There's a massive difference between looking at something in the show room and seeing them in place in the house. They've got a couple more to complete but should be all finished early next week and then they can focus even harder on the interiors. 

On another topic - yea! I have a sink!



And here are some of the windows from the inside looking out. 



I'll hopefully get some more photos of the porch roofs by early next week! 
X






Sunday 27 September 2015

The scaffolding is down!!

We're now almost 7 months into the build and the scaffolding has finally come down!!! We are so excited! 


It looks so different without all the poles and boards! The roof is complete and there are temporary window frames in place until the actual windows turn up in two and a bit weeks time - hopefully! 

We've seen evidence that they've been manufacturered and are getting ready to be delivered which is encouraging! 


So now that the outside structure is pretty much complete thoughts are turning inside to paint colours and tiling! Here are some piccies of the bathrooms which are now almost fully tiled.


This is the master ensuite. With Fired Earth Cromarty tiles on the walls and Newlyn wood effect tile on the floor and bath panel. 


This is the guest shower room which is also Fired Earth Newlyn wood effect on the floor (unseen) and Matt white Bilbao on the walls. We're gonna go for a dark grey grout to give a slightly industrial feel and also minimise any mold/damp discolouration! 

The builders have also been busy plastering and I just love the pink tones of drying plaster - it's so pretty! 





The plastering is set to continue this week and next as the entire inside gets drylined and redone. It's then going to be ready for decorations and flooring! 

So here are some other final pictures:


Front porch still to be built but now that the scaffolding is down it can be done! 



Paint colour choosing! Tip number 1: use a sheet of lining paper and paint patches to stick on different sides of the room - that way you can see the effect of subtle light differences! Tip number 2: Dulux Visualiser app for smartphones and tablets is amazingly clever! 

And before we go...we're not sure whether our builders are in need of some light entertainment or whether someone has another life we don't know about but this wig was left hanging up this weekend! 


Captions by comment box please!! 

Hope that keeps you going to the next post which I truly hope will be quicker appearing than this one! 

Luv n hugs 
Jo & Rob
X










Sunday 23 August 2015

Post holiday progress

My lovely kiddies modelling some fine stud work! X

Another three weeks has flown by and the build is still on schedule (amazingly!) I'm truly impressed with the builders and how they've kept on going and kept up the pace. 

We're now moving on to the slower and more detail-oriented part of the build as the external structure is almost complete and the focus shifts inside. 

First fix electrics is almost done but the only evidence of tremendous amounts of hard graft threading wire everywhere is the little cables sticking out all over the place where the plug sockets and media points will be. I have to confess at still being totally baffled by CAT6 wiring (suitable for handling computer networks) and the differences to CAT5 or 4?

 It's also become ridiculously hard to know whether we have chosen the right points for socket positions and lighting. I've found myself staring at the plans and drawings unable to be convinced we've chosen correctly whilst also thinking how hard can this be really?? One other interesting electrical dilemma is the overhead lights in the big open plan living/kitchen/diner. Our initial idea was three zones (one for each area) which would have 9 lights in each zone. However, due to the positioning of the ceiling joist which runs centrally throughout the length of the room the lights have to sit off-centre which makes a pattern of 9 impossible, therefore I've switched to a slightly more ornate pattern of blocks of 8 with four in an inner square and 4 in an outer square, thereby avoiding the central joist. Seriously I'm lying awake at night wondering whether this is a genius solution or a ridiculous mistake! I guess we'll find out when the lights are in and we're going cross-eyed or not! 

Excitingly, the upstairs extension is now being plasterboarded and the rooms are really taking shape which is wonderful as now we can truly imagine what they'll look like. The internal dividing walls have been put up and therefore we can see the exact size of the en suites. The builder has pushed us for answers about what we are installing in the bathrooms. Consequently we've spent a challenging two hours this weekend, with the 3 kiddies again, in Burge and Gunson (Colliers Wood, London) with a salesman who didn't really understand that we wanted to achieve the best quality for the lowest price possible (seriously, we began to wonder if he actually wanted to sell us his products at all.) We had a crazyily idealistic budget of £4,000 for 2 bathrooms which had to include tiling and all the accessories - we've singularly failed to keep to this due to the old 'you gets what you pays for' motto and we didn't really want to go for ultra low-quality as we'd like things to last at least 5 years!! So in the end we have everything except the mirrors/cabinets and we spent another £2,000 or so on top. In the scheme of things it's not a big number but when every £ counts, that amount can help with fitting out a pantry or building understairs cupboards! Hey ho! At least we'll enjoy a slightly more luxurious soak?! 

Here are the all important pictures! 
Underfloor heating in and the screed down already (these photos will be very helpful later if we need to know where pipes are located).


There's something very artistic about pipe work like this! 



Heating controls - we settled on the hallway cupboard to locate them!


Master bedroom...


...plasterboard going in.



A new doorway that didn't exist before! 

Next week we may have roof tiles on if the weather is kind! 

X