Preparations
🎉Things are actually happening!🎉 Mostly because other people are doing them.
We booked kitchens and bathrooms quickly after moving in, to minimise the need for the Green Kitchen of Doom, but the earliest slots for install were so far away that it feels a bit surreal that it’s finally taking place.
We conscientiously removed everything from the bathroom for works to start on the first day, proud of ourselves for being so organised, only for the bathroom people to say ‘Don’t need it yet, still buying stuff and fetching tools’ and the unexpected electrician to turn up saying ‘Right, let’s drill lots of holes in your dining room ceiling’ with all our dining room things still lying about, plus our visitors and their things lying about too! Oops.
Kitchen
Once we’d cleared everything out, the electrician got to work. He needed to get power to all the downlights and the pendants. This needed lots of holes to be drilled in the ceiling. Not just holes for the lights, but holes for the cables to avoid joists, and a couple of big holes for some 🔊 ceiling speakers 🔊
The ceiling is going to be overboarded with plasterboard because lath-and-plaster ceilings tend to disintegrate if you ever have to remove a light fitting.
Drilling holes in the ceiling was very noisy, especially if you happen to be sitting on the other side. It’s also extremely dusty. The electrician sealed the space as best as possible, but we did wake up to some dusty paw prints roaming around the house… 🐈
The hallway floor had to be pulled up for electrical access. It’s right above our consumer unit and so was a good place to pull the new wires for the ovens and hob, but it’s also where all of the lighting for that floor is combined into one fiendish-looking junction box.
During the week, we had a site visit from our kitchen designer to finalise paint colours for the units. We’ve chosen a very dark blue for the island and an off-white for the floor to ceiling cupboards, as we think dark blue for everything would be a bit much.
The last thing that has been done is the doorway between the kitchen and dining room has been blocked up. The old kitchen is very dark without the south-facing window, but we expected this.
Nikki had to go the long way round to fetch a mug, and it was nowhere near as arduous as we first feared when we were discussing whether to fill in the doorway or not. I can’t believe we dithered so much - but we made the right decision.
One of the builders (his name is Will) was telling us about how none of the walls were straight. The half-wall next to the doorway was the worst culprit of all. It has a nice hourglass figure. It’ll all be evened out in the skim coat, and it’s extra nice that we don’t have to personally deal with it. 😎
Bathroom
To jog your memory, here is what the bathroom originally looked like:
The bathroom has changed quite dramatically since the builders have arrived. The carpet came up first of all, hooray! We hated that carpet and were glad to see it go. However, it didn’t go as far away as we’d like and is now being used as carpet protector for our other carpets that we don’t like.
Next to go were the cupboards. The bathroom looked even larger with them gone. Finally the bath, the sink and the toilet.
All week we have been having bathroom stuff delivered, which have then been left around the house. Included are:
Day 2 & 3 of the builders being round, the floorboards were up. These have been taken downstairs to use in the restoration of the new kitchen floor. Instead in the bathroom, there will be an underflooring that won’t wobble as much as the floorboards. This will provide a better base for the underfloor heating and tiling.
Under the floorboards we found a pretty cool thing.
We think that it was a servant bell mechanism for one of the upper floors. It goes around the hearthstone, under the floorboards, then disappears up the wall. As a computer programmer I always find it interesting to see the analog way of doing things. It will stay there until the next owners of this house dig for treasure under the floors.
This is what the bathroom now looks like:
The flooring isn’t yet fixed down. It’s just being cut to size. We’re told it will look very similar for a while as the next steps are plumbing and electrics (and not because they’re slacking).
Thoughts on builders and works
I wasn’t quite prepared for how much this sort of work takes over the entire house. I thought that we’re having the kitchen and bathroom done, so obviously those rooms will be out of action. But I didn’t think that we’d have to pull up floorboards in the hall to access electrics, or that we’d be storing bits and pieces in the lounge and basement, or move out of our bedroom to make space for their tools.
On the other hand, it’s good to properly try out the guest bedroom so we can make it nicer to stay in.
We have been very impressed so far with our builders. It’s a bit different here than in London where everyone needs to have reviews and an internet presence to get work (or we never found the good ones from being In The Know) - but we are glad we trusted them. Everything to date has been done well and Simon and Will are very punctual and nice. ☕
(Possibly a bit too punctual. They’ve just requested to arrive around 7am tomorrow morning 😲)
It’s been nice to have a respite from workers in the house at weekends - we climbed up Solsbury Hill which we can see from our house, and have had the song in our heads ever since.
