Building a new house

So, it's the end of the weekend before the three-day week (thanks to the Jubilee Bank Holidays on Thursday and Friday) before the weekend before our Tuesday removal. We thought that we should check on the not insubstantial progress the decorators have been making this week, and prepare ourselves for the fact that, while we ourselves could move in already, it may not be possible to have all our belongings put in their rightful places in  9 days' time. not only the painters have been at work - Ian has fitted the larder unit, the door of which will  be painted to disguise itself in the wall when closed most of the glass panels have been fitted to the staircase (hence the image of Elizabeth here) - the delivery company dropped and broke just one, which has been re-ordered) the hall cupboard is ready for the aerial and data connections ..... ..... which will lead to a number of places, including behind the sitting room tv the understairs door is painted and the Egyptian cotton colo...

Just about all (and there has been a lot) of the inside joinery is finished, and the preparation of the ground around the house for the paved areas is complete. Plumbing, electrics and decoration work remain, but we definitely have a habitable house now.   We hope that in another two weeks all will be ready for us to have our furniture and other belongings moved in. foundation stone is in place under the walkway and down the side of the house the stairway has its oak windowsill and awaits decoration and the glass panels of the balustrade the bedhead is almost finished with bedside lights still to be fitted the stone spreading continues to the north we are ready for fencing and paving but at the front much remains to be done the joinery work in the utility room is done and we have a shelved airing cupboard Rob will fit the led strip lighting at the edge of the staircase the maize is just showing in the field - in a few months it will be 7 or 8 feet high the spoil will be remove...

Sometimes a lot of work is done and little seems to change very much, at least visually. Today was very different, as the groundworks team turned to removing the hawthorn hedges (which will be replaced by post and rail fencing) and levelling the ground in preparation for the paved areas which are to go in round the house. On our way to the house we stopped at the field gate and for the first time had a full external view of the lower windows on the end of the house. it won't stay completely open like this, but the new fence should not interfere too much with the view most of the dark-coloured earth in this image will be paved the small area at the back of the house will have paving and a planting bed against the fence just before we left, a storm came in, but even so we enjoyed the view across the field from the untidy sitting room

Well it has to, really, as we have arranged a moving date three and a half weeks from today. So with weekends and a couple of Jubilee Bank Holidays, that's 14 more working days for the house to be habitable, and for us to pack up our possessions once again.  In the last few days, things have not only been continuing indoors, but outside some serious digging has happened and we now have a completed drainage system with a soakaway in our field strip for our rainwater. Armoured cables have been made ready to provide an electrical supply to both the front and rear gardens, and the fixing of cladding has re-started. the carcases of the utility cupboards are in place we have a cupboard under the stairs, cunningly made of grooved mdf to match the main oak doors (grooved mdf has been a theme of the week) inside the little cupboard we have light and power ( and the cable is waiting to be connected to lights on the stairs) more grooved mdf, with oak nooks, on the partition headboard wall in ...