New Bathroom installed!!

So, this is *exactly* why we decided to move out of home -




- while the work on the bathroom has been taking place (it was just total chaos)...work was only actually finished last Friday night, our first glipse of the finished product was at Saturday lunchtime (after haircuts at my folks) and my goodness has it been worth all the time and effort (almost 2 weeks solid for those involved)-

- including a nice modern toilet (wonder what they did while the toilet was out of commission?) and a heated towel rail -

- a funky new sink, the biggest bath in the world(tm), seriously...it's *huge*...and a super powerful shower, situated right up on the ceiling (as I'm quite tall my normal shower experience is one where the flow of water starts somewhere roughly level with my chin, so this is absolutely perfect - I can pretend I'm a normal-sized person for once)...! Admittedly Flyingpops is having a bit of trouble as a result, suddenly feeling like she is living in the land of the giants, but it will all be much easier when she isn't heavily pregnant...for the time being we are having to employ a combination of a small set of steps and me giving her a hand to clamber in and out...All there is left to do now is choose what flooring we would like, it's a toss up between some of that nice modern textured linolium, and some real (non-slippery) floor tiles...It will probably be the linolium (for practical reasons), as if anyone needed to get at the pipe work (for whatever reason) having to smash off the tiles to get at them would be a bit too much of a pain to bear...

Anyway, we are extremely pleased...other than the floor it just needs one or two finishing touches (lick of paint on some of the pipe work, a shower curtain, choose some nice accessories, that sort of thing) and we are all done...!

Bathroom and Nursery, weekend update

It's been another busy weekend, I finished off the plasterboard skimming in the nursery on Saturday (and because it was so hot it was a bit of a nightmare) the sanding took much longer than I thought and was harder work than I thought, but it was well worth it, the wall is really smooth and jolly even now (even if I do say so myself)...probably shouldn't have worn black clothes though, when I came out it looked like I'd had a collision with a sack of flour, all in my hair, in my ears and up my nose...took ages to clean up all the dust, starting with the vacuum cleaner, and finishing up with a damp sponge on the walls themselves (a surprising amount kept on clinging to them even after repeated wiping)...on Saturday night, instead of watching Britain's got talent, I made a start on the painting, but gave up after a wall and a half as the finish looked terrible (really disheartening after all the effort I had gone to), oddly in the morning it had all magically straightened itself out (could have been just the electric light playing tricks with my tired eyes, but I definitely concluded to get some better paint would be a sensible thing to do, the stuff we have is way too watery)...

Sunday, for once, I actually had a full day of rest (even fell asleep on the sofa at about 9pm)...! This week it's going to be chaos at home, the bathroom is going in - and we are going out (to avoid the upheaval)...we are staying with at my folks place in Oxted, the only bad thing is that they aren't going to be there as they are off on holiday...So this morning we loaded up all our clothes and wash kits (etc) into Poppy the Beetle and after work I'm heading straight there, the next time I see the house (which will be at the end of the week, just before we go off on our mini break to the South West), the new bathroom should be installed!

Bathroom - new plastered ceiling

So, the work has begun! As of Saturday the carpet in the bathroom is gone -

- new thin plasterboard went up all over the uneven ceiling (I had wondered how it was going to be made even!) screwed into the joists-

- and brand new plaster was carefully layed over the top...it took about 6 hours in total I suppose-

- but worth every minute of it, it is *incredibly* smooth to the touch...if the rest of the work is up to this standard then our new bathroom will be very nice indeed... ;)

Oh and the woman that first wanted to buy Colin the camper bought a T4 (our fault for putting them off until the weekend, but we hadn't quite got him ready to be sold when she rang) and the second person that came to look never returned with the brother (who had the money), so we've still got him (for the time being)...although a new ad was posted in Exchange and Mart yesterday...so we will see what activity that brings!

New Bathroom - Buying Tiles

We are *finally* getting our new bathroom...! The quote is in, the taps have been chosen and work is due to start in the next couple of weeks, this does of course mean that for the duration we will have some considerable upheaval to put up with (not least of which is having no means of taking a bath - I guess I'm going to have to use the showers here in the gym in Canary Wharf, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it)...So Saturday we spent doing the last of the little jobs associated with the upgrade - choosing the tiles - which (one would have thought) should have been reasonably simple, however, we really did end up going all around the houses...first stop was Rogers Ceramics, a little independent tile shop at Gatton Point, which was a really tiny place and didn't seem to have a single kind of tile for under about £25 per square meter (and as we needed 20 square meters that would have cost us about £500!)-

Next up we stopped in the Homebase in Reigate, nothing *really* grabbed us, but they did have nice plain white tiles for £7.99/m2 (or about £160 for the job) - so a step in the right direction...if only they had more than 4 boxes in stock we probably would have finished the process right there and then...

Anyway, we headed on to Dorking and Wickes next, where they had even cheaper white tiles (£6.15/m2 - or £123) and again (unfortunately) only 6 boxes in stock...!

Flyingpops went to the information desk and asked if they could order up some more, and the answer was no, they only way we could guarantee getting the whole lot from a single batch was to order them to be delivered, which would cost an extra £40! Most unhelpful...and so we ended up in Tile Base (just down the road from Wickes) -

- where the staff were extremely friendly and helpful (in stark contrast) -

- they had a *huge* palett of white tiles (all from the same batch) for £6.50/m2 (and it was "10% off day") meaning we got the whole lot for £117!  We even got a few sheets of embellishments for 99 pence each (down from £5)!

Flyingpops mum came (briging her estate car) to help us transport them all home (thanks Nanjan!), as there was absolutely no room in the Bug, and they are all now stacked up at the bottom of the stairs waiting for the work to begin! How exciting!