The kitchen carcasses were put in on Monday and they look lovely even though they have no shelves, no worktop and no doors.
We mention moving in 'a week today' to the carpenter who says 'I know!' in a kind of impressed manner, and says he'll be back next Monday to do the worktops. So that'll be THE DAY WE MOVE IN THEN. What about a working sink? Eh? Sigh.
He also starts the storage units in the music room. They're enormous. If that's not enough room for all of Guy's instruments he'll seriously have to sell some. Or I will...
You'll have spotted that these also don't have any shelves yet. We are learning patience.
The vinyl floor is due to go down in the utility room, bathroom and under stairs cupboard on Tuesday and on Monday the floor is a mess. We get our trusty Miele vacuum out and sadly it blows more than it sucks. We borrow the builders' vacuum and it works, but it has no head so we (ok, Guy) has to hoover the entire floor using only a 2 inch nozzle.
The pipe is shorter by the time he finishes because it's on rough concrete and is like sanding the end of the hose. Tough. I don't entirely waste my time while he's slaving away on the floors - I investigate hiring an industrial vacuum and find it's better value to just buy an industrial strength Henry. I order one online from Screwfix and pick it up at 7am on Tuesday. Sorted!
We love Henry. He is willing and picks up absolutely everything. And he smiles all the time.
But... on Thursday Henry sadly dies. Guy is Henrying the sitting room (you wouldn't believe the mess) and Henry simply stops. We try all sorts of cajoling but he's having none of it, so we put him back in his box and I take him to Screwfix, where they get him out of the box and he works perfectly. The general consensus from the staff is that Henry simply wanted a ride in the car... We pack him up and I take him home again where he is continuing to work beautifully.
The electrician arrives on Wednesday promising to have us 'up and running by the end of the day'. He stays till 8.45pm but we're still not 'up and running'. Some sockets and lights work, most don't. He comes back on Thursday and we're still not 'up and running', so he's back on Friday. He leaves at about 6pm with a list of around 20 things to sort out when he comes back. Some time as yet unspecified. Most things are working.
The decorator is continuing to paint things in a totally random manner and we've given up asking when he's going to complete, like, an actual ROOM. We are due to move in next Monday and yet on Thursday we still don't have a single room ready. There is paint and plaster everywhere, so we will need to re-sand all the floors upstairs and re-varnish them, but we don't know when we can start.
I notice that Guy has gone a lot more grey than when we started this...
On Tuesday BOB visits to see what still needs doing, despite us having updated him on a daily basis for the past week. He seems surprised that there are no electrics and tries every socket and switch in turn, with us behind him saying 'it's not connected yet' at every click. He remains surprised. He is also surprised at the lack of a kitchen. Sigh. I almost lose it when he says 'you're eager to move in' and I manage NOT to point out that we were supposed to be in at the end of May. This was meant to be an 8 month build and we are now 6 weeks overdue. That's 20%. That's a LOT of overdue. He speaks to the kitchen guy who says yes he will be with us on Tuesday of next week. NOOOO - YOU SAID MONDAY! He now says Tuesday.
The vinyl guys arrive, have a lovely 'can do' attitude and crack on with the laying of the floor.
We get the roofer back to put tiles on the outside loo - that's hardly a priority from our point of view, but it seems to be getting done. We're getting slabs outside too - they do need doing. We order coping stones from a chap in Coleford who speaks very fast and who neither of us can understand. If we need to speak to him on the phone we toss a coin to see who has to do it.
We get lovely TV engineers in who mostly connect the Sky and two TVs. There are bits we can order online to get everything working properly, apparently. They tell us it's 'a doddle to connect'. Hmmm...
The newly laid vinyl floor is getting covered in crap and paint. Henry does his best.
Each tradesman seems to think he is the most important, the best, and should be the last on site. As I spend all of Friday afternoon trying to get paint off our previously sanded floorboards, I am NOT a fan of the decorator. He still doesn't communicate and resolutely refuses to remove door handles, window furniture, sockets, switches and even the cat flap to paint, so everything has specks of paint on it. I am fuming, so just stay upstairs and sand the bloody floors. Again. Guy deals with the bodies on site and goes off to a gig, I eventually finish sanding and get everything varnished by about 7pm... We are very, very tired...
On Saturday we try to make the place look a bit more like home by putting up a couple of pictures and doing some proper cleaning, and find that somebody has damaged the Aga. Proper damage that will need either repairing or replacing - a chunk of enamel has been knocked off it. It also has a lot of paint on it despite the FOUR curtains I had covered it with. The total lack of respect by some of the builders for everything we have is really getting to me...
It will be fine, it will be fine, it will be fine.
On the plus side, Guy and I spend an intimate half hour in our new bathroom. Before your imagination runs away, we were fitting the loo seat which was ridiculously complicated. The bonus is that when you sit on it you can reach the towel rail to pick the paint off it - win/win eh?
Windows and doors are being painted outside - we are willing the decorator to just get it done and leave.
Purchases of the week:
Apart from buying our lovely Henry, I genuinely can't remember much, except that I did go to Lidl after taking Henry back to Screwfix in the car. My shopping was as follows:
Biscuits
Biscuits
Biscuits
Biscuits
Biscuits
Biscuits (all for the builders, although we're beginning to wonder why we're so nice to them)
Milk (ditto)
Work socks (for Guy - I would have got some for me too but there weren't any - apparently women don't need work socks)
Prosecco. That one was for me...
Carpet. Not actually a purchase as it was entirely FREE! The concrete floor is nowhere near dry enough to put floorboards down so we have, um, concrete and dust. However, we found if you go to County Marquees in Chepstow they will give you lumps of previously once-used carpet for FREE. It's pretty thin, it only comes in beige or grey and it occasionally has rather alarming 'might have been curry or sick' type stains on it. If you get plenty of carpet and cut out the grotty bits, you still have enough to cover all of the concrete floors. It's nicer underfoot and it stops the dust - in our eyes that's a major result!
And that's it - tomorrow we move in. We won't be moving the kitchen stuff as there's nowhere to put it, nor the musical instruments.
It will be fine, it will be fine, it will be fine...
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