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| Back hallway
I'd already moved and rebuilt the stairs in
the back hallway last June, but ever the gaps that were created
around the stairs were never filled. This needed sorting out so
I booked the plasterers to come back and in the meantime fitted
LED lighting and new energy efficient light fittings to the hall
and landing. The low 3 watt LED lights are linked into a circuit
of LED fittings that cover all the areas of the house that people
walk though to access another part of the house. The idea is to
have one circuit illuminating all bathrooms and hallways using so
little power that it can be left on whilst people are in the house.
This is more efficient than turning a series of lights on and off
as people move around the house.
Downstairs, the re-plastered hallway is a big
improvement. This area was badly lit, but the new light fittings are
very bright.
Shower room
The house that we've been living in at the
back of the shops had a particularly 'special' bathroom which was
now rotting away under the stylish tiling. Although I was hoping
to put off replacing this we had to move one wall as part of the
re-plastering of the back hallway and so in the end it made sense
to do the whole lot together.
Jen particularly enjoyed smashing up the old
brown suite!
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| That was the easy bit, now
to install a new shower, WC and basin. This required quite a lot
of new plumbing, tiling and electrics as I installed a shower light
and extractor to prevent any future damp/humidity problems. Andy
did a great job on the tiling whilst I fitted the new waste and
pumped feed to the shower. The shower surround was particularly
difficult to install. The new towel radiator required a change to
the central heating feeds.
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Ready for use. Lino will be fitted at the same time as the carpets.
Second Fix
As of June second fix is complete, remaining
tasks are to complete all the wood finishes and get carpets and
curtains in. This is scheduled for early July. The plan is to have
a couple of months off before starting on the kitchen. Here's how
things look as of late June.
The bookcase takes all of our books, vinyl and CD's and weighs over
half a ton as its constructed from 50 mm thickness MDF. Over time
we'll get hold of furniture for the various areas of the living
room but at the moment the budget's a bit empty! |
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There are still no internal doors upstairs and there's
lots of wood finishing to do so this will be getting completed in
early July.
Nearly finished rooms!
As of September the majority of second fix
is complete, its just all the fiddly bits of decoration and cleaning
left. We had a break over summer as the weather was too good to
be stuck inside painting. We moved into our new bedroom in August
and the new living room space is very welcome.
The bedroom cupboards were fitted out with standard basket, shelf and hanging rail components from Ikea
Finishing the bathroom consisted of painting,
completing the cubby holes and fitting the glass shelves behind the
bath.
The landing needed the wall washers fitting
and some decoration to the glass block 'windows'. The stairs are
still waiting for a second coat of smoothrite.
The new home office is a massive improvement
over the old one. Eventually it will move from the spare bedroom to
the back of the house. All Veluxes upstaiirs are fitted with blinds and the rooms are surprisingly large.
The floor in the new kitchen was a real mess
as the room had been used as a workshop for the last eighteen months.
It took me five days to clean the dust, plaster and oil from the floor
and then seal and grout it. I also had to replace a number of tiles
which had become damaged due to me not grouting before using the floor.
We won't lay a floor again without finishing the job at the time!
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part 7>> |
