New Greenery

Last summer, I spent some time and money on my house, even though it’s a rented place. Nothing permanent, just some flooring/decking out in the back yard, repainting the wooden fences, and some plants in pots. It was a successful plan, and it looks much better now than it did before.

Over the winter, it’s all been a bit bare, and I’ve been thinking about what to do next with it all.

Today, I left work earlier than usual and went to get some new stuff, more planters and plants, that kind of thing.  Some summer and autumn bulbs, a climbing jasmine, clematis, and some other bits.

Once I got home, I got it all planted up and watered, so we’ll see how it all works out. I’m still planning to get some more bits, and repaint the wooden fences again (hopefully with less marks and blobs this time) so it looks better.

As before, it’s all movable – well, except for the painted woodwork, of course. Whether I do move it or not (as and when I move) is a different decision – the plants and pots could easily go, the yard tiling/decking is really only fit for the current yard, so it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.

In the meantime, though, the aim – assuming a decent spring and summer – will be to have an open space that’s actually usable and comfortable. Hopefully the stuff I’ve now got there is the groundwork for having that this year.

Work

It’s a Bank Holiday weekend, which of course means we’re doing stuff on the house again.

To be exact, this time it’s the garage that needs sorting out.

It’s not actually a garage – whoever built the thing fucked it up, so it’s round a dog-leg corner behind the house, and thus well-night impossible to park a car in. (Of course, that just shows I’m getting old – who the hell parks their car in their garage these days?) As a result, it’s been a storage tip spot for stuff since we moved in.

It still will be a storage place, but we’ve sorted out a lot of the stuff inside it this weekend, taking out the bits we don’t need and/or putting things in far more order.

So far, it also means that I (with some help from Herself) have :

• Put up an offcut of the kitchen worktop, for use as work-surface (and storage surface) in the garage
• Put up two lots of ladder-hooks, and hung ladders from them (which haven’t yet fallen off again)
• Put up another set of hooks for a couple of other heavy odds and sods to hang off
• Done two runs to local tips, one with everyday rubbish to our normal recycling place at Snetterton, and one with tins of paint etc. to the rather more serious one at Knettishall

There’s still plenty more to do, but at least we’re getting somewhere. Even more importantly, it’s beginning to look like the garage will become properly usable space after all…

Sanding / No connection

Yesterday was spent with absolutely no internet connection at home.  For once this was a choice thing, rather than some esoteric Bank Holiday Fuckup by BT, Tiscali or anyone else.

Basically, the main phone point is in the hallway, and over the weekend the hallway got cleared out so we could sand/seal/varnish the teak parquet floor.

Yes, Herself was back trusting me with power tools. Go figure.

So yesterday was the day the actual sanding took place. And all went amazingly well.

The floor was (it turned out) amazingly dirty – the parquet looked more like mahogany than teak. Then the industrial floor sanders came out, and now it’s all teaky and beautiful again.  I’m not perfect with the sanders, but the job has come up looking fantastic.

It’s all been sealed/varnished again as well, using Ronseal’s “Diamond Hard” clear floor varnish – a product which certainly lives up to it’s description, but also makes the floor look even better.

There’s a couple more marks/dents/lines in the floor than there used to be, but they’re not horrendous – I’m sure we’ll stop noticing them soon. I bloody hope so anyway, because it’s now going to be a complete bastard to go back down through the new varnish if we did decide to sand them out completely.

But it’s all done now. There’s a lot more work to be done in the hallway – woodwork and walls to be (re)painted etc., and so on, but the final big job in the house is now complete.

Tiled

Excuse the braindump waffle, but I’m tired…

Anyway, the kitchen is now completely tiled. Herself has done a fantastic job with the tiling itsef, and I’ve done what I can with the tile-cutter (something I’m actually good at) and with mixing the tile adhesive.

We’ve still got the grouting to do, of course, but at least we’ve got the majority of the work done now. The only bits that remain are the verdammt grouting, and then having all the kitchen unit doors replaced (which will now happen after our week’s holiday) but when that’s all sorted, the kitchen should be done. And a happy day that’ll be.

A Weekend On The Tiles

During the week, Herself has finished off tiling the walls in the redone kitchen – and bloody good they look too.

It’s taken longer than expected (and there’s still all the grouting to do) mainly because I don’t think either of us had really understood the sheer scope of the project. There’s one hell of a lot of tiles, and some decidedly awkward bits – not least the window-sill, and the wall where the sink is.

But it all looks fantastic – and once it’s done, I’m almost certain there’ll be a couple of photos put up here. Don’t hold your breath though, it won’t be ’til April…

In the meantime, this weekend will be spent doing the floor tiles. Still a big job – the tiles are the same beasts we’ve used in just about all the other rooms, 45cm square 10mm thick vitrified ceramic things that need a proper industrial tile-cutter. Yep, hired from HSS again – I suspect that over the length of the house project, we’d have actually been better off if we’d bought one, but there we go. That’s hindsight for you.

Still, by Monday we should be done on tiling – with the exception of the bloody grout, of course.  Just don’t expect much in the way of updates while we’re doing it.

DIY (Again)

Call me sensitive, portray me as a geek with no practical skills, whatever – but I really fucking hate DIY.

This weekend’s effort has been to put on the new doors for all the kitchen cupboards – supposedly an easy job, only for me it’s not. Not helped by the fact that we never seem to have the right tools for the job – this one involved needing to get a new drill bit, because for some reason all our 5mm drill bits have disappeared – which drives me completely crackers, and really gets to me.

The problem with the cupboard doors was that – of fucking course – the holes for the hinges aren’t in the same place as they are on the old doors. Which means either a) drilling new holes in the doors (risky) or b) drilling and sorting new holes in the units. We’ve opted for b), as a) is decidedly dodgy where my lack-of-talent is concerned.  Only even that is too complex for me, so it all becomes stressful and annoying.

I’m aware of my limitations on these things – I’m OK with some of the basics, but I’m better as being an assistant (at best) or – far preferable – paying someone else to do the stuff I can’t do.

To me, it’s better to have work done professionally – it saves on the stress, hassle, and crap all round.

Building Work – Phase 2

The main dollop of building work in the kitchen is now completed – the weird wall and archway are gone, the two semi-rooms are merged together, the ceiling is replastered, and the pipes and wires are all boxed in.

Along the way, we’ve also had to get a new extractor fan/cooker hood thing – the old one had never worked since we moved in, and it turned out to have a bird’s nest in the flue pipe, at which point it all got condemned. We’ve also been able to replace the exterior PIR lights with ones that actually work, and don’t occasionally stay on all night. Oh, and the electrician has sworn (again) at the previous owner’s DIY “skills”. (in the loosest possible sense of the word)

The ropy old sliding back door is yet to be replaced, due to the fact the guy doing the work has developed a dollop of gastroenteritis, which means that sometime next week (probably) we’ll be having the builders back over for a day to take out the old door and put in a bit of replacement wall, and then we’ll have the replacement window and door installed the next day.

Herself was busy yesterday taking the old tiles off the walls in preparation for putting new ones up over the weekend. We’re leaving the floor tiles until next weekend, as (I think) the builders were scared of breaking new floor tiles when they take out the door and put in the replacement wall.

So it’s all going ahead, and we’re getting there. The kitchen looks one hell of a lot bigger now, and it’s all pretty promising really.

Building Work

At home this week, we’ve got the builders in again. This time last year it was the bathroom getting knocked apart and now it’s the turn of the kitchen to get some replanning.

We’ve got a small (useless, space-taking) wall to be knocked down, a tiled floor to come up, a ceiling to be replastered, some pipes to be moved and/or boxed in, a new outside light to be installed, and the poxy horrid sliding backdoor (think sliding patio door, but also one that tips back from the top in order to come out) is being replaced by a window and single door. I think that’s it, but there’s probably other stuff going on as well.

All told, it means that this week is going to be slightly chaotic – and pretty dusty.

Then in a couple of weeks time we’ve got a delivery of new kitchen doors coming, along with worktop (sound familiar?) which will then get fitted and done the following week. (with luck, and assuming that the order comes through a) on time and b) correct. I’m placing no bets on either of those occurrences, let alone both)

So by the end of March we should have a redone kitchen – we’re not doing the full extension in the end, so this will be a replan that makes the place work better, but for about 1/15th of the cost…

Cutting Tiles

As I’ve said before, Herself has taken this week off work as annual leave. One of her main goals during this week has been to do the tiling of the final bedroom floor – we did the floors of the other two bedrooms before we moved in, as well as the living room, and didn’t expect to use the third bedroom for a while, so we didn’t do the tiling there.

Of course, plans then changed, and the second bedroom (which we initially were using) became the office, and so we set ourselves up in the main bedroom with the untiled floor. And so it’s been ever since. Tiling the floor has always been in the plan, it’s just that while we’ve been using it, well, the tiling hasn’t happened.

So earlier this week, Herself did all the floor tiles that didn’t need any cutting – the great majority of the work – and we hired an industrial tile-cutter to do the cuts. The tiles, as I may’ve said before, are 10mm thick fully-vitrified ceramic floor tiles – in other words, they’re tough as fuck, and a normal tile-cutter doesn’t even scratch the things. So instead we have to hire the industrial variety with a water-cooled rotating blade – like a bloody big angle-grinder – in order to do the work.

And that’s fine – except when it turns out that the blade supplied with the cutter is, to be polite, blunt as fuck. (That’s far politer than what I was calling it last night)

Amazingly, I only broke two or three tiles with the bloody thing. It was jamming up three or four times per tile, needing to be reversed, or lifted, or pulled out, or sworn at – or all of the above, of course. So all told, the cutting of the (approximately) twenty tiles took nearly three hours, lots of swearing, and me getting piss-wet through (due to the water-cooling of the blade, which is basically just a pumped spray of water) and effing cold. Mid-November is emphatically not the time to be doing tile-cutting in an open garage.

Still, it’s done now – there’s only one more room that’ll need tiling at some point, and that’s the kitchen. But we need to decide what we’re doing in there first, so that won’t be ’til at least the middle of next year. The bedroom looks fantastic, even before the grouting of the tiles is completed, and it’ll make a big difference to the house.

Even better, it means we might be able to go back to sleeping in there tonight, once I/we’ve reassembled the bed, and moved the furniture back in…

Finishing Off

This weekend is primarily going to be spent finishing off the main bits in the bathroom. Yes, that means tiling. And painting. Joy.

But still, at least it means it’ll be done. The tiling is the main job (and something Herself is damn good at – I’ll just be being the labour, putting adhesive on tiles, getting covered in grout/adhesive, and that kind of thing) so that’s (hopefully) going to be completed today, and then probably first coats of paint tomorrow.

I’m sure there’ll be other stuff to get done as well, but at least this way we’re getting there, and the job might just be finished off by the time we go away on Friday…

Bizarre House Work

One thing we didn’t know when we bought this place is just how bad the previous work that had been done on the place really was. As time goes on, we’re realising it more and more.

In the current bathroom work, we’ve found that the floor in there is extremely non-level, and in some places has up to an 8° slope. And the corners aren’t square either. Come to that, neither are the walls. And while I know that’s not down to work done by the previous owners, it’s still a pain in the tits.

As for the work done by the previous owners, some of it is nothing short of bizarre. For instance, because the place was originally built with nowhere near enough power sockets, they had rigged up what amounted to an extension lead with two lots of wall-mounted double sockets coming off it. And they’d done that in just about every room.

There are also under-cupboard lights in the kitchen which were running from a power-feed that should be only going to be boiler. According to the electrician (who went an interesting shade of white when he saw it) that is a serious no-no.

I’ve written about the heating system before, where the wiring and pipework are – what’s the best word? – interesting. Yes, interesting – that’ll just about cover it.

Now in the bathroom we’ve found that they replaced the toilet with a new one (which, incidentally means they chose an avocado-green suite, it wasn’t forced upon them at house-purchase time) and fixed the difference in pipe-sizes with a plastic collar filled with solid cement.

All told, very bizarre people. Still, at least we’re getting these things sorted out slowly but surely.

Oh God, When Will It End?

We’re now in the third week of the work in the bathroom, and it has to be said that the sense of humour is slowly failing. We’re at the point now where we just want it to be over and done with.

I think some of this is because we’re so nearly there – the builder is in today (and possibly tomorrow) to finish things off, then the plumber’s here Wednesday/Thursday to finish off putting in the other bits of the new suite (Sink/pedestal and toilet), and then to move around a couple of radiators. So we should be done by the end of the week.

At that point it’s “just” painting and tiling to be done, but we’re doing those – so we have to choose the colours and buy the tiles. But at least the main dollop of work will be completed.

But really now we just want to time-travel forwards to Friday so that it’s all done and we can get going on our own bits of work.

Building Work – Yet Again

The saga of the re-done bathroom is still ongoing. The plumber came round yesterday in the end – he’d been held back on a previous job which turned into a nightmare, so we’re about 1½ days behind schedule on that score. But the pipework and wiring is now in place for the new shower, the old heating pipes have been chopped out of the floor and capped off (and then covered in cement to level the floor off again – Lord, I hope they don’t leak…) and everything seems to be in place for the work to be done today.

The new bathroom suite is here, arrived at 8:30, and all seems to be intact and ready to go. The bath and shower are the priority items to be done today, and if the rest of the suite gets installed as well, that’s just a bonus.

So we’ll just see how it goes. With a bit of luck, most of the work will be done by the end of today, and then the builder will be in tomorrow to finish off the end of the new wall once the bath is installed, so we’ve got a good smooth finish to it all. You never know, at that point there might even be a photo or two…

Illuminated

Yesterday we had the electrician back in to sort out the lights and so on in the new bathroom. Over the weekend there wasn’t any light in there (well, except for a table lamp that we put in there on an extension lead to tide us over) so it’s been good to get the new light fitting installed and working.

He was also putting in the power for the new shower, and installing a new bathroom cabinet/mirror (it’s got a couple of small low-wattage lights in, hence needing the electrician to install the thing) except that ended up having problems – somehow, the brackets on the inside weren’t aligned, so all the shelves were on a (roughly) 20° slope. Fortunately we’ve been able to get it replaced (the brackets were spot-welded or something to the cabinet, and thus not moveable) but it means that we’ll be having the electrician here again tomorrow to fit it.

We’ve also got the plumber arriving for the rest of the week, changing over radiators, installing the shower, and removing the old radiator pipes from the bathroom floor so we can get it all levelled off and ready for the new flooring at some point.

Progress on the bathroom has been utterly fantastic – we’ve been using it as a kind of testing ground for the builder and his colleagues, so that we know who we’ll use when it comes to the big kitchen extension next year – and so far they’ve passed the test with flying colours.

Building Work – Again

So far, the building work seems to be going pretty well. In fact, other than levelling the floor (which can only be done once the old radiator pipes have been chopped out and sealed) I think they’re going to be finished today.

We get the new bathroom suite delivered next week, and hopefully the plumber will be able to get it all sorted before my parents come up here next weekend. After all, it’s the first time they’ll have seen the place, so it would be nice for them to see it with a working (and vaguely sorted) bathroom. But we’ll just have to wait and see on that one, I suppose.

The changes to the rooms are really impressive though – it’s beginning to feel like we’re actually getting somewhere with it all, even though the room won’t be fully completed for another couple of weeks at least. After all, there’s still the tiling to be done, and the new floor-covering to be put in, as well as painting and generally getting it all finished. But the building work was the big thing that needed doing before anything else could get under way, and that’s the bit that should be pretty much completed today.

Progress, at last.

Building Work – Day Two

By the end of Day One, the separating wall was down, all the tiles were off the walls, the shower-cubicle was gone, one of the doorways was blocked up, and the floor was patched-up where the wall had been.

Today, they’re going to be blocking up one of the windows, taking up the tiles on the floor, and a bundle of other things.

In short, the progress has been amazing. Well, to my mind it’s been amazing anyway. We’re really pleased with how things are going, and with the size of the merged room.

Yes, things are going well.

Power Struggle

On Saturday one of our bell-end neighbours decided to cut down one of his trees. In the process, the tree fell in the wrong direction, right into the overhead power lines. Rather than pulling them right down, though, it knocked one loose, which then swung round in the wind and kept on connecting with the other overhead lines, making for a very pretty firework display, and some very dodgy power. Of course, we just turned everything off at the main fuse-board, but it really put the mockers on the plans we’d had for the weekend. (of which more later)

As it turned out, we ended up calling the fire brigade, as the overhead lines were sparking badly, and directly over everyone’s oil tanks – as well as the sparks and arcing happening all the way out to the main road. We’d also called the electricity people at the same time, and generally dealt with everything about it – the bell-end neighbour was worse than useless about the entire thing.

The electricity people took a good three hours to turn up (Tossers) which left the fire brigade and police very pissed-off, but there we go. That’s something for them to deal with. In the end, the power was completely out from 11.30am through ’til 9.30pm. We went out in the end, did a bundle of shopping and so on, so it wasn’t a complete loss of a day, but it was still a complete pain in the arse.

What did amuse us, however, was that once the power was all back on, one of the electricity guys came round to check all was well. We had a chat about the events of the day, and it turns out that bell-end neighbour is in for a right shock- (pardon the pun) because it was his own fault, it’s likely that he’s going to get charged for:

• All the time the electricity people were on site (about seven hours, all told, on weekend rates)
• The cost of the new lines they’ve had to put up
  and
• The cost of them coming out again to replace all the insulators and gubbins that’re now all scorched and in need of replacement because of the events of the weekend

So in short, he’s going to end up with a bill for a good few thousand pounds, when he could’ve spent £100 and had a tree-surgeon do the work safely.

Ouch.

Plumbing

At long last, the next stage of the work we need to do on the house is beginning. After numerous delays, the plumber has arrived today to take out the existing radiator off in the hallway, so that we can paint/decorate the hallway and put some of the bookshelves in.

Once we’re done with the decorating bit, he’ll come back and put in the new vertical rad we bought months ago, in order to keep the hallway warm while now being able to make use of the space that had been taken up by the current radiator.

Of course, it’ll also mean that the hallway is chilly for a while, as we’re not really at home this coming weekend – although I may find time to do some of it on the Sunday while Herself is working at another craft fair thingy. We’ll see.

But at least it’s another job that’ll be off the list by the end of the year – it might be early January before we get the rad reinstalled, but it’ll mean another room completed, and that’s definitely a good thing. It’ll also mean that my books can come in from the garage, and that is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Garden Guff

Yes, today has been spent back out in the garden, straightening up an existing pergola, and then putting decking at the bottom of it, along with an extra dollop of decking to one side.

Obviously, we have help this weekend. Herself wouldn’t trust me to do this by myself – and with good reason, I’d have screwed it up royally. Hell, there’s still time.

Already we’ve found one problem, which is that with the decking in place, the floor level in the pergola is raised to the point where I run the risk of whacking my head into the pergola roof/rafters/beams/whatever the hell they’re called. Oops. I’ll just have to be careful, won’t I?

Still, it’s all gone OK, so that’s something.

Building Regs

So we got told yesterday that the Building Regs application for the stuff we’re wanting to do on the house has been approved.

It means we can now start to go ahead with knocking the current bathroom and toilet rooms together- and removing all the bloody horrible green tiles and avocado bathroom suite. Ah, the 70s, don’t you just love them?

I don’t yet know exactly when we’ll go ahead with the work- we’ve got to find a reliable plumber first, which appears to be quite a challenge in itself- but at least this is the final stage for the moment in getting everything organised and ready to go. Happy day.

Of course, once the work starts we’ll still have some kind of site visit to organise with the Building Regs people, but that’s a way down the line yet. For now, well, it’s just good that we’ve got everything we need (except for the bloody plumber) in order to get us started when we’re ready.

Decorative

We managed to paint the next bedroom completely over the weekend. Initially it had been done with one wall in navy blue, and three in manky lilac, which meant that first of all we needed to do two coats of white (“one coat” is – to be honest – a fucking lie) to set up a decent base, and then two coats of the paint we’d chosen (One by Crown, called ‘Crochet’, not that anyone cares) and all’s now done.

All told it looks pretty good. We need to do the white glosswork still, which is tonight’s job. And then we get the new bed, matress and bedside furniture on Tuesday afternoon.

This way, we’ll now have space for guests – fortuitous, when you consider we’ve got the out-laws staying here this weekend…

House Progress

There’s been a fair amount of progress this week on the house as well, thank God. It’s been a mentally busy week all round, so it’s good that we’ve also got stuff done domestically. Most of it’s been done by Herself, while she’s between jobs, and it’s looking good.

As it is, she has / we have :

• Painted the living room (2 coats)
• Cut all the remaining tiles for the living room floor (about 40, all told)
• Laid the tiles
• Finally got a start date from EDF for the moving of the power supply coming to the house (not much of a move, but still cost £400)
• Stripped off the (truly nasty) border in the office, and painted the walls
• Sorted out a plumber to come and move radiators etc.
• Got new blinds installed in all the rooms at the front of the house

I’m sure there’s some other things as well, but right now I just can’t remember them. But then, I’m crap – as we all well know.

Planning Process

It’s been interesting to see this weekend about the way the government is planning to change the planning application process. Of course, it’s going to come in too late for us, as we made our planning application for extensions to the new place last week.

In some ways I think it’s good that the process is being relaxed, and made easier to navigate. But at the same time I can see that it’ll have problems – and the potential for some really nasty extensions, conservatories and the like to go up over the next few years.

With the work we’ll be doing, we’ve had an architect design it, and get things done for the requirements of both Planning and Building Regs. It’s not overly cheap – ut does mean that we should get permission a lot quicker than if we’d drawn the plans ourselves, made errors etc. The plans went through two revisions in order to get everything right- partly just where things hadn’t been understood the first time round, but also partly because as we were in the house more, we had other ideas about how things would work, or how they should be laid out.

It’s not been quick – we first spke to the architect back in February, and the plans were finally completed and submitted at the start of May. But as soon as the planning aplication had been made, it was in the system, the notice went up outside our place last Friday, and people have three weeks to object to our (very unintrusive) plans.

By comparison, though, our neighbour in the current house submitted his planning request back in January, and only got the acknowledgement of it at the end of April – and that’s when the notice went up outside his place. So while he’s drawn up his own plans and (I assume) made errors that have had to be rectified etc. before the process was completed, ours have gone in and been processed on the first try.

Of course, we still won’t have the go-ahead for a while yet. After the three-week period for objctions, they’ve still got to be approved, and (I think) go through the local council as well for approval. So I’d be surprised if we had anything confirmed fully much before the end of July.

Still, at least it’s all going through now, so we’re still making progress with things. Would it be quicker without having to go through the planning malarkey? Yes. Would we still have used an architect for the plans? Yes. But I can see that a lot of people wouldn’t bother, and would likely just hire a builder to come and do what they want. Which might work out, but I’d certainly have my reservations about it.

Working Hard – Day Two

• Tiling
• Grouting
• Moving stuff around
• Walking Hound for a good couple of miles
• Playing with Hound while doing all the other stuff in the house
• Tidying the garage, so we’ve room for storing stuff
• Moving 52 packs of tiles
• And 11 20kg bags of adhesive
• Putting loads of stuff on the compost
• And probably a bundle of other stuff as well

For some reason, posts may be light today. Cant think why…

Working Hard

It’s the last weekend before we move in, so today is being spent cutting tiles for the floors – we’ve hired a beast of a machine for cutting them, which definitely makes life a bit easier all round.

As it is, the main tiles for the two bedrooms we’ll be using (one as a bedroom, one as an office) were done a couple of weekends ago, so we’re doing all the tiles now that need to be cut to size – and as Herself has been asked to work this afternoon, we’ll get all the cuts done today, and they’ll be laid tomorrow morning.

I’m home for a quick mid-day break before going back up to the house to do the last few tiles. A break was most definitely necessary – the tile cutter is an absolute beast, I’m covered in tile dust, and my ears are ringing like a bell.

But (as always) at least it feels like we’re getting somewhere.

Carnival of Workmen

Up at the new house this week, there’s been a real parade of work going on.

By the end of today, the electrics will be all sorted – all the new lights, the new fuseboard, replaced switches, and fittings. The sockets have all been done, fitted properly into the walls. (instead of bizarre extension leads with double sockets on the end) There’s proper cable runs for things like the TV aerial cables so that it all goes in channels in the walls rather than being stapled to the walls. It looks smart.

The fireplace is gone – ripped out last Friday and blocked over – and the blockwork has been plastered over, ready for the wood-burning stove to go in next week. The various bits of wall where the electricians have been working have also been plastered over.

The fencing in the back garden is now done, and is all consistent, rather than suddenly changing from 6′ fence panels to manky plastic latticework. It feels more consistent, more complete, more ours.

The boiler has been serviced, and has been pronounced to be well, healthy, and OK despite not having been serviced for a good couple of years before now. (Another thing the fucking vendors lied about – and that’s a long list, believe me)

We’ve still got some radiators that need moving, and some plumbing odds and sods. We still need to finish off the floor tiles, too. That’s a job for this weekend, and probably next weekend too.

It’s not long now ’til we move in, but things are progressing nicely…