When 2 become 1

 

Now, if you know Ian, you will know he likes things done right, he isn’t one for it’ll be OK, so when we find a squeaky or uneven, or dodgy floor board, up it comes. It’s sorted out and back it goes. It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Oh no, not here. The delight in creating holes in the walls has had a direct correlation to the number of nails and screws in each board. Oh so many! Many clearly original, old, temperamental, degraded so you can’t see them, but somehow with a vice like grip.

We huff and puff in our house of straw, but eventually they come up, we find the place the mains electric comes into the house, we find old wires, all the plumbing, the place where the joists meet mid house and we pin them all down. Woe betide (I can only hear this phrase in Billy Connolly’s voice… have you heard that one? I can’t help but laugh at most of his stories)_anyone who steps on a floorboard and it squeaks when you visit! We also make a new floorboard as for some reason, exactly where we hope to have new patio doors, someone fitted a tiny thin bit of floorboard where the radiator was, meaning walking on it would be very dodgy – so 2 become 1. Go on sing it with me, a fan or not, you know it, I know you do!

And now lockdown 2 has finally been announced. Best get ordering supplies to keep us going! Day to day it won’t change much for us, we are here except for essential trips out for the launderette and pharmacy and our shopping is delivered, so as long as we can still get supplies, we should be OK. Oh and we keep on painting to cover the blue, purple, peach, yellow......

We’ve also had a visit from the plumber who will connect all our new radiators up and move the one in the living room (more work for us to do to prepare for him as we are pepping it all). We will need to have finished decorating behind the radiators before he comes, which will mean removing them all in the chilly weather, so we need to have finished the sanding and filling, fitted skirting boards and painted them before he comes in about 2 weeks! Luckily, he can still work in lockdown, especially as we can easily vacate the house while he works. The surveyor from the patio door company also agrees to still come on day 1 of lockdown to measure up for our new doors.

We’ve had to change lots of plans since actually getting here as the house has thrown up a few surprises, and to be honest, we are just going with whatever is practical and what we like. We want it to be the best it can be, absolutely fit our style, but if we can’t have our first choice, so be it, no point in moaning, so the flooring and skirting will be different to the one we hoped for, the patio door will be different, the kitchen will be different, as will the bathroom, but we have now planned out most of them, ordered many of the supplies and await deliveries – some come quickly, other won’t! There’s pros and con’s to that. We don’t have much storage space, so things coming before we are ready to fit them is a challenge, things being very delayed means we can’t move in. However, what will be will be!