After several weeks’ wait, another milestone’s arrived – what felt like a pallet’s worth of laminate flooring for the lounge, hall, entrance porch & old kitchen has finally turned up from B&Q..

Given the great weather I think the time has come to temporarily suspend interior jobs such as replastering the old kitchen, instead looking at making a start on some of the many things that need to be done outside the house. First on the list is cleaning up the frontage of property. Shortly after getting…

Kicking off by partially draining down the heating system again, the pipework was quickly checked for the new towel rail – at which point it became rapidly apparent that more work was needed. Somehow one of the concealed radiator pipes had ended up 1cm adrift from where it needed to be to line up with…

An evening of grouting later, the floor’s looking like it’s finished – and most importantly, is nearly ready for installation of a new WC, sink & heated towel rail.

With the ceiling boarding complete, we started taping & jointing the boards to provide a (hopefully) smooth finish to the new ceiling. The joins were taped with plasterboard tape and skimmed over with a thin coat of plaster. After letting this go off for 24 hours we then attacked the ceiling with a sanding pad…

With another day of brilliant weather upon us we took the opportunity to tidy up & plant the rest of the front borders. The day started off with a trip to a nearby garden centre to stock up on plants followed promptly by B&Q for more (yes, more!) compost & plant food. Heading home with…