House Blitz Day 4

Did I mention we hired a structural engineer?  I'm so glad we did.  Because all this knocking through and about makes me just a little nervous.

The old entry to the kitchen and entry to the larder have been bricked up and will make a new wall in the new kitchen/diner.  The engineer said to use bricks instead of a stud wall, so we did it.

The wall under the stairs is now gone, making way for what will be the understairs WC.  It's small, but it will be nice to have an extra toilet.

The doors have been put back on.  We bought new skirting (baseboards) and facing for the doors, and had the older stuff taken out.  It's all profiled MDF (Ogee) since we're going to be painting it white anyway.  This bit of joinery makes the house seem more like a home.

All the windows are in!  We took the girls over to see the house last night, reconfirming a building site is not place for children.  (And reminded me how grateful I am that we are not living in the house during the renovation.)

Since we knocked through the wall between the former kitchen and dining room, there was a disconnect with the floor.  The former back room has floorboards, it is where the kitchen will be.  I would have loved to sand the floorboards and make them a feature, but we ran into some difficulty because the former kitchen is cement.  The cement floor is uneven and doesn't meet up with the floorboards.  Plus there was a big hole from where the chimney and hearth used to be.  So the guys put a screed down...which didn't dry overnight because it turns out the pipe with the stopcock is in that room and is dripping.  (Blast!  We can't seem to contain this water problem yet.)  Anyway, hopefully the screed will dry soon.  The plan is to put in a floating floor across the cement and floorboards of bamboo.

All of the windows are in, though the one above the kitchen sink cracked before it was installed (they're going to fix it soon, I'm told.)  The joiners are starting to put the units in.  We bought the units used and had the kitchen delivered from England.  I was home with the kids when Niall helped the movers unload and the units have been stacked in the front room until now.  It's the first time I've really seen them.  We're still not sure  if we'll paint the cupboards.  We're waiting to see how things look and then decide from there.