Tiles are In, Bricks are Out

When I follow a house renovation, you know, like on a TV program or on a blog, I'm generally pretty intrigued by the structural work.  But then sometimes the finishes are a major let down.

The good news is we are getting to the finishes on our renovation.  Maybe you won't like them, but we're pretty excited about how things are coming together.

The tiler started today.  We bough some reproduction Edwardian tiles from Vives, and they have been laid in the understair WC.  


And the subway/metro tiles are going in around the tub.  I didn't want to do subway tiles, because they're becoming fairly ubiquitous and I'm afraid that it will date the bathroom quickly.  (Oh, subway tiles?  They're so 2010.)  But, they're priced so well and Niall and I both like how they look, so we went with them anyway.  We're still undecided on the grout color.  Major we'll go grey just to completely comply with the trendy look?


I may have made a mistake, but when the plumber suggested having the bathtaps at one end and the shower head at the other, I agreed.  The wall between the bathroom and utility closet wasn't deep enough to house the shower controls, so the joiners built out a false wall.


The built-in wardrobes in (what will be) our room are coming along.  Niall's is on the right, mine is on the left.  We fittings are from Ikea and are 1000mm wide, while the space in 1200mm.  It has been a major headache for the joiners to get things put in, but I'll be grateful for the effort pretty much every time I open the door.

The living room is plastered.


The reclaimed door is being fitted.


We're struggling a little with the kitchen design.  The plumbers are moving along so the joiners can box in the boiler.  We're trying to figure out what to do with the gap in between the dishwasher (that's what will go in that white box) and the boiler.  We're trying to get a 300mm larder to go in there, but it is a bit of a faff.  We only have the joiners until next Friday and there's still so much work to do I don't know that this particularly item will be remedied.

Plumbing is moving along.  The pipes for both toilets have been connected.

I felt pretty bad for the plumbers today.  I don't know if you can tell, but this is an access hatch underneath the stairs.  The understair WC pipes are running under the floorboards in the hall and the kitchen, and hooking up to the soil pipe outside.  The guys were in working hunched under the floors.  They dropped a few (less than choice) words, but the work is getting done.

See?  Here's the soil pipe for the new WC.

The house still has barriers because of the new gas line.  But what isn't in front of the house?  A huge pile of trash.  That's right, it's gone.  The missionaries from church came over and helped me for a couple hours.  We (literally) moved a ton of bricks.  The rubble skip we got for the building work didn't hold all of the bricks from the removed chimney.  There were loads of bricks in the back bedroom and in the loft, as well as in front of the house.  The Elders helped me load bricks up in the car and I drove some to the dump.  We also paid for another load of garbage to be hauled away.  The missionaries, the rubbish guy and I spent an hour and a half loading a big truck with the remaining bricks, old cast iron downpipes and all of the junk that was piled in the front yard.




Tomorrow the bulk of supplies for the loft conversion are being delivered, so it helps to have the rubbish removed.  (You know, until the garbage starts piling up some more.)