The deep joy of flushing loos......

Sorry about the lack of updates, we have been a tad busy as you could probably well imagine. The grouting (huge thank you to Deb again for all her help) has been completed, well as much as it can be for the moment. 

With the floor in the walk in robe cleaned of excess grout, we started unpacking and moving the wardrobes and chests of drawers into the area. We've now got somewhere to hang our clothes and get dressed. As it will be a while before we can get curtains or blinds we will thankfully not be shocking our neighbours with to much information! I'm sure they are pretty thankful to

I finally managed to wrestle the tiles and trim onto the walls surrounding the loo areas, a tricky job which in my opinion could be more easily completed by an octopus! More new skills learnt as I'd never used a Mitre before it was a relief to see the the trims actually meeting at the corners. With that finally done we could at last give the plumber a call. 

We were highly recommended to two people, and because they are good at what they do we were not expecting an immediate response. But with Team Herbie, Lee and Macca it seems we had struck gold. The very next day the flushing loos were fitted! YIPPPEEE. ... I can't tell you how exciting that is. AND if that isn't excitement enough the lids are soft close.... it's like watching poetry in motion seeing them slowly shut........

Rick decided it was time to practice his 'fitting a door' skills. And without to much ado we had a temporary door fitted.

At this point there was no other running water in the house. The loos are running off the bore water, currently connected via a hose pipe. so as not to waste any of our very precious rain water.

By the end of last week Lee returned to fit our cooker, kitchen sink, complete with posh tap, plumb in the dishwasher and fit a special pump from the rainwater tank. How much excitement can a girl have in a couple of weeks. It is amazing and brings us even closer to moving.

The cooker has me almost purring, it is a thing of joy and beauty but took me a while to work out what all the controls and icons meant. It is dual fuel, being electric ovens and a gas hob, we had to organise LPG gas, a couple of phone calls and confusing conversations later and it was organised. Half an hour later as I arrived at the block the gas delivery man also pulled in!! I still can't get over how, sometimes, things can happen so fast.

 Yesterday our builders finally came back and fitted our front and back doors. They are both very heavy solid wood fire doors. The front door has a Blackwood veneer, it is beautiful and to me the grain looks a little like a couple of champagne glasses, fitting for a wine area I think.

And the laundry door is a simple maple/meranti veneer. Both now need to be sealed and protected as much as possible from the impact of the weather. Which I think is the next job on the list.

Our builders also blocked off a path area on the east side of the house and the carport already for concreting. Which if the plumber comes back soon to finish his jobs will happen this week. Then we can have the hotwater service and the solar water heater fitted.

More exciting things happening are the kitchen is having the kick boards fitted today; the walk in pantry will be measured up for shelving; splash back tiles chosen and ordered. And more UK treasures unpacked.

So close now........

Tiling!

Since Boxing day we have been tiling... well to start with thinking about how to go about tiling our home. It took a great deal of thought, drawing on walls, measuring, leveling, more drawing on walls, lengthy discussion and finally the first tile was laid..... by Rick in the laundry.

He had also, kindly, cut the wall tiles for the en-suite walls which was where I started. Our confidence grew with each tile laid and the cutting got easier when Whisky (manager of one of the local hardware stores very kindly lent us their superdooper 'professional' tile cutter. It is a monster but once the cutting technique is mastered it makes short work of tiny cuts.

Hoping a picture tells a thousand words here's some of the progress

Since then Deb has been a star and has been helping with the grouting. THANK YOU DEB we would not be so far ahead without your help.  Between tiling the wet-rooms I've to have been on grouting duty. Rick has got faster and faster with laying the floor tiles and today topped his days total by laying over 100 tiles! A record!!

And in celebration of my being here a whole two years we managed to unpack my old dining room table and some chairs YAY and had a well deserved cuppa and piece of cake.....

There is still a huge amount more to do but very very soon we can call a plumber in to do the first stage of fittings and could even then be at a point of moving in...... WOW