We have entered the month of August, kicking off with Majas 7th birthday today, the 1st, and ending with the end of our 6 month tenancy agreement on rental house on the 31st.
So quite a lot to squeeze in to those 30 days.
I can, at the close of play on the 1st, report a successful start. Majas birthday was a happy, fun, busy yet low keyed event, with piles of food, birthday cake (thanks gran) and lashings of ginger ale.
The month has started well.
This week brings with it truckloads of goodies from both ends of the country.
Tomorrow the hearth arrives from Caithness, cant wait to see it. Also the carpet fitter is coming round to measure up.
Tuesday all the appliances come on site from the south of England, plus a last prefit meeting with Stuart who is looking after the kitchen planning.
All going well Allan will be on site on Wednesday to start fitting the woodburner.
The outside of the building is complete, just some lighting and an alarm to go on.
Inside we have running water, lights, even some doors here and there. The bathrooms have been fitted and tiled. It looks likely that towards the end of this week we may even have a kitchen, although the worktops will be 3-4 weeks away.
Richie has come up trumps with some more design ideas, namely making me great wee cupboard doors, now all the solid doors will look the same. I mentioned previously that all the builders know their onions, and its good to be able to leave everyone to their own devices.
However, here's the thing.
Whenever Ian and I bought a new house in the past, we would be saying, love the house, but what's with the bathroom tiles, or the odd door handles? we're going to need to change that. Reality was, yes, we would replace the totaly minging, and make do with the odd, or funky things that we possibly got used to or just couldn't be bothered changing.
The prospect of choosing everything, doorhandles, skirtingboards, grout colours to flooring, windows, doors not to mention the kitchen, was thrilling.
As the end draws near, I know many of you get how overwhelmed I was by everything. None more so than Richie and Ian. I have a wee curl in my lip thinking of how my weekly rollercoaster ride to home improvment would pan out.
I spend days, weeks looking for a certain thing or less expensive lookaliky certain thing, checking out every magazine, internet shop, warehouse, store 'til finally, eureka, I find it buy it have it delivered.
when the box is opened and said item is placed in position, I hate it, it looks all wrong, the size is too small/ big, it's too low/ high. I freak out, Richie will say wait until this is next to it/ or once you see it all finished, thats the normal height,then I phone Ian and give him my woes, he says the same as Richie.
I feel like I have messed up big time, go back later in the day and love it.
Stevie, the joiner is now just humouring me, and recently moved a piece of bathroom furniture up 3 cm. I told him that it was so much better, but was kind of waiting for him to tell me " its still in the same place you crazy woman."
So yes, I have managed to get my way in a lot of things, thankfully been happy to leave a lot to Richie.
This week will see some giant steps forward upstairs, we are almost ready to decorate. The plaster on the walls is a thing of beauty, its like glass, I'm relluctant to even paint it. However paint it we will, white.
So as I prepare to move out by the 31st August and reinstate the Grantham family back to the cottage, I can confidently say we look like we are on target for that date, with or without worktops.
