Getting plastered!

We had another lovely few days over in Ireland and would you believe it, beginning of October and it didn't rain once!!

This trip we stayed in a little cottage about two miles from our house. The cottage belongs to a German couple who only visit once or twice a year and offered their cottage  as a place for us to stay.

The cottage where we stayed.

The view from the cottage gate.

We had a lovely surprise when we went to visit our house. Apart from three sections which need to be stone clad with local stone the rest of the house has been rendered beautifully. At last we can see our house coming to life,

Before

After

The back before

The back after - no sign of the door that used to go to the boiler room.

Work will now commence on plastering inside.

We  finally ordered our bathroom furniture / sanitary ware. We will have four bathrooms of various shapes and sizes so there was a lot to think about.
We have found a brilliant furniture store locally which has a great selection of furniture and it seems that every time we visit we manage to do so whilst they have a sale on. Last time we were over we ordered a mattress and sofa and so this time we decided that a bed frame and some bedside cabinets and drawers would be a good idea.

Lots of progress

Hubby and I have just returned from a few more days in Ireland.
The main reason was to check how the house was going but also enjoy Irish hospitality.

We arrived on the Monday and as we were a little early to check into our accommodation we found a place for breakfast. There is something about Irish bacon and sausage, it is yummy, add a little bit of black pudding,egg  and toast and you have a perfect Irish breakfast plus of course the obligatory pot of tea.
We went to introduce ourselves to our host for the week. Have you ever tried Airbnb? It's a great way to stay in places where people rent out a spare room for not very much money. Our stay in Westport was with Sabina, a lovely lady in her early 40's, who had a spare room in her apartment. She had recently decided to take a year long career break from her job and had decided to be an airbnb host for a couple of months. She was so friendly and welcoming and very passionate about her country.
She also provided a great breakfast every morning. We were happy with tea, cereals and homemade soda bread, the best he had ever tasted according to hubby. 
Once we had introduced ourselves and offloaded our bags we set off for a local town, we had visited a home store there on our last visit and purchased two dining chairs to add to our set and we had noticed they were having a bank holiday sale so we popped in for a look around. We ended up buying a lovely sofa set plus a new mattress. They were a very good price and we have been able to order them for delivery in November. 
We then went out to our house to see how work was getting on. We had some friends from back home in Birmingham,UK who were over in Ireland at the same time doing a road trip and we had arranged to meet up with them. The weather was totally awful, horizontal rain!! Ok so we always go to Ireland expecting rain but this was torrential. Sadly it did mean that most of the beautiful views around our house which had tempted us there in the first place were somewhat obscured by cloud. We were keen to show our friends around inside and out but we scampered inside and viewed the rest from the dry indoors. It was a shame because all we could see was low cloud. I'm sure they think we are mad, not the only ones I'm sure, but came again on another day and they would appreciate it a lot more I'm sure.
The rest of our 4 day stay was spent deciding on the final layout and design of the kitchen,  looking at bathroom furniture, having the rooms measured for flooring quotes, looking at stoves/fireplaces, looking at doors and of course enjoying a pint of Guinness or two.
The most impressive part was seeing the transformation of the upper floor from one big space to three separate rooms.

Also we had asked our builder to do a bit of adaptation with the fireplace in the dining room. We didn't want a floored based fire but one a bit further up the wall which wouldn't impinge on the room so much.

Light switches and insulation.

It has come to something when my life revolves about light switches and insulation but there we go. Life can't always be exciting.

Having said that though it was very exciting when the light switches arrived this week. These light switches have been the objects of my desires for many months now after I spied them at the Grand Designs exhibition last year. I thought they were wonderful, sleek and very stylish and different from your  common white boring box. Hubby on the other wasn't really fussed, although the price was a major factor. These lovely things would cost double what a normal light switch or socket would cost.  

My argument was that I would only be fitting out this house once so I wanted the nicest things rather than feeling I had settled for second best. OK so they are a bit more expensive but I'm only going to be buying them once! 

I recently took a second job so I said that for each shift I did that would mean I had bought a couple more light switches. 

Robbie the Spark, spoke sense when he told hubby to let me have my way, because otherwise he would never hear the end of it and if light switches were my 'only demand' he was getting off lightly (no pun intended).

So I ordered them and they arrived and how excited I was, i know I'm building them up now, and i expect when you see the photo of them, you'll think, 'mmm its a light switch so what' but I love them and I'm happy so thats that.

My dream switches.

Of course the next thing we have to decide on will be things like taps or door handles and no doubt I'll get a little excited about those too.

Hubby has just returned from another short trip over to see how things are progressing in the house and has come back armed with new photos. It looks like things are moving along nicely.

Upstairs has been insulated, so again it looks different from the past photos.

My craft room, insulated.

Insulation on the external walls downstairs is also in progress,

The sun room before

The sun room now

We even have windowsills too!! Does the excitement never end?

Also during this visit:
 - The electricity board visited site to plan where electricity will enter our property.
 - The plumber and plumbers merchant visited to count how many radiators we need.
 - We have ordered the two fuel stoves for in the lounge and dining room.
 - The stairs are now on order.
 - Because we will not be using oil to heat our house the tiny boiler room which is at the back of the hot press(airing cupboard) is no longer needed so Kevin the builder is going to brick up the external doorway and knock through from the hot press to make a much larger space. This will house the new heating system but also provide a much bigger walk in hot press which will be very handy for drying clothes especially during the wet months when drying clothes outside is not an option.(to be fair this is most of the year)

After the insulation has been completed the plasterers will be in to start work on the internal and external walls. I expect by the time we visit again August we will see another huge difference.

We have progress.

Hubby's trip to Ireland went well.  It was a quick dash across really but achieved a lot.

He impressed to see how much Robbie the spark had done, all the first fix electrics are in! So he said there were cables everywhere. Glad the electrician knows what leads where because it does look quite complicated.

This is going to be our sitting room.

We have had an engineer go out to the property and measure up for a staircase which will take us up to the first floor.

When we first viewed the property there was a temporary staircase there and we were blown away when we walked up to the first floor. It is built as a bungalow with all the living rooms and bedrooms located on the one floor. However the people who originally designed and built it, allowed space in the roof for future development.

We decided that we would go ahead and develop it at the same time as the rest of the house. I was particularly excited as I could picture

 a rather lovely craft room for myself.

This is what the space looked like when we first viewed it. It measures about 10m wide by 20m length.

So we have plans which do indeed allow me a craft room but also gives hubby a room too. This will be a typical lads room with TV, and gaming consoles as well as comfy sofas.I suspect there may also be a little bar area too! Both of these rooms will also double as extra bedrooms should we ever have a huge crowd of family/friends staying, which we sincerely hope to happen. There will also be a small bathroom too.

So this is what it now looks like. Kevin the builder has been busy.

The next things to be done will be installation of the insulation throughout the property. We have also chosen the stoves/fires which will be in the sitting room and dining area.

Hubby is going back over in about three weeks time. Sadly due to work commitments I can't visit site again until August when I expect I will notice just how much has been done. 

Work has started

I'm feeling excited today as tomorrow hubby is off over to Ireland for about 4 days to check out progress on the house.

I say progress, but I mean to say, if anything has happened at all since the last time we were there.

West of Ireland time is a lot slower than anywhere in the world I have been so although the surveyor said we would be in by Christmas he failed to say which Christmas. We are hoping he meant Christmas 2015.

We speak quite regularly to our lovely neighbours over in Ireland who update us as to the recent activity (or lack of) at the house.  Our house is situated at very end of a lane, you can go no further except up a great mountain so everything has to go past our neighbours house to reach ours, nothing is missed it would seem!

We heard from our electrician that he had been working here and he had a few questions needed answering too about certain positioning of lights, he has now finished the first fix of electrics. So I am excited now because I've sent hubby off with strict instructions to get as many photos as possible to update the blog and we can add it to our timeline of our house,from start to eventual finish.

Hubby has also got to count all the light switches and sockets so I now how many to order. Last year we visited a large home show event and I spied some gorgeous light switches and sockets. Quite unlike anything I have seen before and I fell in love with them. Initially we felt we couldn't justify buying something that was double the price of a normal white light switch but finally we decided we would go for them. We are only going to do this type of project once and so we are going to fit what we like (within reason and financial constraints of course.) I have taken second job and now every time I do a shift I can boast that I just bought X number of light switches.

In other news, the staircase people have been out to measure up and we've totalled up how many led light fittings we need?

Looking forward to showing the progress with some photos soon.

Kitchen designs

We've been trying to decide how to set out our kitchen.

We need to do this quite soon so that Robbie the Spark can run electricity to the correct places.

At the moment it looks like this,

We've had a couple of companies do some plans for us and these are the photos we have to choose from. The main difference is the positioning of the hob. At the moment I'm liking the corner position one although I wouldn't want the cupboard on the far left. 

Isn't technology great? Being able to see in 3D what a room can look like instead of just looking at a piece of paper with a drawing on it.

So many taps!

Hubby and I have just got back from another trip across the water to Ireland. We've recently purchased a house there and have set ourselves the task of getting it finished. You see it was built to its present condition about 10 -12 years ago and has lain empty since. It has walls, windows, external doors and a roof and that's it.

We like a challenge!
It's the potential you see. That's what they say on these property programmes, isn't it? We saw it and loved it and the area straight away.
At present there is no water, electricity or septic tank.
So we are deep in thought about the best heating system to use.
This last week we met our builder, electrician and plumber. All lovely guys who also seem to look on this job as a challenge too. Nothing is too hard for them, it would seem which is a good sign.
When you buy a half built house, who knows what went before!
We spent nearly 4 hours walking from room to room with Robbie the spark, marking the location of every switch and socket. Luckily we have already thought through how we would like our finished house to look so we already had in mind where most of them would go. Its deciding ahead about which direction a door will open which is harder to think about at this stage.
Then we met Pete the Plumber who has the rather hard job of locating all the plumbing pipes which have been laid under the floor and not marked! Again though, it seems nothing seems too much of a challenge about this, unlike hubby who is worrying now about what will be found.
Of course we have also had to think about the kitchen layout so we visited several kitchen showrooms and have had two lots of plans drawn up, both look very nice and workable but who to choose?
Bathrooms, there will be 4 in total, so we have to choose a style which will fit in each one but which taps to choose? Who knew there were so many taps?
We are hoping work will commence in the next couple of weeks so will be able to post some progress photos as and when we see any progress!