It's a jungle out there!

It's been a while since I've blogged but life has continued a pace, days have merged into weeks into months.It really doesn't seem like six months since we spent our first Christmas in our Irish house.

Hubby has been working hard both on the house and also on our house and garden in UK, whilst I have been working two jobs meaning usually only having one day off every ten days.

It's been exhausting and family and friend catch up time has unfortunately gone by the wayside.

We spent the full month of April in Ireland and the weather was really kind to us again, meaning that we made great progress on painting the outside of the house.

We have just had another week there with equally favourable weather and we've finally finished the outside.

When you compare it to what it looked like when we first voted the place, the difference it makes is so heartening and hopefully it looks a lot more friendly and welcoming than it did.

 

  

                                                                                        

As well as trying to get some decorating done we have also welcomed quite a few guests already this year.

It's great to be able to entertain at last but it does mean that decorating has taken a bit of a back seat, the house is in the sort of state now that everything has been painted and needs its top coat and final touches. To the unknowing guest it looks ok and I suppose it sort of means we don't feel the urge to paint so strongly! To be honest its nice to sit and enjoy it rather than be working all the time.

With such good weather our attentions have also turned to the outside space. The site our house stands on is apparently 1.3 acres. Essentially it was a field with house built on it and as such it still looks like that. Over the winter everything had obviously died off but when we came back this last time, with the recent run of hot weather, it came as no surprise that everything had grown slightly.

It can be a bit daunting but we have enlisted the help of a local garden designer. He runs a local garden centre and we first came across him when we were listening to the local radio station on a Saturday morning. He does an hour long gardening Q&A show and as his garden centre was fairly local we decided to pay a visit. We found out he offered a garden design service and we decided it would be a good idea. Hubby and I like a nice garden but we are no experts. We have a fairly small garden in the UK which doesn't take too much work to maintain and have over the years developed some raised vegetable beds. 

With such a large area of land we knew we needed some help and really felt that we would end up saving ourselves money too. Trees, plants and other things for gardens can be so expensive and we could easily have bought loads of things and found that they didn't grow properly resulting in a large waste of money.

So Padraic from the garden centre has visited and we have discussed our ideas with him. He seemed very positive and we await his first set of plans. Once we have agreed on a design we like he will put together a 3 years plan for us to follow in order to achieve it.  

So hopefully we wont be looking at this 'field' for too much longer.

                 

                  

Maisie has enjoyed exploring the garden. She runs off and hides and waits for you throw her ball, sometimes its a bit hard to see her properly.....

 

We have lights.......and they work!

We had another trip over to Ireland recently and were really pleased to see the progress made in the months since we were last over.

Firstly on approaching the house we could see Kevin our builder had been very busy with the digger driver not only installing our septic tank and percolation area but levelling out a lot of the ground around the house. The large grassy mound from the side of the house had disappeared and let us see what a huge job we have got in front of us with regards the garden!

Before

After a bit of landscaping

We also noted that several drainage trenches had been put in, a great relief given Ireland is such a wet country. 

Another brilliant surprise was seeing the stonework on the front of the property. Given the fact that we had chosen it by walking into a showroom and been confronted by a huge selection of stone. We had to think about what other colours were around so the dark blue/grey colours match in with the dark roof and the lighter brown colours blend in with the windows. We were really pleased with the finished result.

The view from the entrance of our driveway looking back down the lane

 Inside the house we were further excited to see our staircase now in situ. Ok so it isn't complete but it gives a lovely idea of what it will look like. Again very pleased to be able to walk upstairs on a proper staircase and not a rickety temporary ladder/staircase.

The biggest result was realising that we finally have electric power to the property! So we ended up going round each room and switching on each switch own turn and we oohed and aahed, a bit like when at a firework display. As we had only seen our light fittings in the boxes it was brilliant to see them all in their places and finally be assured that they were the correct purchase. Of course my wonderful designer  light switches and sockets looked brilliant. I am so pleased with the choice.




So whats next? Well the plumber is in now, fitting radiators and the heating system, then we can warm the place up and then start fitting the woodwork. We have chosen the doors and handles (who knew there was so much choice). Also hoping the kitchen will be fitted in May/June
We are visiting again in a couple of weeks to finalise our choices of tiles so the tiler can get on and start work in the bathrooms. 

A sneaky peak at one of our tile choices - purple has to be included somewhere !