I fear my blog will now become 'Building Blog' or, more likely, 'Withenay wobbles'. As of Monday the renovation of our house began.
The last couple of weeks have been a mad scramble to find rented accommodation, and pack, and move, and get our home ready for the builders. As you could tell from my last post, this was stressing me out. Things are on a more even keel now and the serious work of making our aged house into a home fit for the 21st century has begun.
On Monday morning, as I walked the kids to school, there was a portaloo in the driveway: seriously, that was the first thing they moved onto the site! I realised there was no going back when this arrived in the back garden mid-morning:
By the end of the day a skip had also arrived. Better still, it is now lined with the remnants of this:
And the men set to work removing the wallpaper, so now this too doesn't exist:
... nor this ...
...nor this ...
We know all this as we watch the skip fill up on our walks to and from school. I shall be back on site tomorrow, hopefully, to take some pictures of our denuded home. In theory, all the work will be finished by the end of July - indeed, the site manager told me he's aiming to finish a week early, which is all very well given he threatened November in an earlier conversation!
Until then we are enjoying our rented home. Although we are surrounded by boxes and I still don't know where any paperwork is (although I have found my daughter's spelling book, which is a relief), we do have a couple of exciting facilities:
1 A dishwasher. This was the best incentive to get my son to tidy his room before moving. "The sooner we move the sooner we'll have a dishwasher and then you won't have to do any drying up." Boy, did he move quickly! (Clearly he now has to fill and empty the dishwasher, but it is a less arduous task!)
2 A cooker. Better, a range cooker. Having survived for nearly ten months on a single hob and a microwave, the mammoth machine in the rented house is eye-watering! It has seven hobs and three ovens, I believe. I'm totally in awe of it ... and still can't get my head around the fact I could put two pans on the hob at the same time. And I could bake cookies, or cakes, or anything. Wow!
But now I must go and finish unpacking a couple more boxes. I am determined our temporary home will be set straight by the end of the weekend (even if my only contribution is to find the bottom of the ironing basket...)
4 comments:
You are so sensible to move out. We couldn't afford to do that so we lived with the renovations - including rewiring the house! Daughter thought it was very funny having to use torches at night!
Do take lots of pictures, you soon forget how awful it is and you can look back and laugh.
Good luck!
We also lived through the building work. It is an experience if nothing else.The neighbours complained about being able to see the portaloo from their kitchen and we had to ask the builder to move it!
I read your comment over at Brit in Bosnia and thought I'd pop over. I see we both have doctor husbands and have a travel theme to our blogs. Good enough reasons to come back again!
Good luck with the building work!
WM - sometimes I think we are missing out on the fun by being at a distance. Still, we are living surrounded by boxes, so constantly reminded that we are not yet settled.
CW - Thank goodness none of our neighbours are complaining (yet!). I think we are removing such an eyesore from the neighbourhood that they'd endure almost anything for six months with the hope of a prettier outlook afterwards. Although, by then, I suspect our garden may be a forest of weeds...
Trish - lovely to have you call by! The travel theme will return to this blog imminently, although the building works are a little dominant for the next few months. When it stresses me too much I'll fall back on silly tales about my children (that isn't usually difficult!)
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