Well, so far the birth of Friendly Cottage has been what I only imagine child labour to be like 
- long and painful - apparently it will be rewarding some time soon.
I can't believe that it has been exactly a year since we quickly snatched the keys from our solicitors hands and skipped excitedly to our new love nest.
Once here, the shock sunk in - we were now owners of a very expensive heap of old falling down bricks, not to mention old lady net curtains! But with the enthusiasm of the famous five cast on a new adventure, we got stuck in straight away on the August bank holiday weekend. First things first, the Holy Mary water (brought back from Lourdes by our spiritual mother Maria!) was out and the house was christened 'Friendly Cottage'.
Since then, its been like our own real live horror movie working towards our 'happy ever after'. We have battled to get our electricity switched on
and gas plumbed in. We have pulled walls down, fallen through floors (that was me - I had lost my marbles one very late night, forgot to walk on the joists and fell through from the bathroom to the kitchen, grabbing onto the joists for dear life, ouch - the hole was handy for not having to go upstairs to ask mart if he wanted a cup of tea!). We have fought with tradesmen and fed them also 
(mart is still laughing at the time I offered the plumber lemon & lemon grass granita after his kebab lunch!). How many more take-aways can we eat? (bursting for our kitchen to be sorted!) And, if we have to shuffle one more box, our bed or central HQ (my desk) from room to room one more time! Also, weirdly every thing we have gone to do that has seemed relatively straight forward, hasn't been - it's like opening up a can of worms - and always costs way more than we thought it would. (All things other people warned us about!)
Things eventually take shape though and we have reached many landmarks. Getting the bathroom to a liveable condition (no more showering in flip flops in a grotty old shower with tiles falling down on top of you, yeah!) was the first. Then the walls being plastered, central heating, new windows installed, walls painted, alarm & Sky being installed (that was a very happy martin day), wardrobes being fitted and floors going down.
(I did have a mid life crisis when i had to buy carpet though. That was hard to deal with and even harder when the sea of beigeness stared me in the face from the bedroom floors! I'm over it now though as they have stopped the dirt dragging up my clothes when getting dressed!). The neighbours were also very happy not to witness the nightly strip show anymore since our shutters went up recently. The 'list of things to do' continues of course but there is hope we are getting there as a stream of new furniture turns up at the door!
So, thats the update of how the bones of Friendly Cottage have taken shape - the walls have echoed lots of other things in the past year besides renovation work - the comings and goings of lots of different people, eating and drinking, tears and laughter, fun times, tough times, work and play. Hopefully we will keep our blog more updated this year with our adventures as we continue to nest in Friendly Cottage.
- long and painful - apparently it will be rewarding some time soon. I can't believe that it has been exactly a year since we quickly snatched the keys from our solicitors hands and skipped excitedly to our new love nest.
Once here, the shock sunk in - we were now owners of a very expensive heap of old falling down bricks, not to mention old lady net curtains! But with the enthusiasm of the famous five cast on a new adventure, we got stuck in straight away on the August bank holiday weekend. First things first, the Holy Mary water (brought back from Lourdes by our spiritual mother Maria!) was out and the house was christened 'Friendly Cottage'. Since then, its been like our own real live horror movie working towards our 'happy ever after'. We have battled to get our electricity switched on
and gas plumbed in. We have pulled walls down, fallen through floors (that was me - I had lost my marbles one very late night, forgot to walk on the joists and fell through from the bathroom to the kitchen, grabbing onto the joists for dear life, ouch - the hole was handy for not having to go upstairs to ask mart if he wanted a cup of tea!). We have fought with tradesmen and fed them also 
(mart is still laughing at the time I offered the plumber lemon & lemon grass granita after his kebab lunch!). How many more take-aways can we eat? (bursting for our kitchen to be sorted!) And, if we have to shuffle one more box, our bed or central HQ (my desk) from room to room one more time! Also, weirdly every thing we have gone to do that has seemed relatively straight forward, hasn't been - it's like opening up a can of worms - and always costs way more than we thought it would. (All things other people warned us about!)Things eventually take shape though and we have reached many landmarks. Getting the bathroom to a liveable condition (no more showering in flip flops in a grotty old shower with tiles falling down on top of you, yeah!) was the first. Then the walls being plastered, central heating, new windows installed, walls painted, alarm & Sky being installed (that was a very happy martin day), wardrobes being fitted and floors going down.
(I did have a mid life crisis when i had to buy carpet though. That was hard to deal with and even harder when the sea of beigeness stared me in the face from the bedroom floors! I'm over it now though as they have stopped the dirt dragging up my clothes when getting dressed!). The neighbours were also very happy not to witness the nightly strip show anymore since our shutters went up recently. The 'list of things to do' continues of course but there is hope we are getting there as a stream of new furniture turns up at the door! So, thats the update of how the bones of Friendly Cottage have taken shape - the walls have echoed lots of other things in the past year besides renovation work - the comings and goings of lots of different people, eating and drinking, tears and laughter, fun times, tough times, work and play. Hopefully we will keep our blog more updated this year with our adventures as we continue to nest in Friendly Cottage.
1 comment:
Good for people to know.
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