Home Renovation Diaries- Month 2

I can not believe that we’ve had our house for two months now. The feeling is very bizarre as we don’t live there yet. And I’ve personally not spent a lot of time there as there’s not much I can be of help with now. During month 1 of the renovation diaries we blitzed through things and I thought we’d end up being ahead of schedule with moving in. But sadly it looks like we’re going to be pushed back a month or two due to plaster. The company who makes plaster closed during Covid and was shut for 4-7 weeks. And there now seems to be a countrywide shortage of plaster. Literally nowhere has it, and I’ve called a lot of places.

Plastering should have begun near the very end of April or the first week of May. But it looks like that won’t be until the end of June now. There is nothing we can do about it and I totally understand why the company shut. But it’s just a bit of a pain.

We’ve still managed to do quite a few things just in a totally different order to what we’d originally planned. In my month 1 renovation diaries, it’s funny to think about what we had predicted we’d do this month. As most of it is totally different.

House wide changes in month 2 of the renovation diaries

Within the second month, the whole house is re-wired. We decided where we wanted all of our sockets to be placed, and where we wanted all of our switches to be and Luke re-wired it all. We ended up removing all of the old socket boxes so everything is fresh and new. As Luke had to then chase in all the wires into the walls it looks messy at the moment. But once it’s been plastered you won’t see it anywhere. He did a great job and I know we’ll love having sockets in all the right places. This also includes data cables which he pulled around the house so we can ensure we have good internet everywhere.

The coving has been fixed anywhere it was damaged or missing. This was mainly around the wall we knocked down and our third bedroom which for some reason didn’t have it. So this will be ready and waiting for it to be painted once we get to that stage.

All of the new upstairs radiators have been plumbed in and they look amazing. They’ll be taken off the wall when it’s plastered/ painted but the positioning is now right. We’ve ordered all of our downstairs radiators but they’ll be coming over the next 6 weeks.

We now have our skirting and architrave, but we didn’t buy primed ones *oops*. So currently all 80 odd lengths are being primed ready to be fitted and painted. And we’ve now purchased all of our wallpaper for all feature walls (master bedroom, spare bedroom, and man cave). And we also have all of our lighting purchased for the rooms.

Ensuite/ bathroom

A lot of new plumbing and piping has been done in our en-suite as we’re changing the layout of it. Our shower is moving to the opposite wall so this has now been plumbed in and our shower tray is in. To ensure the shower tray sat flat some boxing had to be created around it, although I won’t begin to try and explain as I don’t quite understand it myself. There’s a very small amount of plumbing left to do in the en-suite then it’s just a case of waiting for it to be plastered so we can then tile and fit the rest of the ensuite.

We’ve got the tiles for our flooring and walls so they’re ready to be installed. And we’ve ordered the rest of the bathroom bits. Once it’s been plastered this room will only take about a week to finish which is great.

In terms of the main bathroom that we’re not actually tackling it has now been 100% stripped out and emptied. The plan will be that we’ll get this done nearer the end of the year. Finances permitting of course. I really don’t want to be without a shower for longer than I need to be.

Renovation diaries: Kitchen/ diner changes

We now have a doorframe in the new door which goes into our utility room which is exciting. And most of the gaps around the door have been filled in, but it’s got to be properly cemented up at some point soon. We’re not having spotlights in our kitchen so these have been removed and the holes filled up which is great. We’re going to have one large light over our island and then some strip lighting around our cabinets.

During the course of the last month, a friend managed to partially fall through our dining room ceiling *another oops*. But thanks to Luke’s dad and some plasterboard this has all been fixed and no one will be any the wiser once it’s plastered.

Even though the garage has not been divided up yet we have bought the tiles for our utility room floor and they’re stunning. I can not wait to get them on the floor. We also purchased a cheap fridge freezer for our utility. We planned to have a cheap extra one in there anyway but bought it early so we can always have fresh milk for tea and coffee.

Office and hallway changes

Insulation was added into our new wall to my office and it’s now a proper wall. We’ve still got a gap at the top where we’ll be adding a window in but we’re waiting on some quotes for that at the moment.

The wallpaper stripping has been the bane of my life over the past 2 months. I got to a point where I’d done as much as I physically could (height-wise). But Luke stepped in and finished off the high bits on the stairs and now the house is wallpaper free (for the moment) *hooray*.

The other big thing in the hallway were some stair repairs. There was nothing majorly wrong with the stairs but they creaked a lot and moved slightly. Even though it wasn’t dangerous it’s another job which has now been sorted. I don’t know the in’s and out’s (can you tell I don’t know much about DIY yet?!) but they’ve drilled a lot of stuff in so they’re much stronger and don’t make a noise when you walk up and down the stairs *hooray*

In last month’s renovation diaries I spoke about moving the water tank into the loft. The water tank is now up there and in place, it just needs a little more plumbing to be done with it.

I’ll see you next month for the month 3 update!