It’s much more pleasant working in the house now things are warming up, though there’s still the occasional chill in the air.

In order to get the house ready for the mortgage inspector we need to get the downstairs toilet ready. We set it out with the sink and toilet to check the spacings, marking out where the washing machine and drier would go. Chris was worried the sink was too large but I think it’ll work well. Plus it was free, always a bonus.

I set to work filling the gaps in the wall by the stairs. Chris had already filled the easy to reach holes, but in order to reach those further up we placed scaffold boards across the stairs, a slightly precarious but workable platform.

With the holes filled I used the remaining mortar around some of the switch boxes.

To make things more precarious on the platform I had to add a stepladder to reach the top of the plasterboard to add a few more screws.

Chris in the meantime got to work setting the padstones in place for installing the final steel. We had decided the remove this small section of wall to join together the tiny bathroom with a pointless section of corridor that had no useful purpose. However, as the purlins sit on the wall we couldn’t simply take it down.

Downstairs I started laying our new floor tiles. It’s a little out of order decorating at this point, but it made sense to tile before installing the sink and toilet, and we needed these in so we could move the mortgage. We’d expected not to have enough tiles for the full floor, as the person selling them had said there was only enough for 2.2m2 and the floor was 2.8m2. However, the seller had actually given us more tiles than expected, making it exactly enough for the full floor.

The padstones having set, we lifted the steel into place, and Chris began to fill in the gaps, and dismantle the wall. With the space opened up we were both surprised how big the room looked. Eventually this will be a shower room. It feels extravagant for us to have both a bathroom and a shower room for just the two of us, but we’re planning ahead for when the house will be fuller and busier.

Having finished his work Chris started on some tidying. Despite having cleaned and tidied the whole house only a little while ago it’s already a mess again. It’s difficult to keep any sense of order when things are changing so quickly.

With the wall down we’re finally ready to have the plasterers back, which will be exciting to see the rooms look like rooms again for the first time in months. Maybe soon the house might even be liveable.