It seems like time has sped up now the moving day is closing in. On the one side we have our housebuyers calling up to ask when the sale will go through, on the other side we have the mortgage company demanding all boxes ticked before we can move our mortgage across. And we’re feeling the squeeze.

This week the final bits of the central heating were finished, and the large radiator in the lounge moved across so there’s space for my future piano.

While having the contractors is amazing, every now and then they do things that make absolutely no sense. This week they pull down all the plastic sheeting from the ceiling of the shower room, which is a painfully annoying job to do. They appear to have done it in order to get their plasterboard on, but the sheeting should be behind the plasterboard…

My first job was to finish off building the frame for the downstairs toilet, previously started by Chris.

Next more framing on the end of the stairs.

Another annoying contractor error had been to cut through one of the uprights in the framework for the stairs. To stabilise the structure I added some smaller bit of wood and screwed the whole thing to the doorframe.

Downstairs Chris was sorting out the electrics in the lounge, that had previous been hidden by the insulation board and doors.

Our bathroom has long been filled with over 100m of ventilation ducting. In order to make some space we decided to move it into the attic, where it would be fed down from eventually. Moving the spagetti monster wasn’t as easy as it at first seemed. Even with me pushing up from below, and Chris gathering in from above, it still looked like an alien had invaded our attic.

Finally, with the bathroom cleared, we did a quick tidy and sweep of the upstairs. We’ve purchased an industrial hoover now, with the intention of starting to cut down on the amount of dust swirling around the house. My lungs will certainly appreciate it.

A frustratingly time-consuming job was filling in the last few awkward spots on the ceiling, requiring a great deal of difficult cuts.

The contractors are supposed to be plastering the external walls soon, but Chris plastered the small area behind the downstair’s toilet, so it could be installed. It’s great to have a flushing toilet once again. With the tiles already down this room already looks the most complete.

Ceilings done I started building the stud wall for the shower. We can now see the layout of the bathroom, with the soil pipe marking where the toilet will go, the stepladder marking the bathtub, and the sink roughly sitting where it’ll be installed. With all this marked out Chris had started to worry it’ll feel crowded, but I think as long as you can move between the various facilities it’ll still be nice.

We remembered this week that we had some royal fritillary bulbs in the garage, which had been brought with the intention of planting them at the new house. However, looking around we realised all the suitable locations were probably going to be complete devastated when we get round to sorting the garden. So for now we’ve planted them in a pot at our current house, with the hope they’ll survive until we can stick them in the ground. For my birthday (in August) I’ve requested a work party from my family to help clear the garden, so perhaps they might even get planted this year.