A week after we moved in we went on holiday. While this was a nice escape it also meant we returned to utter chaos. Aside from halfway through the roof rebuild, I think this is the most overwhelmed by the job either of have been. At least when we didn’t live here we had somewhere to escape the mammoth list of tasks, here they’re staring us in the face every minute of the day.

Prior to packing our bags we tried to move forward with getting our bedroom done. Sleeping surrounded by dust and dirt is no fun, and we felt we needed one room as a sanctuary. I pushed on with filling all the gaps in the ceiling with cork, and repainting.

While Chris got to plastering.

He also finally fixed the downstairs toilet door, for a little more privacy.

And put the final coat of plaster on the adjoining wall.

On our return I set to work repointing the chimney brest in the bedroom. Chris hadn’t been keen at first with the idea of leaving it exposed, but I wanted to reveal a little of the history of the house. Repointed, he now sees more of it’s good side.

With a good clean the room was then ready for the floor to be varnished. I did two coats, and Chris thinks it needs a third, but we agreed that could wait till later, given that we wanted to get the room more comfortable for now.

With the floor done I did the first coat of watered down paint on the bare plaster, having filled and sanded the remaining holes.

Chris is desperate to get the shower finished, so he concentrated and moving that along. Getting the shower tray in was a faff, because of the thick stone wall beneath it. He then got the pipework in place and attached the plasterboard.

Our last job of the weekend was lugging the wardrobe and chest of draws, that had been clogging up the lounge, up the stairs and into our room. The draws were fine, but the large wardrobe was an absolute pain, given it’s width, height and slippery surface. Still it feels incredibly luxurious to be able to open a door and pick out clothes, rather than rummage in a dusty bag.

Finally we were able to look at wall colours. We went with eco paints for most of our old house, and really liked them. The brand we went for was quite expensive, but Chris found someone selling end-of-line tins at half-price online, so we selected a green for our bedroom and a yellow for the bathroom. It was important the green went with the old reclaimed doors we’re using for the cupboard, which I think it does. The yellow needs two coats of white under it first, so we’re yet to see how that one turns out. With the yellow awaiting it’s first coat we’re ordered some tile samples to match against it. It seems a little bizarre to be getting onto finishing touches when the rest of the house is still dust and disasters, but it’s easing our stress to have a little sanctuary in the corner of the house, away from all the mess.