After sending off for a wide range of tile samples, we eventually agreed on a dark blue set for the shower. In order not to make the room feel too intense we chose a grey tile for the windowsill. We managed to get these second hand, buying enough that they will also do the shower in the shower room, once that’s underway.

I set to work tiling the windowsill. It was surprisingly difficult as the base put in by the contractors was nowhere near flat, and larger tiles are aways more tricky. Finally having finished, Chris in his usual complimentary style stated that it wouldn’t be particularly obvious once there were things on top of it.

Next I started on the shower, which was much easier given the plasterboard was fairly flat. Having reached the shower pipework I handed over to Chris, as I wasn’t sure how to drill through the tiles to get the pipes through. I like the blue tiles with their starry pattern, however I can’t help be reminded of a magician’s trick box, like we might walk in and then reappear in another part of the room.

Downstairs, Chris started on plastering over the wiring in the lounge, tagging me in once he went up to sort the shower.

Having completed the lounge I headed round to the utility room to plaster over the exposed stone and brick.

Next I sanded down, filled and painted the new plaster in the lounge with watered down paint.

With our first guest arriving in a few days we then spent an evening ‘tidying’ and ‘cleaning’ the house. The reality is that any real kind of clean or tidy is impossible at the moment. The best we can do is minimise the chaos, not eliminate it.

As there’s no space in the other bedrooms at the moment we condensed our pull-out bed into a single, and pushed it against the window, setting up our old double in the middle of the room. As a final effort to make the room a little more accommodating Chris attached the radiator back onto the wall, after its long holiday on the floor. It’s the little touches that give us our 5 star rating.