This Sunday marked 2 years since we got the keys for our new house, and 10 months since we moved in. We had hoped to have finished the inside by the 2 year mark, but everyone that’s ever watched Grand Designs will know you never make your deadlines.

We started the week with some boring tidying jobs, including filling, sanding and painting the coving on the landing, and applying a second coat to the skirting and architrave.

Chris added the final bit of plasterboard on the staircase and filled the joins and screw holes.

More excitingly, Chris took a day off work to help his brother take up some garden paving slabs. The slabs are being replaced with something more modern, and the owner told Rich simply to chuck the old ones out. But instead they are coming to us to become our patios.

In the garden, I rebuilt another section of wall. I was quite pleased that I managed to lever in a particularly large stone to form part of the wall.

While moving rocks I found a cute little newt. Sadly our container pond is probably too inaccessible for them to breed in the garden, but nice to see they’re around.

The big job of the Bank Holiday weekend was installing our new wooden windows and our double doors. Carrying the windows inside during delivery, we realised we couldn’t fit the doorway in to keep it out of the wet weather. We therefore decided to spend the evening installing the door.

Unfortunately, a key piece of machinery broke, meaning we spent the night with a big hole in the side of the building, till we could borrow an SDS drill from our neighbours the next day.

Overall, it’s great to get the new door in place, but I am sad we had to lose the side lights from the frame design. Because modern frames are much thicker, the side lights would have been significantly thinner, and we thought it would look strange.

We got four windows in on day 1 of the weekend. We decided the start with the easier windows, those on the first floor and those without the need of concrete lintels.

I’d been a little worried about lifting the heavier frames into place, but everything went fairly smoothly. Apart from the moment where I accidently lent back onto the nozzle of a expandy foam canister, and insulated my hair into one amalgamated mass.

On day two we installed the two more tricky windows, the two larger windows needing concrete lintels installed above them. Amazingly, we managed to get the first window in with Chris on a ladder and me in the room.

For the second, heavier window, we didn’t think the ladder was a safe option, so we put up the scaffolding. It was lucky we did, as this was the first window that nearly didn’t go in, the frame was so tight to the opening. With some chipping away at the stone, and a lot of straining, it finally slotted into place. And no one died.

On our final day, we ferried the old windows to the recycling center, and started filling around the windows on the outside. We’ve still got a few to do but the majority are done and looking good. The one downside of having such fancy looking windows now is that our front door looks significantly worse. However, a little sanding and a coat of paint and it should look good as new.

After contacting a lot of people on Facebook marketplace, I finally managed to find a wardrobe small enough the fit below the sloping roof in the spare bedroom. The wardrobe will have a duel purpose, as we’re going to cut a hole in the bottom and thread the ventilation pipe through, serving the box in the piping.

In the garden the invasive species are returning after their winter slumber. The Spanish bluebells are looking deceptively beautiful, and the Japanese knotweed has reared it’s head. The knotweed is significantly smaller than previous years, and we’ll just have to treat it again in the autumn. The bluebells are more of a pain, as they’ll have to be dug out. Perhaps not a job for this spring.

The final bit of excitement this week was the arrival of our van. An unassuming used work van, we’re planning to transform it into a campervan. I had my first go at driving the monster to collect the wardrobe, and it reminded me how terrible I am at reversing big vehicles. Still practice makes perfect…