With weekends pretty busy I’ve been trying to get a few little jobs done in the evenings where possible. But I really wanted to get on with some bigger jobs so decided to book off a few days to help move things forward.

I’d been itching to panel the back of the breakfast bar for ages, but Chris said I couldn’t do it till he finished the extractor fan. The breakfast bar looks much better, though Chris says you can’t notice the change much as we currently use this space to store items for the recycling center and resale, but one day it’ll be empty and ready for some bar stools.

We decided to use architrave to cover the gap at the back of the breakfast bar. I treated the wood with the same stain as the worktop and chopped it up. Unfortunately, there a lot of odd angles along the back of the breakfast bar, and Chris had to give me a hand working out how to calculate the angles.

I finished off the downstairs toilet cupboard doors with hinges, door knobs and closing mechanisms.

Chris finished up the last of the tiles in the utility, and you can’t tell they went in after the other tiles.

To finish off the edging in the utility Chris added an entrance strip between the two tiles.

I boxed in the ventilation pipe in the spare room. It was a horrible job, with cutting the shape of the wood to match the ceiling taking an age. I then attached the final bit of coving. Next it will all need filling, sanding and painting.

I’ve been avoiding a number of small plastering jobs because they’re a pain, but I got down my list and couldn’t avoid them anymore. I plastered the wall in the downstairs toilet with lime mortar, and filled the utility doorway with the remaining mix. I then smoothed out some previous lime mortar surrounding the doorway and above the doorway on the landing with lime plaster.

In a gap under the worktop Chris used the spare cupboard shelves to create a small bookshelf for our kitchen books. He’ll then use some iron on edging to cover the exposed wood. This tiny bookshelf means another moving box is finally emptied.

Chris’s brother has lent us a cement mixer, and Chris plans to start laying the slabs for the shed. A big order of wood has also gone in for the structure – meaning the kitchen will once again be piled high with building supplies, but still it’ll be exciting for the shed to start going up. We just need a little sunny weather to help it along.