A day that has been a long time coming (we bought the bath nearly 3 years ago), today Billy starts fitting the bathroom. Cat has been busy painting all the walls and ceiling this weekend so it would be ready and dry for Billy to start.
Our anthracite bathroom radiator gets fitted on the wall.
Charlie and Alan are finishing off the attic, the really awkward bits, with plasterboard. The part above the stairwell, where there will be a new partition at the side of the chimney breast, is the most awkward to get to.
Our new sink being positioned in place on top of the granite.
The floor isn’t completely level in here, it is certainly more level than it was, but the toilet needs to sit on a little wooden plinth for it to be level. We will need to get Dan to fashion something for this out of an old floorboard for the toilet to sit on when he is back in a couple of weeks.
Getting the position of the bath right.
We have had a joiner, Paul, spend the day fitting some oak fillets to the dormers, around the edges of the leaded cheeks, and two oak beads down the joints between the windows and the dormers. A fastidious worker, he has done a very tidy job, shaping and oiling them to blend in, to ensure there will be no leaks.
The oak fillets sealing the edges of the leaded cheeks.
The oak beads sealing the joints between the window and the dormer.
Guttering hell. Long story, but we ordered the guttering online (Brett Martin Cascade cast iron style black plastic) back in August and they have sat in a box ever since, waiting until we had finished the roof. It turns out we ordered the wrong size ‘rise and fall’ metal brackets that go into the wall to hold the gutter. These cost over £170 alone, but because we ordered them so long ago we can’t get a refund or even an exchange. Bastards. So we have had to order a whole load of new ones. Then we discovered that these ‘offset bends’ (on the left) are no good either and we have 4 of these (at £12 each). The ones on the right (purchased this morning from a physical shop in Banbury) are exactly what we want AND they said if they are not right I can take them back for a full refund. The guttering has cost us around £1000 if you include the duplicate items we have had to purchase. What an arse. Who knew guttering was so expensive, complicated and so easy to get wrong.
The most awkward part to board is this area at the top of the stairwell. The very top has been shaped with wire mesh filled with rock wool as it is very organic and curved. Charlie was hanging off the beams with one foot on a ladder on the stairs at one point…
The other side of the top of the stairwell, from inside the attic room. This has been perfectly shaped to our curved beams.
OMG we have taps! And a bath! And a very posh plug!
Cat doing one more coat this evening so it will be dry tomorrow. Cat started a new job today (phew!) working from home for the first couple of weeks before filming begins. She paints a wall early in the morning before her working day starts, then paints another in the evening.