The Destruction Begins

By the time we got all of the wallpaper down that we were going to strip, it was time for the experts to come in. Here's a picture of Paul standing in the room that used to be the kitchen. The builders [construction workers] have stripped out the bathroom and kitchen fixtures down to the bare walls and pipes. They've also started ripping up the patio paving stones and concrete underlay with a jackhammer. It's all very exciting!

We had our first official construction meeting on Friday morning where we answered final questions like, how large a patio door do we want? and if the ceiling is this high, is that OK? We still have a long way to go, but we're definitely off and running.

Inspired by the progress on the house, on Saturday, we bought the tiles for the floor and wall in the bathroom. We'd looked a few places and came across some that were more than suitable--and on sale! Sadly, they didn't have enough of the floor tiles for us to do the kitchen and the bathroom in the same tiles, but, oh well.

Eager to get them back to the house, we loaded up the Golf and managed not to tear out the suspension of the car on the way home...

Not to be outdone inside the house, we assembled and inaugurated the lawnmower and strimmer [weed eater]. Unlike my last lawnmower/weed-eater, these are electric. So you must take extra care to make sure you don't cut the power cord as you mow/weed-eat. We'll see how long it takes me to have to replace the cord...but at least I don't have to transport petrol [gasoline] in my car! Tradeoffs, I guess.

The yard work was completed just in the nick of time, too. Sunday and Monday were rainy days!

Here is another picture of the "progress" of the patio. It needed to be taken up because it was causing damp in the walls of the dining room and kitchen across the back of the house [UK house technology]. It will be re-laid at a level to avoid more damp, but still give us a nice patio for BBQs!



I must give a shout out to my blog goddess, Hachie Gal--who gave me a crash course in how to add more pictures and a blog counter--to see how many people visit the blog! You are my Hero!