We collected the keys to number 4 today – the previous owners requested to stay in the property for a month or so after purchase until they found alternative accommodation.  Basically, their new house purchase sadly fell through just days before completion of the sale of their existing home.  They paid a good rent to us, so we were only too happy for them to stay a little longer, while we got sorted out elsewhere.

Number 16 is gradually getting closer to readiness – the tail end of the week has seen the carpets go down (today), the electrician come and check it out (he returning next week to upgrade the main fuse box to be up to standard – he will check out number 4 as well – no doubt we will need the same doing there 🙁 ), the painting is now complete everywhere except the kitchen (we think will need two more coats on the ceiling in there along with at least one on the walls and the kitchen is the room that we really need to focus on) and a little touching up following carpets etc going down.   There is still the windows to clean inside and out, the guttering to clean, the front door to clean and re-paint and then we are close to being able to rent the place out 🙂

We are really looking forward to the holiday in Florida in a few weeks time – the last 10 days have actually been hard work – it is really nice to see our efforts move towards a brand new home – it certainly feels like a difference house to the one that we took the keys for nearly two weeks ago.  We will have some before and after photographs in the coming days so stay tuned…

We had the day off from painting etc yesterday, so obviously we went down after school to get a couple of hours in :-).

Today, the boys went the play at Grandma’s while mummy and daddy got stuck in at number 16. Granddad also popped down as he offered to help remove the scabby front garden and put some cleaner looking stones etc in place. This took around 4 hours all told as there was the original garden to dig out, which effectively ended up with approximately a half a ton of muck. Greg had already collected one ton of stones and brought them in his trailer. The front garden now looks sensational and Simon is very tired – we moved about 3/4 ton of stones and 1/2 ton of garden muck, although it was moved three times so 1 1/2 tons moved in total 🙁 It was moved because Simon was concerned over upsetting the neighbours as the driveway directly outside the front of the property does to actually belong to the property – it belongs to the neighbours’ property.

So, inside Vicky cracked on with the upstairs painting so we now have fully completed gloss work upstairs and the bathrooms have a coat of the white emulsion on the walls and ceilings (we decided to have them cleaner and therefore just white emulsion).

Finally the kitchen cabinet doors are prepped for sending and then three coats of the spray paint – the actual spray work will commence on Monday.

Slowly we are getting there, although we have set ourselves the tough target of having the house complete by next Sunday evening. Will we make it? Stay tuned to see….

We are now a full week into the gig and we are doing, well…. OK.  The garden is tidied and the grass has been fed and weeded – OK so “weed and feed” has been deployed following the garden having been weeded in the flower beds etc, and the electric lawn rake having removed the thick of the moss etc in the grass area 🙂

The bedrooms have now had their ceilings painted, their walls painted and the gloss work done – just need to re-visit the master bedroom as we had a small accident and leant on it tonight following painting – hence it needs re-doing 🙁

Simon got some fancy new ladders that fold up to make a handy platform – perfect for on the stairs to enable the highest point in the house to be painted.  These arrived last night so they were used to full effect today.

So, we now have a coat of emulsion on the upstairs hall, with the stairs and entrance hallway to be looked at tomorrow hopefully.

All upstairs gloss work (excluding bathroom) has been done and is finished (the banister rails were a real PITA), so we are almost ready for the carpets – the gloss will have over a week to dry and harden in preparation for the carpets 🙂

Tomorrow, we intend to complete the bathroom and make a dent in the spray painting of the kitchen cabinet doors – we chose to paint them as oppose to replace them as the spray cans are costing approximately 4 UKP per door as opposed to 600UKP to replace the doors….  There are 21 doors incidentally.

We have also chosen to spray the bath panel and then we won’t need to locate a replacement for it 🙂

We are doing pretty well at present – just need more hours in the day to be able to crack on 🙂