Big things have happened! We've been here 6 years in June, and it might finally be nearing some kind of completion(ish) point.
Loads happened in 2024.
- We FINALLY managed to find someone who was happy to remove our spare chimney breast AND lift the flags AND replace the resulting destroyed bathrooms all in one job. This all started in July but due to reasons, mainly our shonky wonky old house throwing up various complications, we're not quite there with it yet. A boring post on this might follow for if we ever need a reminder of where all our savings went. But essentially we now have: Underfloor heating, WARMTH! And half of a beautiful new bathroom 😁
- The horrible drafty old back door got replaced with beautiful new French windows. It was a journey, the building work had to be done twice due to dodgy workmanship the first time round, but we got there eventually.
- Bathrooms. 2024 was the year we solved the problem of the four leaking bathrooms and what a relief it is.
- Drains - it's not every day you get reported to Environmental Health. But it turned out that our two bathrooms on the left side of the house were in fact not connected to the mains sewage as someone had plumbed them both right on into the rainwater drain. WTF. This came to light after an incidental blockage caused the dynorod man to notice something wasn't quite right, and a full drains survey confirmed that we did indeed have a serious problem. Very luckily it was "only" an £800 hole on our our garden that needed to be dug to connect it up, and not the "thousands, and that's before we've even stuck a spade in the ground" that we were warned to potentially expect if the hole had to be dug in the middle of the road.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the new floor has absolutely transformed both the house and us. The dark coldness of the flags used to literally suck the soul out of me most days, and now it's all bright and warm. We can now potter in the evenings instead of being huddled under blankets for warmth. Complete game-changer which I know I will never stop appreciating.
There's still a to-do list, but we're planning for 2025 to be a year in which we don't do anything at all to the house. We're psychologically done in from all the decisions we've had to make and we'd quite like to be able to enjoy everything being in the right place with no building dust for a while. And not spending any more money.