Busy weekend!

Just spent 2 days at Cullen working on the house, having a few drinks and good food to celebrate our 14th anniversary!  I had the best steak I've had in a long time and Michael had 2 huge pieces of fish at The Crannoch.  We stayed there too and had a very friendly welcome from the proprietor.  http://www.crannochhotel.co.uk/

It was a weekend of finishing off lots of jobs that had been left.  The insulation is finally finished downstairs and I have nearly finished attaching the wood panels in the front hallway.  We also started putting on some plasterboard here.  The hallway was maybe not the best place to start as it has lots of fiddly bits!

Michael framed and plasterboarded the new velux in the en-suite.  He also made a frame for the sink unit in the en-suite and installed the fireplace in the boys bedroom.  Remember how it looked before we stripped all the old brown paint off?!  (Bits and Bobs 5th September post).  It looks great and will look even better when we get the wood cladding on.  I spent most of today with my heat gun again.  I am slowly stripping off the layers of paint on the staircase.  I'm going back again tomorrow to try to get more done.

Our dad's had another trip with rubbish and collected more doors from the dippers.  Just when we thought the house had no more surprises we found another one.  A door that we thought was wallpapered was actually glass panels!  I cannot believe we didn't break the glass throwing the doors into the trailer!  It looks lovely and I think we will use it for the en-suite.

Our architect and neighbour, Ross is starting to measure up for our kitchen extension plans this week so things are starting to get moving there too, yay!

Fireplace in boys bedroom

Bath ready to be installed

Newly framed velux and frame for sink 

Shower tray ready to be installed

The wood panels and first sheets of plasterboard

The glass paneled door!

My £10 pine kist dipped and smelling much fresher!

Latest quilt

When I'm not at Cullen I have been sewing various things for the house.  The curtains for the boys room are cut out and I have eventually finished the quilt top for the downstairs bedroom!  The applique took me ages, there are 64 circles, 18 flowers and 14 trees all sewn on by hand!

Latest news!

We have been busy the last few weekends getting the insulation in downstairs.  It is all in and looking nice and cosy!  (Although it was warmer outside than it was inside the house on Sunday!)  I started to nail on the paneling we had stripped in the hallway.  We also had a chat with out new neighbour at Cullen about the plans for the new extension.  We are pleased to get the ball rolling there so we can hopefully get it built during the sunny summer!

My mum, dad, boys and I took a trip up today.  We took up a couple of doors that we bought for between the living and dining room then had a tidy up.  We took more doors and a pine kist to Drybridge for dipping then had a lovely lunch at Rockpool (Trip Advisor gives it 5/5).  Boys lunch buckets were served in proper sandcastle buckets and the fish and chips are served on 'newspaper'!  I really liked the paint colour in the cafe so I asked about the colour!  I'll have a wee trip to Homebase tomorrow to get a sample of Green Ground for the hallway!

Travis Perkins also delivered some plasterboard today for downstairs then we loaded the cooker onto the trailer and took it to the boys school.

Living room

Dining room

Bedroom

Bedroom - alternate view!

My wood paneling back on in the hallway.

Getting on with downstairs!

We are finally getting things going downstairs!  I have finished stripping the paint off the wood paneling downstairs and taken the rest to Buckie to get dipped.  The insulation also arrived for downstairs so that's my job on Sunday!  The taps have arrived for the bathroom and en-suite but we have no toilet or bath to put them on yet!

Wood linings, 3 doors and 2 sets of shutter ready for the dippers!

A dusty hallway all stripped

Do you think I ordered enough?!  At least we will be warm!

Latest news

It's been a month since my last posting and we are getting on quite well!  Michael has finished the pipework and tested it so it has no leaks!  The plasterer has been in to tape the upstairs rooms and I have even tried out taping myself!  We have a shower tray and have started to frame around that.  I have also been stripping paint off the wood panels in the hallway - underneath the paint is varnish though and goes really sticky with the heat gun.  The heat gun did keep my hands warm this week!

Bedroom taped nearly ready for painting

Stud wall in en-suite for shower

My first attempt at taping, Barry (the decorator) said it was ok for my first attempt!
It is the cupboard so no-one will ever see it!

First layer of loft insulation - Michael is going up next time!

Panels partly stripped of paint and varnish

I had a lovely letter from Elma whose family owned the house for the 100 years before we bought it!  It was full of info and photos of all the people who lived there throughout it's history.  I will post some photos once I get them scanned.

Plumbing and framing downstairs

After a VERY chilly few weekends Michael has nearly finished the pipework for the radiators upstairs and plumbing in the bathroom and ensuite!  The joiner has also been busy framing downstairs, I think it may be finished before Christmas after all!

Framing in the hallway through to bedroom

How tidy does that pipework look?!

The framing in the living room through the space for the double doors.

We are watertight!

The leaking roof is now fixed so we are wind and watertight ready for the winter!  Michael and his dad were doing first fix of the pipework for the bathroom and en-suite yesterday.  We need insurance for Alf; he had cut his finger within 5 mins of arriving then bashed his head on the car door coming back from the deli!

The joiner is in Cyprus (lucky him!) so downstairs hasn't moved on yet.  We would like to have the framing finished by Christmas but that is only 6 weeks away!!!!!

Can anyone recommend a good plasterer in the Huntly/Keith/Buckie area?!