So we’re in!
After the purchase of the cottage taking much longer than we expected, we finally had the keys and we weren’t wasting anytime. We arrived at the cottage on Tuesday midday and by 8pm the scaffold tower was up, repairs to the render made and Rob had started taking the tiles off the bathroom wall chipping the bath in the process. I have to say, I wasn’t entirely upset about this, the bath was new but PVC. It actually wasn’t that nice but because there wasn’t anything wrong with it we had decided to keep it; however all that has changed and the nice shiny new steel bath is now sitting in the lounge ready to be installed :-)
What we did find in the bathroom that was a problem was how the tiles were on the wall. After removing the expanding foam-(yes behind the tiles????) it was time to repair the plaster ready for our lovely new tiles. Also the bath was seemingly an odd size until when we removed it where we found that the wall had a whole in it to make the bath fit- so that was repaired as well.
Meanwhile, my mum, Lucy and I started on painting the outside of the cottage. Mum was a star, picking up a paint brush one second then a four month old the next and reading ‘That’s not My Elephant’ multiple times.
The transformation was brilliant, and with the window ledges given a fresh coat of paint too suddenly our ugly duckling of a cottage was turning into a beautiful swan- on the outside that it.
Inside Robs tool box had looked like it had grown legs and had been running round the collage dumping tools here, there and everywhere! But he was in the grove, panelling was going up, and so was the new counter top for the sink. New plumbing has gone in and the old ugly light taken away- far away!
The porch has been painted and in between being mum and using nap times to my advantage, I’ve managed to lay all the whole tiles in the porch.
So week one has passed and I am happy with progress so far although there is a long way to go. One lovely discovery this week, after chipping away some white paint on the original front door, I discovered that it was originally Southern Railway green! It turn out that our front door is the only original front door left in the row of rail workers cottages. It would be easier to paint the door white again but with the idea of going back to Southern Railway green is playing on my mind- it would look amazing so I think that will be the way we go. Discoveries and renovations like this is why I love old historic buildings.
It’s a day ‘off’ for me today however as of tomorrow we are back in to crack on with more progress. I hope to have a good bash at tiling the bathroom and maybe even do some painting. The electrician is coming and at the week end we want to start getting that bathroom nearing completion.
