Tuesday, 13th October 2009
So Much Progress!
It’s been almost an entire month since my last post. Rest assured that I have not been resting on my laurels though – Fi and I have been really busy with both the house and work.
Firstly, the kitchen:
It’s finished (well almost)! All that remains is to paint the door frame and skirting boards – apart from that, it’s done. It’s made such a difference to living in the house being able to cook a decent meal. An added bonus is that having a breakfast bar (Fi’s desire) has meant that we have somewhere nice (if a little cosy) to sit and eat. They say that the proof of the pudding is in the eating and to that effect we’ve already two sets of friends around (Sophie & Alexander and Harry & Lucy) for dinner! Some highlights of the room are the Rangemaster oven, the retro Smeg fridge-freezer and and the Smeg dishwasher. Words are all well and good I hear you say but pictures speak a thousand words – have a gander at these:
Next up, the garage/cinema:
I’m finding it difficult to name this room. It was a garage (and most definitely is not anymore) and it will be a small cinema room although at the moment I can’t quite afford the equipment to kit it out! I’m really pretty pleased with this room. The carpet was fitted last week and the cables (an HDMI, 5 speaker cables and a subwoofer cable) have been fed from the “media room” (an old larder) through the conduit under the floor and tacked down under the carpet ready for hooking up. I have tested the HDMI cable and it seems to work fine. Unfortunately, I can’t test the speaker cables as I don’t own any passive speakers (yet). The room is fully painted and we are waiting for delivery of our sofa bed which is due this coming Friday. That will definitely be a defining moment for us for it will mark the first time we’ll be able to “slob” in our own home! [update: the sofa has arrived and is great - hence it's presence in the pictures]. I’ve yet to fit curtains in the cinema as I am still on the lookout for some decent (and not ridiculously over-priced) blackout blinds – they are next on my hit list. Enjoy the pictures:
Here’s a couple of pictures of the cables in the cinema
The downstairs:
I’m grouping the lounge and dining room together since they flow into each other now in our open plan design. After a lot of effort, we have finally finished all of the polyfilling and painting. The ceiling spotlights are in place and working and our beautiful Smeg flueless gas fire was fitted earlier today. Fiona’s Mum is paying for the installation of our engineered oak flooring (a belated wedding gift and we cannot thank her enough!) and that’s being fitted next week. When that’s done – the place will just, I’m sure, look spectacular. Fi and I are trying really hard to paint all of the woodwork (i.e. the stairs and the doors) downstairs before the flooring is fitted. I’m hopeful we’ll get most if it done but I may be being a little too optimistic considering I have just started a week of nights and Fi is unwell with an URTI of some description. Anyway – some pictures:
Work and exams:
Work is going OK, if not inspiring. I did my first night of seven last night and it wasn’t too bad. I sat my MRCS Part A exam in Cardiff about three weeks ago and the results are due out on Tuesday. I think it went pretty well but considering I hadn’t sat a “proper” exam since medical school, I don’t want to get my hopes up too high. Tuesday will reveal all…
That’ll do for now. I’ll try to be better at posting. Honest.