Seeing The Light At The End Of The Tunnel In Framlingham

We're back in Scotland after another five hundred mile drive from Framlingham and the end of our eleven days on the road. It's been a good break; we've seen friends, we've enjoyed a few days in a good pub and we've caught up with progress on the renovation of the house. As you can see from the above photo, the ugly brown UPVC windows and door have now gone and been replaced with these contemporary light grey timber windows and door by Timber Windows of Fornham. The window colour clashes with the cladding colour but steps are in hand for the exterior to be repainted in March.

The new steel girders above the Solarlux Bifolding doors have been covered with a layer of cladding in readiness for painting and the aluminium finish for the corner pillar is now on order.

  

The decorators have made a start with painting and even with just undercoat the landing is so much brighter than it was. Those Velux Sun Tunnels give fantastic natural light; we're so glad that we had them fitted.

All of the sanitary ware in the family bathroom is now installed and functioning. We still need the splash back tiling.

The en suite shower room is coming on nicely and is starting to look very classy. We had a setback with this when the shower screen that I ordered proved to be too small but Boundary Bathrooms have agreed to take it back with a 25% restocking charge which is reasonable as we've had it for two months (it is still in its packing though). We bought almost  all our sanitary ware and other bathroom stuff from Boundary Bathrooms and we're extremely pleased with their service (and prices).

Now that the kitchen/diner has been plastered and the floor has had a coat of screed where the walls were removed it's starting to look more like a room.

The chimney breast in the lounge has been completed and the wood burning stove should be in in a few days. The oak mantel looks really good.

The shower over the bath is now in place. 

We've ordered fitted wardrobes, dining furniture and all of the wallpaper. The wooden flooring goes in next week and then we've just got the lighting, other wiring and decorating to complete and we'll be ready for the kitchen fitters to arrive on 10th December.

The landscape gardener presented his plans on Monday and they are really exciting. Chris the designer reckons that the work could begin as early as January so we will be ready to plant in March.

On a negative note, our super duper new garden office turned out to be terribly finished and it started to leak. This is a bit scary considering the amount that we've spent on it but I'm not going to name and shame the suppliers yet as they seem to be bending over backwards to get it right and have authorised a very respectable expert in wooden buildings to remove the structure and build us a new one. As long as it is complete before Christmas we won't make too much fuss. If it isn't ready by Xmas, watch this space.

Framlingham Update

We got up at 5 a.m. and arrived safely in Framlingham at 2.45 p.m. today. We had arranged a meeting with the builder and architect to bring us up to date with progress.

The sun tunnels have brightened up a very gloomy landing and filled it with sunlight. This small dingy corridor was one of our major worries with the house and we're really pleased that we agreed to go with the Velux Tunnels. They are fitted with internal lights too so when the sun sets they can be used as straightforward lights but in this photo the electric lights are off.

The house is a lot smaller than our old one and I wanted some space to sit and write and also to keep my metal detecting stuff so we went for an office in the garden. The office from Finnish Log Homes is coming along very nicely and should be complete when we travel down south again in a couple of weeks.

The corner of the house has been removed to make way for the sliding folding doors and the builders are closing up a door and opening up a window to make way for a new window and French Doors which are due to arrive on 22 October.

They are making good progress on the kitchen diner too. It's going to be a lovely bright room. Tomorrow we've got a day with the interior designer and the kitchen designer and before we head back up the motorway to the caravan the interior design should be virtually finished. 

Next time we visit the property we're meeting a landscape designer to plan the garden.

It's unlikely that we will manage to move into the property this year but we hope that we will be settled in by the end of January. We'll have to as the caravan site closes in February for a month.