We've got upstairs rooms!

Things have been developing pretty quickly over the past few days. The building contractor has focused his guys on getting the back of the house done first so that in the event that we have to move in early or that the work is not finished on time, then we at least have somewhere to live while they finish the front of the house.

To prove it, I've posted some more pictures below:



From left to right, starting top left: this is the upstairs bedroom wall, with Flo peeping 'round the corner; the next one is the entrance to the bathroom and to the right is the entrance to the toilet; the third one is the toilet, a little bit bigger than we anticipated after asking the building contractor to push the wall into the bathroom a little extra; the fourth one is the shower cubicle, where the first building error occurred... notice that the drain is a bit randomly placed when it should be flush with the near wall (but don't dispair, we're fixing it at great expense!); the fifth one is the fitted cupboard in the upstairs bedroom, if we use the full height there's much more space than I anticipated; the sixth one is the entrance to the bathroom, looking back from the bathroom (I'm looking forward to a bit of exhibitionism); the seventh one is the stairwell, just need some stairs (we're working on it); the eighth one is the upstairs corridor, looking back from the bedroom, strangely it seems much lighter now that the wall is in; the final one is a picture of me trying out the new toilet, attempting a figure of eight.

Also this weekend, Flo's been busy trying out a couple of the colours from the pallette to see how they look on the walls in the house. Inspired by the existing green walls which we dearly love, we've been trying out some other shades.


I feel another poll coming on...

A par with the nobility of Europe?

We went to Amsterdam to decide on the tiles for our bathroom and took our soap dish with us so we could colour match the tiles. The sales man (in his late fifties) was quite impressed with it and said he used to sell those forty years ago and that they were quite expensive back then. The name of the (according to him, no longer existing) manufacturer was Richard-Ginori. Time for a Google search... This is what I found:

It was in 1753 that the Florentine Marquis, Carlo Ginori, founded a porcelain factory on his estate in Doccia near Florence, making Ginori the oldest European factory. Having maintained continuous production through the Napoleonic Wars and two World Wars, Ginori moved to their current location at Sesto Fiorentino in 1949, where the designers continue to draw inspiration from the surrounding Tuscan countryside. Marchese Carlo Ginori began producing porcelain at Doccia in 1735; after five generations the family firm merged with the Milanese company Richard in 1896. Ginori porcelain was collected by the Medicis and most of the nobility of Europe — Napoleon's wife, Marie Louise of Austria, ordered an enormous dinner set that survives to this day.

Boika's diet going to plan

 
"I lost 400 grams in 1 month on the Jonny and Flo diet plan" said Boika yesterday evening.

After last month's visit to the vet, we've been pretty ruthless with Boika's diet, only letting her eat her special "obesity" biscuits. She seems to be getting used to the new regime, which involves letting Boris eat his normal biscuits first before letting Boika into the kitchen to eat her special diet.

Initially, she used to get a bit upset as we threw her out of the kitchen at feed times; she'd run upstairs and sulk for half an hour before finally coming downstairs to eat. But now she doesn't seem to mind and just needs to be asked to leave the kitchen... she trots out of the kitchen and upstairs for 5 minutes, before coming back down for her food.

What a very civilised kitty she is! And as a result she's lost about 10% of her original body weight, which means she's about half way to our goal... we think she should be about 3.6 kg, which is about how much she weighed when we lived in Dubai.

Once she's down at this weight, we're hoping that the new house will help maintain this weight, since she'll be able to run around in the back garden, appreciating urban nature. 

Flo's been looking on Marktplaats

Flo's been looking on Marktplaats and similar websites for pieces of furniture for the new house. She stumbled upon this one, an 1890 to 1900 French dresser that she thinks would look good at the back of our main room, for storing books next to the chaise-longue to promote reading while sat in the sun looking out into the garden.

So the question is, do you think we should buy it?

Shall we buy this dresser? 1) Yes 2) No 3) Don't know? View Results Make your own poll

The near end of the deconstruction

After our lovely weekend away, it's back to the daily business of work and house again. The builders have knocked out most loadbearing walls by now and they are being supported by temporary beams until the steel beams arrive.

They have removed the old stairs and closed the ceiling and by doing so created the baby room, which also in size is a baby room! The big gaping hole (once the door to the cupboard under the stairs) will become a wall. You can see that they have placed the old stairs where the new stairs will come, using them as a ladder for the time being.

So things are looking good! Hopefully we can start the construction next week.