Wooden it be nice

 Having the outside woodwork sanded and recoated with wood preservative was long overdue.  I should have had it done ages ago and just didn't get round to organising it.  But the local painter and decorator started on Monday and it's going well.  He's done all the front of the house and the east side and is working on the front of the annexe.  He's got his teenage son working with him for the summer, so that's speeding it up - the boy is sanding, father finishing off and then painting.

Meanwhile, I have been getting on less well.  Upstairs is a disaster area, but at least the study is nearly clear.  I still have some books and papers to move upstairs - it's been so hot that I can only take a few trips with heavy stuff at a time.  And I've been too busy for the last three days anyway.

Next week is only marginally less busy, but I can't delay.  I've got tomorrow free and must look to the List.  Then on Sunday, I'm taking Pam to the hospital for her pre-op checks and I'll be with her much of the day and won't be fit for a lot afterwards.  I have Monday free and on Tuesday I'm picking up Roses, to take Rummy to the vet (Rose is currently carless).  After that, I'll go over to Magnet, the kitchen people, to make the final checks with the order and pay the balance.  On Wednesday, I'm taking Pam into hospital for her operation.  I'm not sure how long she'll stay - she thinks a night or two, which it may be, or could be longer.  Her daughter will come and stay with her once she's out, I hope - not sure how her childcare is being organised, but we'll get it sorted out.  Then I must crack on for a few days.  I'll visit Peter when I can, while Pam is out of action.  I do hope and pray that her op is successful this time.

I've been getting up early, as Scott starts at 7.30, so I must set the alarm again and actually get up.  I have a tendency to lie in bed reading.  Freezers are the priority tomorrow.  If I can get those sorted out before Thursday, so that Wince can help me move the emptied big one, then I'll be back on schedule.  

Z's kitchen countdown - 3 - the approximate design

 It's clear that I have no idea how to use Blogger nowadays.  I've just dragged and dropped the photos,  hoping for the best.  This is a computer mock-up of the units, but it's not as the kitchen will actually appear.  There will be rather more on the walls.

I like to have things where I can reach for them.  So, behind the Aga, I have racks with hooks for utensils and, to the left of the Aga, on the beam, I have more hooks for saucepans.  These will stay.  

I also will have more shelves than are shown, but it's just as an example here (they're too high, for a start).  The main differences are the doorway on the right, which now is just a hatchway into the next room (it originally was the back door, but we'd incorporated two small areas into one room) and I couldn't leave the doorway, as I had nowhere else to put the fridge.

The window on the left will be replaced - the two each side of the Aga are oak and so will the new one be.  Russell, who couldn't bear to complete a job, didn't have a new window. though all the others in the house were replaced.  The sink is now further over to the right than it will be, the new placement is better and I don't know why we didn't do it in the first place.  There will be open shelves for jars of ingredients, because I like to grab those too.

The colour of the fittings is 'Ludlow Washed Cotton' and the Corian worktops are in Sandstorm.  At present, I have a patterned wallpaper with a darkish background and the room is fairly dark overall, with oak cupboard doors - I took the view that it was not a light room and to run with what it was, but I'm having a complete change.  I'll probably keep the central table that's now in the kitchen, if only because the cat likes to eat there.

Through the doorway is now the study - we briefly used it as a dining room, which is the reason for the hatchway - and I'll have the same flooring in there as in the kitchen, so that it's effectively all one room.  I'll have the fridge and upright freezer in there and a table and dining chairs, because it faces east and south and is lovely in the morning.  It'll be my third dining room.  A Z can never have too many options for eating.  I will also keep my cookery books in there, bringing a big bookcase down from the landing for them.  It's mahogany,  but we'll politely ignore that.

Through the doorway on the left of the bottom photo, there's a lobby leading to the larder, the back door and the laundry room, which is also a passage to the annexe.  Wink and I share the laundry room, each of us having our own equipment, though either of us is welcome to use the other's.  I'm having more kitchen units in the lobby, where there is currently a large chest freezer.  On top, I'll put the wine rack - it's sizeable, being a metre wide and nine bottles hight - and the microwave, which will fit sideways.

The wall that isn't pictured won't have any units or furniture, as there are various doors at that end of the room, leading to the passageway, the dining room, the broom cupboard and the back stairs.  The larder is being cleared and will become the broom cupboard and the broom cupboard will house the three bins - rubbish, recycling and composting stuff.

It all looks rather more stark and pale than it will but, if you've been here, you'll recognise what a huge change there will be.  The room will, of course, be considerably more cluttered than it is here - Jonathan put in a token mixer, but there will be a lot of equipment out, because if it's all in cupboards, it doesn't get used.

List ticking

 I'm plodding through the list.  It's so hot that moving heavy furniture upstairs is a challenge.  Wince and I have managed everything we've set out to do, so far, but I needed a break after a particularly heavy cupboard.

Since the study will become part of the kitchen, I needed to put study stuff somewhere else.  I decided that the landing would do.  We've moved the linen cupboard to the main landing (I'd already emptied the bedlinen to the towel cupboard) and the big bookcase, that will end up downstairs, to the landing in its place.  Then we moved the stationery cupboard to the main landing, which knackered me and, I suspect, Wince too.  Once we'd reached the top of the stairs, my arms hardly worked.  But I was okay later and took up various papers.

So very tired now.  It's not yet 9pm, but I have a book by my bed that's calling to me, though I may only read a page or two.

I ticked 6 items off the list, which is satisfying.  I haven't tackled the challenging bits, nor the items I hadn't the fortitude to put on the list.  But, as far as it goes, it's comfortable.

Morning on the tiles

 We went over to the tile company and really liked it.  I have to say, Boris (I'm perfectly sure there is no connection with the dreaded Boris) is no salesman.  He suggested I wait until the kitchen is fitted before I choose the tiles, he didn't take my name, he said I'd be welcome to have samples but didn't take the opportunity to draw me in by offering me any - but never mind.  He also said that they could do the shade I wanted, that it would only take 3-4 weeks, that they'd be hand-painted and made on the premises - and the tiles are beautiful.  

I looked up my to-do list from several weeks ago.  Most things on it are done and I've written a new one, typed on the computer this time, so I don't have to find the notebook and update it.  Wink and I have set timings for some items.  So I've got plans for this Thursday and a list of things that have to be ready for next Thursday.  And, if I hope to get to Scotland in August, everything else has to be done too.

Later, we went through our mutual diary - we each have a diary and there's also a joint one.  It was good to sort everything out, until I got into September and then I felt overwhelmed.  So we had a nice G&T and then I went and cooked trout for dinner.

When I went outside this morning, first thing, it felt quite autumnal.  But another heatwave is hinted at.  The seasons are all awry.  That is, we hardly have them any more.

Z and Wink get our timings wrong

We're planning a couple of days in London, but we've made a mistake.  We intended to go to a play on a Friday evening, a matinée on Saturday afternoon and then come home - also a couple of exhibitions on the Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.  Efficient and perfect, hey?  Except, having booked the trains, the hotel and the Saturday, we then discovered that we were a week out for the other show.  The Saturday is the last day for one, but the other doesn't open for another week.  D'oh, darlings.

All the rest works, so we will choose something else for Friday night.  But we can't see how it was that neither of us noticed.

Tomorrow, we will go and look at tiles.  I feel overstretched and harassed, but I can't let the pace slip.  

Z's kitchen countdown - 2

 I've emailed the chap at the kitchen company, who's back from holiday now, to clarify a few things, he's phoned back and I'll go in when he's got answers - I've assured him that I'm not anxious, just making sure that there are no issues later.  I've also phoned about getting the flooring fitted, which will be a fortnight after the kitchen units are started, but I am not sure if there might be a clash there, so I'll find out next week.  

I'm looking online at taps, which is fairly boring, might go over to the next town where there's a supplier of that sort of thing.

Yesterday, the lovely family who live in Glasgow called in for lunch - parents, two boys and the youngest child, their five year old daughter.  All delightful people and the children are so naturally polite and helpful.  You can never pick anything up without one of them offering to carry it.  They've very kindly invited me to stay when I go to Scotland - I'm happy to stay in a hotel, but they're so hospitable that they may insist.  I really hope I might manage to fit it in with everything else, but it's going to be a squeeze.

Fiona also recommended a tile company and I looked them up.  The tiles are lovely, but they're 150+ miles from here.  I'd really need to visit.  That's possible in a day, but it prompted me to look up a local firm and they look promising too.  So Wink and I will visit there on Monday and, if we don't like their offerings and there doesn't seem to be somewhere else nearby, then it's off to Wiltshire for a day trip.

I really want to get to Scotland next month.  That won't happen unless I focus on it and on everything else I need to do before I go.  It'll be a push.  But I'm good with a deadline.  I'm going to crack on with the work and believe I can do it.  Next week has some capacity, the week after doesn't.  From then on, I'm pretty busy up to the blog party.  So next week it is.  Apart from Tuesday and Friday.

Z's kitchen - Two month countdown - 1

 Tomorrow is always a flexible word.  I still haven't uploaded pictures.

However, I have got a date to install the new kitchen, so that's good.  It'll be started on 1st September.

I've texted the decorator/carpenter to ask him to sort out the doorway any time in the 2nd half of August.  I've also gently asked when he's starting the work on the outside of the house (not right now, it's far too hot).  I've also texted the joiner about the window - not heard back from either of them yet, but it's a working day and that's fine.

I've agreed with the water softener people about the approximate date for fitting that, I've said provisionally 3rd week in September.  The fitter can do the rest of the plumbing.  I have yet to choose a new tap, but I'm going to look for one with an extra pipe for the filtered water, rather than have a separate tank for drinking water.  I don't expect this to be a problem.

I've given no thought to the colour of the walls and I'm not worrying about the tiles yet.

I need to contact the flooring people to tell them when they can come and do that job.

I have bought a new upright freezer, which has to live in the porch for the next three months.  I'm turning out the smaller chest freezer into it, then I'll defrost the latter, then sort out what's in the bigger chest freezer and defrost that, ready to be moved into the workshop (If I can't do without it yet) or disposed of.  

In regard to the study, that will be knocked into from the kitchen, most of the books and bookcases have been removed.  This Thursday, Wince and I will move Tim's big tv and hifi equipment upstairs.  I have also decided that, instead of it being a part-time study, I'm moving all that stuff upstairs onto the landing.  Once the new (present) study floor is laid, the bookcase on the landing will come down into that room, to house cookery books and it'll be replaced by my desk and the stationery cupboard.  On the landing, I also have the cupboard where I keep bedlinen and I'm thinking where I could rehouse the linen, so that I'll have room for papers there.  Bobby the leopard also needs to find a new home, which may be in my bedroom or else in my dressing room, as it might spook guests in a spare bedroom.

I have started to move a lot of kitchen stuff into the further dining room.  It's all going to be quite a challenge for a while, but no matter.

I don't know what to call the ex-to-be-study.  Morning room or breakfast room both sound wildly pretentious, but that's effectively what it'll be.  Kitchen annexe?  3rd dining room?  Probably, I'll just call the entire space the kitchen.  Once all is sorted out, the new upright freezer will live there, I'll have a smaller  dining table and chairs and maybe an armchair or two.  I'm also toying with having the fridge in there, which I think would be quite convenient and keep the kitchen uncluttered (I will have plenty of stuff in there, I like having ingredients to hand in jars).

I have to move a lot of papers and general stuff from the study, I've been dumping stuff there as it's chaotic anyway.  Then I have to sort them out.

My tidying up deadline is the week before the blog party.  Then I'll have to shift the final stuff from the kitchen.

I sleep really well nowadays, better than I have for years.  It's surprising.  What is even more surprising is that I've turned from an owl to a lark.  This is a lot less welcome.  I miss late nights and I hate getting up early.  I don't mind waking up early but, if I get up then, I'm ready for a nap by 11am and that's just silly, especially as I don't have afternoon naps normally.