It’s been another long day. As I went to sleep so late last night, I only got about four hours; however, I knew that it was going to be another busy day ahead. I got up to the sound of my alarm and after doing my stretches, I got going.

The plumbers turned up around 9am and covered all the floors upstairs and the stairs with protective plastic sticky backed stuff. They apologised in advance that the building work was going to be noisy, but the girls and I were going out to their contact lens and sight test appointments anyway so we were going to be out of the way. They got started with knocking out the en-suite.

When we got back the skip had arrived and the plumbers had taken most of the appliances and tiling out and started knocking out the panelling and plasterboard.

They revealed a wasp nest that had got in through a small hole outside and was sitting behind the plasterboard. The wasps were all dead which was good (see photo on right below)!

Later in the afternoon the whole en-suite and spare room cupboard had been knocked out and the space looked pretty big. You could see right through from the en-suite door and out through the spare room cupboard (see bottom two photos).

The plumber gave us a few options on how we could use the space and left us to make the decision overnight. I think he could sense some tension as we don’t agree much in this house.

One of the options is to create three large cubed and tiled cubby holes in the bathroom thereby utilising the space at the back of the old cupboard. The shower tray would increase from 800mm to 1200mm and that would also have a cubby hole for shampoo etc. The rest of the spare room cupboard could be used as shelving in the bedroom or a smaller cupboard. It’s going to cost us more obviously, as there’s extra tiling. He could get his carpenter to design and build a small cupboard. I think I need to know what the extra cost is first.

They also found a lot of mould and damp and the reason behind that was because the ventilator unit going up into the loft had had something thrown over it so it was squashed and not ventilating anything. If only we’d known that all this time.

So, an eventful day and the rest of the next couple of weeks are going to be similar.

When they’d gone, my daughter wanted to continue with painting the room. I started helping and then I stopped to help my husband cook dinner.

My youngest helped with the painting instead. I have just been in to see how they’ve done, and it looks really good. Just one coat of paint on the ceiling left to do and a few edges need tidying up.

The girls cleaned everything up including washing the paint trays and brushes. They are experts now having done the lounge and the youngest’s bedroom this year.

How am I feeling?

I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed as there are a lot of decisions to be made this week, a lot of people coming round to do various jobs, I’m going to be busy at work, and there’s clutter everywhere. It’s best that I don’t try and think of it all tonight. I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill.

Time for a bubble bath and to clear my mind! My neck is still a bit stiff from painting the ceiling yesterday.

Until tomorrow…

Sandra