Our Big Easter Weekend

Before we moved, a ‘big Easter weekend’ used to mean something very different… nowadays it means a chance to really break the back of some of our bigger tasks.  

Our main aim this weekend was to finish painting both bedrooms in our new house. We’d already done the ceilings and two of the walls in our bedroom, so we wanted to finish off the rest of the walls and the beams in the spare bedroom. We had hoped to get some of the woodwork started too, but it’s so dusty in the house, it really needs cleaning first. We’ve gone for a two-tone colour scheme in each room – one brighter colour to lighten the rooms up, and one neutral colour to offset it. Across the four days we’ve managed to paint all the walls, fill the nail holes in the woodwork, caulk the entire house, and treat and paint the final beams in the spare room (first coat only).  

It’s been a bit of a mission to get it all done, as we’ve also had to clear the spare bedrooms in the farmhouse for family who are staying next weekend – if you remember one of our spare rooms has been full of boxes for the last ten months. But we managed to get through most of our list and are nearly ready for our visitors! 

We also managed to spend a bit of time outside (dodging the rain!) catching up on a few garden jobs and planting the first of our vegetable seeds. And now the communal/games room has been plastered, we moved the lighting beam in there ready to be hung – it’s been under our back terrace for months now, but we need the space for our next major job. 

It feels like a quiet week on the building site but I’m sure it’s been far from it in reality! Outside our builders have concreted around the various drain covers we have on site and installed the drainage for our dog/boot wash outside the laundry (an idea inspired by a local pub). The garage and laundry rooms have been cleared (they were previously used for storage) and our builders have put plastic down ready for pouring the concrete floors next week. 

The cabling for the sewage treatment tank pump has been installed, and they’ve put more stone down to cover some of the mud. This means there is now a route around to the back door of our new house – the addition of a few planks enabled the kitchen company to get the kitchen worktop into the building (the corridor corner was too tight and the larger piece of worktop was too heavy to use the front door). It’s been fitted beautifully to the irregular stone wall, and our builders have installed the induction hob too. Now that’s done, the next step is to fit the back of the cupboards and get the appliances in, and we’re one step closer.

Now the back of the site is more accessible, we’ve been able to make a few plans for our garden – importantly where we’ll put a patio and so where our builders can put more stone down. It’s still quite difficult to imagine what the space will look like, but we’ve been thinking about this for so long that we’ve got a good idea what will go where (and where I can hide more vegetables in amongst the flowers)!