a scarecrow

Denford, like some other villages, has a scarecrow festival. Here is our builder scarecrow - he won't "medal" but is delighted to be participating.

Inside, today, Mike & Tandy from ACA-Apex are installing our "smart home" system. They have been very helpful & are much better value than many of the systems we looked at. We installed all the cables ourselves (see Nov. 18th 2011) and it seems that all of my labelling has worked well.

Keith has finished the flooring downstairs and it looks lovely. Now he is doing the skirting and door frames. We have, in a triumph of hope over expectation, booked Ace Removals again, to take all of our stuff out of storage on September 20th.

the light at the end of the tunnel

We now have proper flooring in 4 rooms, and here are pictures of the "guest room" (or bedroom 2 as we know it) carpet and the study with ash flooring.



Next step is to move ourselves out of our bedroom, so it can be finished & carpeted.
Keith is about to lay the rest of the downstairs flooring.
We still have to finish tiling in the utility room and the downstairs shower room needs to be finished.

We have been able to enjoy sitting on the deck & using our new barbecue. We now have lights installed there, so can sit out reading.

The post you can see is for the steel wire fencing that will surround the deck when it is finished (at the moment I have to be careful not to fall off!)

banister

Keith installed it yesterday - the rest of the staircase is still under wraps, but this looks lovely.
So does the whirlpool bath, all connected up, so I had my first bath in it yesterday - bliss!

We have now ordered the awning, and the decking work continues at the back, despite the downpours.
When our trees were planted, we were told to give them 2 buckets of water each, 3 times a week, whether or not it rained. This has led to passers by enquiring about my state of mind as I water the trees following torrential rain!

decking

as

Addingtons from Rushden, have been doing our decking. When we researched raised decking, we found it was advisable to get it professionally done to ensure it is structurally sound. The deck itself is done, here it is before the steps and balustrade are done.

I type this in a room with a real floor - the larger front bedroom will be my sewing room, so Keith has laid ash flooring from Kahrs, the same as he will lay throughout downstairs. I am unpicking and re-sewing the curtains from our old bedroom to go in here. They are a beautiful rich coloured patterned corduroy, and I am very glad that I can (I hope!) make them fit here.

We have had 2 fantastic days out at the Olympics - one at the Olympic Park where we saw women's basketball, and one at the beach volleyball. The travel was good, there were lots of stewards to show us where to go, and the commentators explained what was going on and how the games scored. The rest of the time, we listen to the radio.