Feels like summer!



G on his bird mission

Normally our blog tends to be a list of jobs we have done but something strange seems to have happened on the building site we seem to be having a more relaxed approach to the build and we have actually had a bit of time out!!!   Not sure if its the onset of summer, G is just exhausted or because I changed my mind about the bathroom tiles at the last minute and now there is a delay in getting the appropriate ones. 

Its a great coincidence that this has coincided with a spot of beautiful sun shining weather.  We have pottering around the house at the weekend with lots of jobs getting ready for the summer. 

 G is raging a bit of a war with the birds who are trying to nest in the roof.  As the roof is new the birds seems to have found any tiny crevice and crack to try and build their nests in.  I have taken a more bird friendly approach by getting a couple of bird houses to fix to the garage to encourage them away from destroying our eves.  

Getting ready for the summer

My plan has been to no avail and they both lay empty as the birds continuously try and find ways around the blocks that G is putting in the holes they are finding.  We have to be very careful with this as a soon as they have built a nest and laid eggs we will have to leave it well alone.  When G is up the ladder blocking holes the birds seem to line up to watch what he is doing as if they are planning a way to get through his defence barriers. 


 

We enjoyed a flying visit from Dan and Hayley on Saturday night.  Dan has exams on Monday so he had to spend the day revising on Sunday  - but at least he got to revise in the sunshine.  They were also well fed because of all the cooking practicing that is happening in the house in preparation for Chalet hosting and the B&B!

We have also been jet washing the patio and decking and treated it with decking oil.  We got out garden table and chairs and treated those with teak oil.  Most importantly G has fixed the hot tub that has been not working for about four months.  It has been a very tricky job for him as the company who make them have gone bust so its impossible to get the parts - he has had to source a new pump and re jig the plumbing to make it all fit.  It was not a cheap job as even without having to pay any labour cost the pump itself cost £340.  I feel we are not long off other parts going soon it won't have any orginal bits left!

We had a beautiful sunny and relaxed afternoon yesterday as we went to Tapley Hall yesterday and met Carol.  It has recently been featured on Country House Rescue and the owner is pretty eccentric.  

In the grounds of Tapeley Hall with the estuary in the background

 We had a relaxed lunch and walk around.  I especially enjoyed the premaculture garden - G of course thought it was a bit messy! We then went for a bike ride along the Tarka Trail in the sunshine  - we loved having the extra hour in the evening and we didn't leave the trail until 7pm.



Carol and I in front of Tapeley Hall

  

Me & G celebrating the hot tub working!



When we got back we were desperate to christen the newly fixed hot tub and G finished with an out door shower - the first of the year! 



First outdoor shower of the year!



The big breakfast!

One of the main purposes of all the work we are doing is for our greater plan to get our home into a position that it could earn us a living and create a better lifestyle.  Running a B&B is one of the ideas we have to generate income as the house gets closer to completion I am getting more enthusiastic about running the B&B.......... that was until this morning!

Anyone who has had a fried breakfast in our home, which is a frequent occurrence, will have probably enjoyed a really well cooked breakfast.  However one thing is for sure and that is that will have not been cooked by me.  That's for three reasons, firstly fried breakfasts don't really rock my boat, secondly I hate cooking anything that has multiple items that all have to be ready at the same time and thirdly because G excels at it.  So for me the thought of cooking breakfast for six guests is very daunting.

To get over my fear and to give me some well needed practice this morning I invited Denise, Vicko, Kim, Carol and Horace over for a full fried breakfast G was under strict instructions that he was not to help in any way and was to relax and enjoy the breakfast as if he was one of my six guests (for G to relaxing and doing  nothing was probably more of a challenge than me cooking breakfast!). It was definitely good practice but I am not sure it has done anything to reduce my worries over cooking breakfast for six.

Leading up to the breakfast I enjoyed going to our local butchers and sourcing some local sausages and bacon.  The night before I enjoyed writing up the menu and designing a special order pad so that I could easily tick off what the guests wanted.  In the morning I was in my element cleaning the kitchen, mopping the floor, preparing all my ingredients and laying the breakfast table.  G noticed that I had put all our mismatched chipped mugs on the kitchen side because I couldn't bear to have them on the breakfast table that I had just laid so carefully.  Caught up in my enthusiasm he shot out to sainsburys and bought a new set of matching mugs so that that I could put them all on the table to complete the look.  What a star!

So with all the finishes touches complete 'Bude Bed and Board' was open for business!  I use the term business loosely seeing as it was five close friends who rocked up at 10:30 eager to see how I would cope.
When the guests arrived I was all smiles however my stress levels started to rise from then on.  Everyone loved the table and the menus that were at each setting.   I took every ones orders and from then I just felt hectic and very busy.  G say I did a great job and pulled it off.  If that's the case  I was like a duck on water calm on the surface but paddling like mad underneath.  I can't describe how hard I found it and was glad when the last breakfast was served.  That was for Billy who turned up unexpectedly at the last minute!  Its amazing how many friends you can have when people smell the bacon frying!

Its definitely going to be a steep learning curve for me - but also a challenge I am looking forward to  - its also good skills for me to have if we get to work a ski season as chalet hosts.  I think its fun to be learning new skills and our friends and G are all looking forward to some more practice breakfasts.  I am thinking of creating a different menu with some lighter (easier options) that may make it a bit less stressful for me.  This will please Mogsy as well as she is not a big fan of the full fry up and I need to keep our followers happy!

G made me smile when he came up with some terms and conditions for the B&B with some some house rules, notification of eviction of customers that don't behave, cancellation fees and charges etc.  All very important and essential stuff but things I probably wouldn't have focused on initially.  I would be more excited about choosing the best sausages!  I guess that's why we work well together :-).  Some days I have visions of him greeting our B&B guests at the door with a list of rules and sanctions if they don't comply.  I guess he probably has nightmares of me not greeting our guests at the door because I have quite managed to get the bedrooms tidy and beds made up because I got distracted doing something else!

Walking off breakfast!

After our breakfast we all walked down the beach to Sandy mouth as the tide was so low - it was a gorgeous day and very relaxing.  You may notice we didn't do much building work today - we are being held up because we have not managed to get the tiles for the new shower yet.  We are having a bit of a dilema choosing the right look  .. at least it is giving G a bit of a break.

G is out the closet!

Two main things to report  firstly the wardrobe doors are in and secondly work has pushed forward in loft bathroom and we are ready for tiling.

We have two sets of wardrobes a set of walk in wardrobes that lead into the bathroom and another set in the room that we are going to use more for long term storage and things that used to be in the loft.  We wanted  

The new wardrobe doors

the doors to be invisible and blend into the wall with no handles and a clean finish.  Often when we have a set idea in our heads we find it very difficult to find the products that will make it work unless we go for made to measure options that are way above our budget.  Fortunately for once this was not the case and we got some great high gloss finish white doors and some push t0 open catches in IKEA which were an ideal size for the project as soon as we started searching.  We are really pleased with the way they have gone in and the way they look, so pleased that I decided to make a cheesy video as its only our close friends that are following the blog we decided we would post it.  If you are reading by email you will have to log on to the blog to watch it.  If you don't manage to you are not missing much.

The second main piece of work was on the bathroom.  Its now completely painted white, shelves are all in, round window is back from under the plasterboard, shower tray and waste are in.  All we need to do now is tiling and fitting the shower and sourcing and fitting a glass shower screen.

G has just added from his the sofa next to me..'have you mentioned all the painting we have done?' which of course I haven't.  He is sat with a glass of sparkling rose grape juice and he is still awake.  We have done shed loads of painting rollering emulsion and  gloss work.  I was just checking with him if there was anything else to add about the painting and he asked ' Have you mentioned that the lights are all in the bathroom now?  and that I fitted both towel rails'  which I had omitted to mention.  I am trying to make the blog more readable than a list of jobs we have done in a day but G hates it when I miss the details out.  Don't think I will ask him if there is anything else he wants to add as I will get another list.

He has been doing such an amazing job and we are both really pleased with how its turning out.   Even though its still a way off we can really imagine what it will all be like. 



The shower tray with the round window behind.



Loft plastered! We are not!

Last night G did the final bit of plastering in our loft bedroom however unlike all our other milestones we were unable to have a drink to celebrate.  It is now officially exactly a week since we gave up drinking for lent  (forty days of it anyway), Mogsy has pointed out that since we have not been drinking I haven't been writing the blog, she thinks I might need a glass of wine to help me write.  Normally as I write G is sat next to me with a glass of red but tonight he is sat next to me with a pint of sparkling water.  Thanks everyone for your support we really appreciate it.  You can read about our challenge here: http://www.justgiving.com/dry4fortydays

The main work over the last couple of weeks has been building the wardrobes, plastering walls, painting, whilst trying to get back to running and also stay sober! I always find it difficult to write when I have left the blogging for a while so I will let the photos tell the story.

One of the wardrobes - as they are so deep
we have put narrow shelves at the back for shoes.

G building the wardrobes.

Me fixing plasterboard to the wardrobes.

Happier days while we were still drinking!! 
An impromptu curry at Sue and Don's House on st Pirans day.

G sorts out the cock up the eletrician made.

Before:  The side of the shower

Today G had lots of problem solving jobs to do.  The first was one he had been dreading for a while.  There had been a mistake made when the first fix of the electrics were done.  Apparently the electrician forgot about the switch needed outside the bathroom for the ventilation fan.  This switch has to be there to comply with building regulations.  It was tricky to correct the mistake as the wall had been plastered already and the wires had to be fed in and also fed out.  He managed to do this all with minimum disruption to the walls and was happy that it went fairly smoothly.    However of course are regular readers will be aware that G won't allow any trades people in to help he do any work and also that he is a qualified electrician.  So go figure that one!

After:  the side of the shower with the shelves

The other jobs he did were to build the structure for the walk in wardrobes as well as build more structure around the shower.  When I got home from work  I did some timber cutting for him although I proved to be slightly out of practice (that's a polite way of saying I was pretty abysmal).  In my defence our new chop saw seems to have aged considerably over the last few months and its now slightly stiff and rusty.  At least I didn't waste any wood getting the wrong measurements which I do have previous history off.  I sometimes get confused with mm's and cm's but fortunately I didn't make any of those mistakes today.So overall it was a very productive day.  Unfortunately G is back to the day job tomorrow for a seven day stretch.  That means he is working the weekend and we both don't enjoy that.  I have plans for the weekend to do loads of painting to impress him when he gets home but we will see how that works out.

G int he wardrobe

We finished this evening with a two mile run, G&T's in the bath and followed by  take-away Chinese as a treat. 

Tomorrow I am away with work for two days in Bristol and staying with my Mum and Dad overnight - another field visit with my boss on Thursday!  G is on lates so probably won't be much going on site for a few days.