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Richard Pickles

#Week 59 Cottage Renovation Updates, Wedding Celebrations and a Chaotic Friday!


man in front of malham cove

Wedding Celebrations

We had a really lovely afternoon on Sunday, starting with a visit to see Richards Mum in the nursing home, she was sat chatting away with another resident when we arrived which we have not seen before.

3 ladies in a nursing home

Later in the afternoon we popped up the hill in the village to the wedding celebrations of a couple in the village who had got married earlier in the week. It was such an amazing afternoon, all the village was invited to an open house and we really feel we are starting to get to know some of the locals. It was a really happy occasion and great to see what a strong community we have moved in to.

amtico featured oak flooring

Flooring finishes off the downstairs

This week has seen the last of the major renovation projects downstairs finished. We finally have all the flooring down. We had spent many painstaking hours deciding what flooring we wanted and felt like we were the biggest dithering pair of customers for the local flooring company. They were great and lent us different sample boards to put down in the cottage before we made our final decision. We are absolutely useless looking after carpets, particularly downstairs so we opted for an Amtico LVT flooring that has a 25 year guarantee! There were over 90 different shades of wood to choose from - too much choice! We finally decided on a more rustic style called 'featured oak' that was lighter in colour and wouldn't show up small scratches and blemishes. We wanted to get this decision right as at £2,500 it is not cheap and we do NOT want to be replacing it EVER!


Happily, we love it! It has made such a difference to the warmth of the room and how it looks. We also treated ourselves to a new rug to complete the room from the alternative flooring companies 'Make Me A Rug' range. You can choose from dozens of carpets and coloured trims, decide on the size and they will make the rug up for you!

Windy day filming in the outdoors

Although we have been bathed in glorious sunshine for a few days this week, it has still been pretty cold and very windy up in the Dales. We have ventured out deeper into the Dales on a couple of days on walks. We haven't managed to get up to Malham Cove since our move, which is one of our favourite places, so we thoroughly enjoyed a hike around the cove and a breezy stop of up by the Tarn.


We even came across 4 young highland cows lazing about with their long hair blowing in the wind. We had a lovely short walk to Stainforth Foss, a waterfall popular with the locals. We also managed a visit up to the Ribblehead Viaduct as we wanted to film some footage for a project that we are working on. More about that next week!

Fridays Chaos

We are so near the end of the major renovations in the cottage, we had the kitchen fitter due back in on Friday to add the kick boards and finish a few other bits and he would only be there for a couple of hours. We thought we would have the rest of the day to ourselves and I was hoping to start getting the curtains made now we have a clean floor and a table to sew on.


Then we had a message from the joiners that our interior door had arrived and they could squeeze us in to finish their few bits of jobs - ok that helps get some of the bitty pieces out of the way. Then on Friday morning at 8am the electrician sent a message to say 2 of his lads were on the way to finish all the electrical jobs in the house!


This sent me in a blind state of panic as there is very limited parking by the cottage and we have pushed our luck with the neighbours over the past few weeks. The other issue being, our cottage is TINY and 4 tradesmen plus Jackie and Richard means there is no where we can sit while they work! We beat a hasty retreat to a cafe in Settle and caught up on some paperwork instead. Being a couple whose glass is always half full, one day of chaos meant 3 days of progress and lots of bitty jobs out of the way - also, hopefully a match quieter week next week!


Bathroom update

The bathroom fitting is complete! We are just waiting for the vinyl floor to go down and we also need to get all the decorating done. It looks amazing, Colin did a fab job transforming such a tiny space. The insulation in the walls and the roof have made a huge difference and we had a proper extractor fan and roof vent fitted so we don't steam up. Having a proper hot shower again after 8 months has been absolute bliss!


Family Weekend

After such a hectic week we have escaped down to Cheshire to stay with Jackie's mum. As part of Iris's quest to visit the 50 States of the USA, we are busy planning our next adventure which may involve hiring an RV, hopefully in September. We are also off to watch Luke play cricket in his first match of the season, fingers crossed the rain holds of.


That's it for another week


Next week will be a week of curtain making and interior door stripping - Fun, Fun, Fun.


Jackie and Richard





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