Firstly, apologies for no blog last Sunday. We have had a really frenetic time with the cottage renovations, painting, making cupboards and generally rushing around to get the house finished ready for the carpet fitters. We also enjoyed a lovely weekend in Nottingham celebrating our nieces 18th birthday with all of the family.
House Update
We are finally at the last hurdle with the cottage! The plumber completed the bathroom last Thursday so we have been able to enjoy a warm hot shower, running hot water in the sink and not freeze to death whilst in there, as Colin has insulated the back wall and ceiling. We hopefully invested sensibly in the bathroom to ensure that it is a comfortable warm, welcoming place to be in. We had a proper ceiling vent and roof brick installed to try and minimise the condensation. The vinyl is being laid as I type which should transform the room.
The electricians completed their final few jobs. We now have electric radiators in the bedrooms, new USB/C sockets in the bedrooms, lights in the bathroom (a nice touch after 2 weeks of darkness in the middle of the night!) and an upgraded board with all the circuits tested.
We finally managed to get stuck into clearing our bedroom and transforming it into an uncluttered, liveable space. It has served many purposes over the past 6 months, from a kitchenette to a living room, to the ONLY room in the house that we could dump stuff in when we had different tradesmen in. We have relished languishing in bed and enjoying the view in our beautiful new room.
I feel like all we have done for the past 2 weeks is strip MORE wallpaper, mist MORE walls and paint. We have enjoyed staying in the van for 3 nights this week as we have glossed nearly every door and skirting board in the house. It was easier to just pack up and cook tea away from the house. It has made us realise how much we are missing our travels in Nelson as the last time we stayed in the van was the middle of March and the last time we actually travelled anywhere was in January.
The final job by any tradesmen is the carpets and vinyl upstairs, we are looking forward to putting the house together one last time, preparing both bedrooms so that we can have visitors to stay and getting our pictures and photographs up on the walls.
Just one more big job for us to do. Make the curtains! How hard can it be? I have already failed at the first hurdle getting mums machine to work, so I am going to stay with her for a few days and get them done next week.
Decoration Disaster
We thought we were doing so well getting the spare bedroom stripped and decorated with the final coat of paint going on with a day to spare. On Thursday evening we set to moving all the furniture into our bedroom ready for the carpet fitters when we noticed a small bubble in the paint on the only wall in the house that we did not strip as it had no wallpaper. Richard could not resist having a prod and a small patch of the paint peeled away. To cut a long story short, we ended up having to strip the paint off the whole wall as it was peeling away in chunks that we could only have dreamt of on all the other walls! The small silver lining was that there were no horror stories hidden behind the paint and the plaster was in great condition, it also looked a far better job as we filled in all the holes we had merrily painted over the first time. It was a late, late night getting the room ready for an 8am appointment from the fitters.
Family Time
We thoroughly enjoyed a weekend away in Nottingham last week. It is the first time all of our family have been together for many months, including all cousins and grannies. All of the children had their partners there, it was lovely meeting everyone and we all enjoyed a very wine, filled afternoon!
Travel Plans
With the house renovations nearing completion, our thoughts are turning to the future and enjoying our retirement, including our travels. We have booked a ferry to Santander for a few weeks, travelling back up the French Atlantic coast. We are looking forward to some sun and being able to wear shorts and flip flops again, it has seemed a long cold winter.
We are also looking forward to few days away in search of puffins! It is our wedding anniversary soon and we want to head to the East Coast for few days by the sea. The Puffins have returned for the season and we are hoping catch a glimpse of them at Bempton cliffs or Flamborough Head. The Yorkshire coast line is one of our favourite places, the beaches and cliffs can be quite dramatic and we love visiting the little seaside towns for fish and chips and a stroll on the beach. I might even fit in a trip to the penny slot machines for old time sakes
Routines
Now that the renovations are almost complete we are looking forward to getting into more regular routines of Early Retirement life. In our next blog we will be setting out some goals for ourselves, thinking about our finances, health and foods.
We are really excited to move into this new phase of our retirement with no more deadlines to meet and tradesmen to get up for at 8am. All we want now is to have lots of our friends and family to come and stay and enjoy the Dales with us. The Pickles B and B is officially open!
Have a fab week
Jacke and Richard
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