The kitchen

I've been waiting impatiently all week to have a chance to do some more work on the house and finally the parcel I've been awaiting has arrived.

The bricks and flagstones have arrived! Fireplace and flooring can now start.


I've been looking for a suitable fireplace but they are all too modern or grand for my shabby little house so it is a DIY job

Some cardboard, bricks and plenty of the polyfilla/PVC render  later and there is a fireplace!

Range temporarily in place. I've started to attach the fireplace but I need the polyfilla to set hard before I can fill in the gap between the chimney breast and the ceiling. I also need to add the wood trim but the floor needs to go down first.

Still looking a bit messy at the moment but the overall look I want is there. I was wondering whether to put a second fireplace in the other downstairs room but I don't think my witchy owner could afford to have a second fire, let alone ones upstairs so for now that is it.

Finally my finger sort of slipped when I saw this! And very nice it will look too!

Stairwell is in....

Some, but not much, progress today. The stairs and new stair well wall are now fixed in place and the downstairs ceilings painted and ready to have the beams attached. If I'm not too tired from work tomorrow I'll try and get that done but otherwise I am now waiting on a supply of brick slips to create a couple of fireplaces.

Until they are done and in position  I can't really finish off the remaining downstairs internal walls. I'm hoping they will be here by the end of the week. Once they are in I'll be using a fumigato technique to create the discolouration on the ceiling and having open coal fires will give me plenty of soot to stain the brickwork.

Some pictures - not very good though. I forgot to charge the camera battery and I used what was left of it up this morning on the visit to Imber and Stonehenge. I've had to use the camera phone for this but the lighting is poor in my dining room and I don't have a flash.

Well it would have been dark inside anyway for the period I think I'm going to be modelling!

Close up - still dark and gloomy even with using the torch for additional light!  I've got the effect I was after so I'm feeling pretty pleased with progress so far.