With the kitchen so close to being finished, there is one wall acting as a stark reminder of when the downstairs resembled Mars only a matter of weeks ago: these bricks leave a lot of red dust let me tell you!

When our extension was built at the back of the house, it covered the entire width of our home, meaning that we added space to the back of our previous kitchen, but also behind the lounge. As there was an enormous window in the lounge’s back wall which was cracked from cold Winters over many years, rather than replace it with double glazing, we just waited out for the extension knowing that one day it would be dealt with somehow when the time came. (That day came and went as you can read here. Bye window!)

So where are we at today? The wall to separate the lounge and the kitchen is up.

This new area of the extension is where we are going to dine (how posh! Obviously I mean scoff our grub, pure Northerner at heart!). Of course, we don’t have the table yet, but that’s coming…
The plan was to keep this space lovely and open but with a sliding door or concertina door; Something that gave us the option to have open plan, but close again when we didn’t want the smell/noise/distraction of cooking drifting into the lounge.

Apparently building regulations have changed in the last few months (typical!) requiring that where we removed the window, we now need an additional few metres worth of brickwork in order to support the house. Now, let me tell you, it’s not needed. Our builder was furious because obviously we’d just ripped out a wall! Now we’re only just going to have enough room for a door (smaller than the previous window may I add).

It’s frustrating because we don’t need it, it’s creating more construction work than we wanted, and it’s just another delay in the whole project. Saying that, I don’t want to dwell on it too much. The fact remains, to get the entire extension officially signed off, we need to do as we’re told, and if the wall needs to be wider, then so be it! If we really hate it, we’ll try again in a few years to open it up, but I’m hoping this is the last bit of major construction we do for a while if I’m quite honest. I HATE DUSTING.

So, the wall has started to be built with the bricks leftover from construction. Waste not, want not, am I right? It’s only been a few weeks since we had any wall-work as lately it’s all been about the units. But OH MY GOD IT’S SO DUSTY! It’s so thick. You feel dry as soon as you walk in the house. I’m going through hand moisturiser as if I had shares in it.

But so to the pictures. Within one week in this very dreary February, the wall has been built, boarded and plastered. For anyone who follows me on Instagram probably saw progress of the brickwork!

Monday

You can see Joe lounging in the background on these pictures. HEY JOEY!

At this point, it’s such an apt reflection of the home since we bought it. You can see, from the point of view of the kitchen all of the lovely home comorts perring through in the lounge, just waiting for the bricking to be finished so they can be put on display. My lovely dresser through there, and piles of cushions and throws in the background. And then smack bang in the middle is our mini construction site…

It’s a big contrast isn’t it?

Wednesday

By mid-week it already looked a million times neater. We got a better idea of the size of the door and yes, it’s not massive, but at least it’s nearly finished. You can also see a sneaky peek at our brand new doors for downstairs. I think they’re  BEAUT.

Friday

And here we are! It’s fully plastered now and we’re just waiting for it to dry to get a base coat of paint on there. It’s just a door really when you go back to basics, but it’s also the final bit of ‘dirty work’ in this project which we’ve been working on since last Summer.

It makes the room a ‘room’ again and not just the added on bit at the end of the house. With the lounge finally set apart again we can really start to use that room, and not just use it as storage, which really is all it’s been since before the Winter: a storage room.

From hereon, it’s all about the decorating and not about the building, so to me, that makes this one of the most exciting parts of the project. We just need to get rid of that whopping pile of tools…