Happy Birthday James!

What an exciting weekend it has been for James - a new bedroom with a new carpet and a new bed, a birthday treat at the outdoor ice rink with Charlie followed by pizza and ice cream, followed the next day by tea and Yoda birthday cake with our lovely friends, family and neighbours, who were treated to a spectacular magic show by our birthday boy, keen to show off his new tricks. 

New bed

Today we unearthed Mab's cabin bed from the loft, so James finally gets to sleep in his new bedroom.  Predictably though, there were tears from Jenny who couldn't bear to sleep alone, and so James very generously invited her for a sleepover in his room.

Getting properly settled

This morning the last bit of the kitchen arrived - the island unit on the right.  I look forward to many a happy day baking with James and Jenny on this island.  The next step will be to plumb in the sink, then worktops after Christmas.  In the meantime we have retrieved a small length of worktop Ron has been saving for us in his shed.

After that, plinths, end panels, and a slap of duck egg blue paint and the kitchen will be complete. I still can't quite take in the size of this room - I had no concept of how big this room would be from the plans or at any time during the build.  Our house is now big enough to play pom pom, as tested by James, Jenny, Emma and Christopher today!

 Yesterday I spent the whole day clearing up after the mice.  We have reclaimed the lounge and the only casualties have been the cable to the broadband router and a fair quantity of paper and craft materials which the mice have been using to make a cosy bed.  Now for the carpet cleaners and we'll be all ready for Christmas.

James is enjoying his orange bedroom, now complete with carpet.

Home at last

Finally, after four long months, we moved back into Sunnyside last weekend.  We have no kitchen to speak of, but the cooker is in which means that survival is possible!  The last bits of work (installing kitchen, skirting boards, hanging the internal doors, tiling the shower, finishing the carpeting, and the eternity of painting ahead of us) will happen over the coming weeks and months. 

 After our first week, we have carpeted the stairs, landing, Jenny's bedroom, and our new bedroom, moved into our new bedroom and painted James's room ready for carpeting.  There is a mountain of work to do, but the worst is over and hopefully our stress levels will return to normal before too long.

Elves and Princesses

Two excited children getting ready for the school disco.