Forty-Two Hours of Madness

(This is retrospectively posted, as I was in no fit state to be writing at the moment it's time-stamped, but posterity calls.)

David and Ann have long been scheduled to visit for this weekend, which has given us a key milestone and deadline to aim for in our work. Quite reasonably, I think they'd expect a functioning bathroom, and a live-able bedroom.

They were due about 2300 Friday night. Unfortunately, as of 0800 Thursday, neither bedroom nor bathroom were ready.

Also unfortunately, the tiles for the bathrooms, which I ordered some time ago, have been badly delayed (they need to all come from the same batch of stone, for consistency), and instead of arriving last Wednesday, were eventually due to turn up Thursday morning.

Perhaps predictably, the delivery didn't go smoothly, and they ended up arriving 1745 Thursday evening.

In order, then, to get a guest bedroom and working bathroom, we stayed up from 0700 Thursday morning, until about 0100 Saturday morning, working basically non-stop for the forty-two hours in between. I was functionally narcoleptic by then, and we collapsed in to bed as soon as we'd had a cup of tea with Ann and David, after they arrived at about half-midnight (a much delayed journey on the M1).

It has not been fun.

In the last couple of days, in the new en suite alone, we've:

• installed the cabinets;
• connected the bath to the drain;
• levelled the bath;
• affixed battens to the wall;
• tiled the critical few square metres around the shower (the rest will have to wait);
• grouted the tiles;
• silicone sealed the bath;
• constructed the toilet cabinet;
• built the cistern into the unit;
• plumbed it in;
• modified the door to attach the pan through--both flush connection to it and soil pipe from it;
• connected the flush button;
• attached the water supply to the basin;
• built the trap and drain;
• cut the worktop;
• mounted the sink and waste; and
• made a frame for the small worktop at the foot of the bath.

In the guest bedroom, we've mounted four wall cupboards above the bed, and two full-height units on one side. One full-height unit is up in the front guest (the old study), but that's it: the wall units will wait.

In our bathroom, taken out the suite, and installed the cabinets, repeating the toilet cabinet work, and cut the worktop. I've not plumbed the toilet or basin in, yet, though.

A massive tidy-up of the house has made the dining room passable, and the living room is now basically normal; the master bedroom is fine, the landing is tidy, the old house bathroom (the 'pink bathroom') is less cluttered, thanks to the new wardrobe/cupboards; and although the garage is pretty full, the house is actually miraculously straight. Thanks to this go entirely to Liz, who's been madly tidying while I stumble in a sleep deprived haze through many of the construction jobs.

We just about managed to hoover, too. So, when David and Ann rolled in after a particularly messy journey up the motorway, we had a respectable suite to accommodate them, and I'm delighted that's the case.

To paraphrase Churchill: this is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end; it is, perhaps, the beginning of the middle.