Murphy lends a hand

We are up early on Wednesday in anticipation of the Big Day when the plumber does all the internal fittings and reconnects the house to the sewer.
Tradies usually arrive about 7am, but when he hasn't arrived by 8am we think that maybe he will be later as he is bringing some heavy machinery.
By 11am it is clear he isn't coming at all. We manage to extract a phone number from a past invoice and give him a call. His story is that his notebook got soaked by a hose and was rendered unreadable. He'd managed to reconstruct most of his appointments, but he knew there was one job he'd lost, just couldn't remember which one.
You guessed it, it was ours.
The upshot is that we are now expecting it all to happen on Saturday instead. At least the major excavation work will be starting a bit later as they aren't allowed to make noise before 9am on a Saturday.
But Murphy wasn't content with one thing going wrong. Later in the morning, the Council contractors arrive to do the footpath. At least they weren't competing with the plumber's truck and digger, and we did manage to persuade them to leave the section in front of the gate as it was, unsurfaced, and to come back some time later to finish it. Murphy's law says that means we'll probably not have a surfaced footpath until about this time next year, but we can probably live with that more easily than with having a brand new one wrecked and then being asked to pay for it to be repaired.
So we are now looking at two more days of nothing happening. We may take advantage of that to get a couple of measure-and-quote jobs done for blinds and carpet while there are no other tradies there.

False alarm!

We have been concerned for some time about the footpath running alongside the house in Fausset Lane. We had to pay the Council an extortionately large sum in case we damaged same, despite the fact that it was in really bad shape before we started.
The Council obviously thought so too, because about a month ago, they ripped it all up. That was a good thing, but the timing was terrible and we were afraid they would be trying to put the new asphalt down on a day when one of our tradies needed access to the back. Or that they would manage to lay fresh asphalt just before some heavy vehicle like a digger or a truck was due.
Peter rang the Council twice last week to try and make sure that wasn't going to happen, and was given assurances that a) it wouldn't, and that b) if it did, we could put up a sign requesting that they didn't do the strip by the back gate.
So we are enjoying the fact that no tradies are due, thinking that we don't have to lurch out of bed at 6:30, when we are woken at about 7am the sound of barriers being erected, and a large truck going past. We fling on clothes and go out to fight off the Council contractors, only to find they are doing road repairs at the other end of the block. Up early for nothing, curses.

Painting now 90% complete

Painting now looks finished, but the painter tells us he will be back to do some finishing and final coats when everyone else is done.

Weekend work, episode 4

Peter is constructing a meter box. So far, he's bought the wood, filled the hole beside the step, and done some repair to the brickwork at the foot of the side wall.

Colour and carpet

First coat of colour on the walls, and it looks great.
Meanwhile we start looking at carpet for the bedrooms. We are trying to decide whether to just go to the local carpet place and just get it done quickly, or whether to shop around at carpet auctions. It's only a small area (two bedrooms and the hallways), which means that if we go for option A and pay full price, it's still not a huge sum. On the other hand, we could be lucky and pick up a bargain lot that's just big enough at an auction. I'm leaning to the easy but probably more expensive option, Peter is leaning towards the shop-around-and-get-it-cheaper option. We will see.

More painting, wall colour chosen

Painters back today and Olsi puts some samples on the wall for us to choose the paint colour, which is to be a very pale grey.

Tiling finished, glass man comes

The tiler arrives early and puts in the grout in bathroom and in kitchen splashback.
Later the glass man comes to measure up for the shower screen, the mirror over the vanity and to look at the repairs needed for the glass in the internal door and front door.