I’ve managed a lot of renovation projects over the years between personal and work-related projects and this one has taken the cake. Everything has been delayed (even my grown-up sofa that I ordered in January is still not in stock) and the costs are rising left and right. Time overages and cost overages are not …
Read more “The challenges of renovation work in uncertain times”
This doesn’t exactly look like a house we hope to inhabit in the next five weeks but that’s the goal. A crack at the front (which wasn’t subsidence, thank goodness) proved to be more of an issue than originally anticipated so the builder decided a better approach was to re-build the impacted section. And the …
I took the little princess by the house over the weekend because she hadn’t seen the updates in quite a long time. We are STILL waiting on new windows and the front door but the building team have been putting up the plasterboard and they’ve been tiling the non-window walls in the bathrooms. Things are …
First of all, I have to say that I’m pretty far behind on my real estate terminology as I’ve been using “Master Bedroom” — which, in my defense, is also how it’s commonly labelled here in Ireland in the property listings and also how my female architect labelled what will be my room! And then …
Things are still sloooow with construction at the new house so I’m digging deep to keep myself motivated by looking back to the improvements on the original Tilly’s Cottage. Here are some before and after photos of one of the original upstairs bedrooms. The “rough luxe” approach to design was in vogue when I was …
It’s quite a challenge trying to make sure that everything has arrived in time for when it’s needed on the build but not too soon that my entire house is filled with boxes. I’m managing okay at the moment but it will soon be untenable!
Another throwback photo from the original cottage of the living room before versus the way it looks now. I remember my joy when I pulled off the the 70s fireplace that had been added and saw what was underneath. It took a lot of scrubbing the brick to get off all the layers of wallpaper …
There are old fireplaces in each of the original upstairs bedrooms in Tilly’s Cottage. A lot of the detail on these cast iron beauties was lost due to too many layers of paint. The builder removed them and I had them dipped to remove all the paint. In the case of the one below in …
I ordered this for the front entry hall. First of all, I hope the colour will be ok. Second of all, I hope it doesn’t look too much like it belongs in a kid’s bedroom. It probably does but I liked it so I kind of don’t care.
I have a spreadsheet with various materials I need to order — a bit of a challenge because I’m taking a “just in time” approach so that I don’t have to store too many items and risk them getting damaged on site. A few things have already arrived and I’m keeping them at the old …