Stair today, gone tomorrow

I can't believe it has been more than three weeks since I last wrote a post, sorry ☺️. I have so much to say, and so many photos to show you, but as fellow bloggers will appreciate it takes precious time to write a blog post. Something you may scan through in a few minutes could take an hour to create. Anyway, I'm here now so I'll get on with updating you. 

The original stairs in this house were really creaky, and we also had a step down on the landing at the top. You know what I mean, where you walk along the landing, then step down and have to step up again to carry on to the end of the landing. I've always considered them dangerous, so we decided to rip out the old stairs and replace them with a new flight, plus add on an extra tread so doing away with the silly step at the top. This also meant we went from a flight of 13 to 14, which being a superstitious soul made me happier. 

Here are the men ripping it out....

And it's gone! Seemed really weird without it, and rather worrying when they realised they had made a 'calculation error' with the new stairs, and disappeared for most of the day to sort it out. I was imagining us all sleeping on the sofa but luckily they came back late afternoon with a correct fit. 

This is the view looking from the kitchen up to the landing. It felt like living in a war zone, and we'd been bombed!

We had a hard time deciding what to have the staircase made from. Originally we thought oak but then decided that everyone has that, so went for ash instead for the newel, spindles and handrail, with MDF treads and plywood risers to keep down the cost. I'm afraid there's no lovely 'after' photo to show you, as there won't be any bannisters, carpet or decoration for quite some time to come. 

We've also made a start on re-wiring the house. The upstairs lighting circuit needed doing first, so OH can then then board out the attic and we can move all our spare boxes and unpacked things up there out of the way. We have so much stuff piled up everywhere at the moment, it will be nice to clear it out of the way for a bit. 

We've saved some money by OH doing a lot of the dirty work getting things ready for the electrician. Believe me, plaster dust is horrendous. It makes loads of initial mess, then seems to linger for months afterwards, reappearing regularly on just polished surfaces. It's easier to just give up dusting for the foreseeable future!

In the middle of the work, we now have bundles of wires hanging down at various locations...

Plenty of electrical paraphernalia littering the floor whenever the electrician is around...

And copious amounts of dust, dirt, plaster, rubble etc. This is what I came home to the other day, when he had been drilling in the bathroom ceiling. It was also in the shower, the toilet, the floor 😩...

On the plus side the garden is looking great. I will try and show you soon

Have a good weekend

Xxxx