Saturday 7 June

Here is the view around my garden today:

That peony I bought last weekend has come into bloom and is brightening the place up:

First French Bean to work out what it's meant to do... I feel my veggies are all so far behind this year but hey, what can you do!

Potatoes thriving:

Carrots!

Snapdragons (of course I squidged them to make them "talk" like my Grandad used to.  I saw my Granny today (Hi Granny!) and she reminded me that Grandad also used to pick up fallen foxglove flowers and put them on his/our fingers like little hats for fingers or something.  I need a foxglove!)

Cucumberlet!

First round of PSB plants are finally pulling themselves together and the second round (to the right) aren't doing too badly either.  Might stick these outside soon and cross my fingers...

View from the kitchen door:

A bit plastered...

We won't be "completely plastered" for quite some time, but we're getting there!

Results from today:

The stuff upstairs is drying well :)

Getting plastered...

Oh so many potential puns!

Plasterers started work today, and completed the following:

Skimmed ceiling of downstairs loo
Removed plasterboard from section of kitchen wall, added studs for rads, and patched with new board
Patched hole in dining room wall
Skimmed ceiling of bedroom 3 (spare room) and bedroom 4 (study)
Graham also popped round and ran the pipework for two remaining rads into the wall between kitchen and dining room

Tomorrow they will:

Skim downstairs hallway ceiling
Skim kitchen ceiling
Skim sections of dining room and kitchen walls that have been re-boarded

Photos from today:

Windows are all open to get the plaster to dry :)

The new loo and basin for the downstairs loo arrived today, too!

Sunday 1 June

I can't believe it's June!  Photos from the garden today:

New peony purchased today from the Solent Gardeners' Fayre in place next to my new David Austin rose (look closely, it's quite twiggy still!)

Epic clearance in this bed today.

Latest rose to bloom.  It's a gorgeous colour and has a moderate old rose scent:

So much foliage!

Heuchera:

The remaining buddleia springing back to life:

Inside the greenhouse:

Scabious coming into bloom:

Lupin getting ready to bloom:

Starting the spare bedroom...

I am so excited about creating a lovely spare bedroom where friends and family can come and stay!  We had a spare room at the flat but it was only really big enough for a single bed and also housed the keyboard, desktop PC, and all the (many!) instruments we own, plus half of my clothes... so it was crowded!

I wanted to strip the wallpaper adjoining the ceiling before the plasterer skims them next week, but I think I will finish the entire room tomorrow.

Photos of the total mess so far:

Spare room cleared of everything apart from the bed (which is going on Freecycle) and the carcass of our old DVD/CD unit (which is going to the tip):

Bedroom 1 full of the contents of Bedroom 3 and the Study:

Going well!

A view of the ceiling for posterity... as artex goes, it's not too bad, but... it's going!

Trail of devastation left in my wake...

Ian with the wall containing a ridiculous number of rawl plugs (we've uncovered 9 so far...):

Update 30/5/14:

All wallpaper removed: