From Conservatory to Utility Room

One of these photos was taken on 22 November 2005, the wintry day that Scotty and Neil (Neil is not visible in the photo) demolished the old conservatory. See the condensation on the windows? That's what dripped down the walls from winter through early spring, causing mildew to grow at such a rate that you could practically stand in the doorway from the kitchen and watch the green fuzzies creep up the walls. Before using this space in the springtime, I'd have to go out with bleach water and scrub the whole place down, usually a 2-day job. This photo was taken from the front of the house.

The other photo was taken today from the driveway near the garage showing the new pathway leading up to our utility room back door entrance. Aside from the installation of the flooring (Tuesday), pantry (Monday, we hope), the extra lower cupboard in the place where the dryer was supposed to fit but didn't (Thursday), and the sparky reconnecting two lights, the utility room is finished. I spent most of yesterday cleaning it thoroughly, from ceiling to floor, including the door and windows, inside and out.

Yesterday also was the day I unpacked some kitchen and dining room items that had been packed up and stowed on the futon in the study. Since that room will be needed as the guest room this coming Friday, my second priority yesterday was to get all the stowed stuff out of there. The futon is almost clear but there are still items on the floor that will need to be put away.

In the process of unpacking the boxes and finding places for things, of course, I ended up wandering back and forth all over the house so I certainly got my exercise! Today I am concentrating on getting the kitchen thoroughly cleaned and making a good start on putting as much of the dining/sitting room back together as I can given that in just 10 days we'll be needing to move all the furniture again so the wallpaper can be put up.

Don has done heavy lifting for me as well as baseboard cleaning, not to mention menu planning, marketing, and cooking meals (his penance for playing golf all morning--and yes, he's away with Gordon right now for their weekly Sunday date).
It was nice to have the day off on Friday to go to the Loch Lomond Quilt Show. The show was in 8 venues very close to Loch Lomond, a little north of Glasgow. Trish Hamilton came with Don and me. We drove to each of the venues but there also was a shuttle bus which made a loop of all venues. We only had time for 5 of the venues but loved what we saw. We met up with other sewers from Comrie and St Fillans for lunch. (Many venues were churches whose volunteers laid on either tea/coffee and sweets or lunches for nominal amounts, the proceeds of which were donated to the church after expenses.)

When we got home from the show, we were pleased to see that the kitchen paper was on and looks terrific. The shower room painting is finished and turned out just great. The window seats got a final coat of paint and look really good. Unfortunately, the painters decided to leave the painting of the entryway and hallway until when they come back after May 31st to put up the dining/sitting room paper. Ah well.

The brickies had done as much of our new front entrance pathway as they could while the scaffolding is still up. They also added a capstone finish on our new stone wall that we find changes the lovely natural character. We shall speak with the brickies to see if anything can be done. Our contractor says this is the ways these things are finished and that some people have the capstones painted. He says in any case, we will get used to it. We're not convinced. Most importantly for progress, Ally built the required frame and then the brickies completed their work on the chimney piece so that the roof tiles can now be put on.

George Ferguson dropped by yesterday to say that he will be over to do that job as soon as the remaining tiles, nails, and clips get delivered. One problem with living in Scotland is that many shipments that need to come from England are held up until there is a fuller load coming all the way up here to make it worth the cost of petrol and the driver's time. That's what is delaying the delivery of these supplies. George says he'll be coming to do the work as soon as he can because he is most anxious to have the work finished.

Ally got the upper cupboard put back up in the utility room and took care of some other bits and bobs. We've now started what in the States is often called a "punch list" and over here is known as a "snag list" of all the remaining items that need to be done, however large or small or who must do them.

Anyway, as you can see from the photos, we have greatly changed not only our space but the entire look of our bungalow. We are very pleased with the overall result.