April to June 2003

During April we concentrated on decorating some rooms as far as practical. We couldn't complete any rooms though as the fireplaces had not been stripped ready for re-installation and the east wall remains to be weather proofed.

During May we continued work on the kitchen.  Most of the cupboards were assembled and installed.  We however had major difficulties in positioning the washing machine as a cold water pipe was set 10mm too far forward.  This pipe was confirmed as unmovable (unless we wanted to take large chunks out of the granite wall to accommodate the pipe work).  So it was decided that the washing machine would be moved to the left to miss the pipe.  This required some re-arrangement of the cabinets but fortunately we could swap two 800mm units for a 1000mm & 500mm units, that were to be installed elsewhere, saving the 100mm required to move the machine to the left.  So it all worked out just fine.

A major achievement was the removal of the hedge to the front.  This had become seriously overgrown and whilst we are mindful of wildlife (we had many butterflies) the hedge was a great attraction for midges, that plague us, and we couldn't see the sea from our patio.