New year’s resolution clearly wasn’t to keep my blog up to date

Progress continued on the bog house.  The last time I saw it before Christmas, it was full of rubble and in an utter state.  It reminded me of when we first met the builder and he told us to bear in mind that we were seeing it in the worst condition it would ever be in.  That wasn’t actually true, as with the ceilings all pulled down it looked significantly less homely.

Anyway, a week or so ago we met the builder on-site, and they’d removed all the rubble from inside the house, and had also demolished the (correct) wall between the two bedrooms to make one big space.

We talked through where we wanted sockets, radiators, etc. and he spray painted their locations onto the walls.  The main push now is to get all the fittings for the bathroom, a special plinth radiator for the kitchen, and the new stove ordered.

As of 17th January, all this is pretty much done.  I’ve ordered the plinth radiator thing from the UK, which will make it here via An Post’s “AddressPal” forwarding service.  You sign up with them, get given a special code to use as the first line of your address for UK deliveries, then get stuff sent to their place in St. Albans.  An Post then pop it onto a plane and it arrives at the nearest post office in Ireland and they let you know.  It should cost €3.50 when I pick it up.

I went to look at a heavily-discounted solid fuel stove today, and will be buying it tomorrow (their card machine didn’t work properly and despite their request for me to fix it, I thought better of meddling).  The stove is really heavy, as it has a lot of metalwork in it for water pipes, etc. (it’ll be our boiler for hot water and central heating).  Last main item to buy now is a bath…