Almost there...

It's getting to a stage now where it feels like we should almost be ready to move in. (Although there is a list of little jobs that is getting longer and longer... But most of them can wait until we're in there...)

Until Saturday, the front of the house was a bit of a state- peeling white paint on the masonry around the windows, with a brick red coat of paint on top of the red bricks.

At the end of this week, we realised that if we were painting the front of the house again, we didn't have to paint it brick red, as though we were pretending that it hadn't had to be painted since the day it was built. After some discussion with each other and Romy in the flat downstairs, we decided on a new colour.

Choosing exterior paint isn't quite the same as choosing interior colours where a search of the Dulux website reveals that there are 50 different types of "white" that have the word "white" in their names (so this doesn't include, just for example, any of the paler colours from the "clouded pearl", mineral haze" or "grey steel" ranges such as these wildly differing shades;

(These are actual swatches from the Dulux website. Check it yourself if you don't believe me.)

No, for exterior paints, you have a choice of about 15 colours, most of which are some kind of white, cream or magnolia. (Or brick red.)

Even though it was a pretty quick decision to be made (and we should have been used to how quickly Floria and his team got things done by now), it was quite odd to get to the flat the next day and see that the front was now a different colour.

In fact, it all happened so quickly that we didn't even realise that we didn't have a decent "before" snap until it was too late to take anything other than an "after" picture. You'll have to take my word for it that it was in a pretty poor state.

Back to the front of the house (right at the top of the stairs) is the master bedroom.

We didn't think too much of the fitted wooden wardrobes that were in there, or the strange little shelf that's under the huge mirror, which I would inevitably make the most of by covering with deodorant cans and other toiletries, pens, scattered CDs and books, and any old bits and pieces that I might find in my pockets at the end of the day (every day.)

We didn't think a great deal of the blue walls either (which, like pretty much every wall in the house, was textured wallpaper that had been painted over at least twice.) Or the carpet.

If you've been following the progress of the rest of the house, you can probably guess what comes next...

There was a stage where you could stand in the living room and see into the bedroom through the wall that wasn't really there anymore, which we saw on what I'm calling the day we realised we'd gone past the point of no return, and what my Dad's now referring to as "the day you both nearly cried". Unfortunately, it was also a day I wasn't carrying my camera around, so apart from a couple of blurry pics on my phone, there's not so much to show from the day.

Anyway, this is where we figured that the bed would go;

For a while, it was where the bits of the bathroom were being kept. (Note the freshly plastered walls.)

But now, the bedroom is (as far as building work goes), pretty much done. There's still some work to be done to the windows from the outside, the new flooring needs a clean, and there might be another spot of paint to come, but the interior is pretty much all there.

Still missing a bed though...

If you've been following developments, you'll have already seen how the bathroom went from this;

To this;

To this;

Well, now it's pretty much done- although we still need a couple of details like toothbrush and loo roll holder (not necessarily the same object... although that could be quite cool...) and some sort of mirror, it's now looking like this;

Having been renting a flat for far too long with a shower in the bedroom (seriously) and no bath, we're both really looking forward to making the most of this room! Even though a bath isn't something that fits into most people's regular routines, it's definitely something that you miss when it's gone.

Very pleased with the sink we found too.

You might also recall the progression of the kitchen;

Now, apart from a few minor touches, it's almost ready.

I'm hoping that after a bit of a clean (almost everything in the flat is permanently covered in a layer of dust at the moment) the tiles will look a bit whiter- although they will obviously never match the high-gloss white units.

I've not yet got any photos that really show how much more space those few inches actually give you in the kitchen itself, and I'm not sure if it's something that can really come across. Suffice to say that before, it was difficult for two people to move around each other in the room with the cooker taking up so much space. Now, four people can pretty comfortably move around in there.

Of course, this is a vital point for social reasons; as everyone knows, the real definition of a party is two gatherings of people in the living room and kitchen of the same home. So it's nice to know that, at least in theory, the flat will be capable of hosting one.

Hopefully it will be hosting one pretty soon...