A Garden, A House and the Life Between

When we purchased our house in 2023 we knew it needed work. It’s originally a bungalow built in 1951 and then the previous owners turned the attic into a main bedroom suite, which is gorgeous, but the downstairs needs a lot doing to it. So I guess our house is now technically a ‘dorma bungalow’ though I’ve never liked that name for some reason, and I still think of it as a bungalow. I’m trying to turn it into a cottage internally but not sure if it looks like a cottage from the outside – yet.

When we first moved in we had the wall between the kitchen and dining room knocked through so that it’s just one room and it immediately felt like the right thing to do. But we’ve waited 2.5 years to finish what we started which is to put patio doors into the kitchen end, lower the kitchen window (which was ridiculously high) and then put in new floors, skirting, architraves, door, and then kitchen and that’s what we’re doing now.

Husband and I ripped the existing kitchen out along with taking the porch down. Never done anything like this before but we managed to get the glass out the right way, take all the structure down and then rip out the kitchen. We even ended up taking up the kitchen floor which was original plastic tiles, then ceramic ones, and then screed over the top. Most of it came up easy to be fair but there were one or two stubborn bits we had to leave for the builder.

These are the pictures from when we’d finished the demolition (sounds grand) and what is basically an empty space for the builders, electrician, plumber and joiner.

This is the empty dining room:

And this is the empty kitchen:

The builders came in and started their work 3 weeks ago, along with the first fix electrics and plumbing, and the window and patio doors went in within the first week. Progress was pretty quick although when the plastering was finished, the weather of course changed and the plaster took several days to dry. That put us back 2-3 days at least but its still full steam ahead and we now have the new floor down and kitchen being built as we speak.

I’m not a big fan of mess, clutter, living with our hallway as a kitchen, but I know it’s a means to an end and it will be worth it. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve painted and decorated but I’ve never knocked down walls and put in new kitchens so it’s a test of my personality nuances lol but here we are. Lessons being learnt every day.

Of course warmer drier weather would help. I feel like I owe everyone an apology as it was the day that I put all my jumpers away and got my t-shirts out that the weather went from hot spell to wet, wet and wetter spell. My bad, but I had hope that Summer had arrived and so I got excited and clearly put a curse on it. But I’m told that as from tomorrow, Friday, things are getting drier and warmer so fingers crossed. Let’s do this!!

I’m not sharing any inbetween pics of the kitchen/diner reno as I think it will be a bigger surprise seeing it from the before and then after shots, so no peaking lol. I’ll update you as soon as it’s finished but until then, I’ll come back to you with other general updates from my life in the lakes.