I'm gonna be toasty!

Yesterday, the stove was fitted. Remember I told you about it a while back?

Ta-da! 

It was relatively painless, thank goodness. We'd been warned that if there was a problem getting the liner down the chimney, we might have to have a hole knocked through our loft bedroom wall to create access, but fortunately that was not needed. And the combination of two dormers and a Velux window in the roof didn't seem to cause too much difficulty in getting up to the chimney either.

The stove's been fitted just in time for the cold snap that's been forecast for the end of the week. We did have a test-firing, which filled the house with blue smoke and set the fire alarms off; apparently it's the paint and WD40 burning off... We had to have the windows open to let the smoke clear - and it was still warmer in that room than it's ever been! We have to let the plaster dry out a bit before we can fire up the beast properly, so I'll let you know how it feels after Thursday...

Of course, now, the hard work starts - decorating. There's some discussion in the Squidge house as to whether to keep the current wall colour (bright yellow, because it's a north facing room and I chose the colour according to the principles of Feng Shui to warm things up) or to go for something a bit different - perhaps a bold colour on the stove wall and lighter, more neutral other walls? Of course if we change the colour that will mean new curtains and new chair covers because we used the curtain fabric to cover our chair seats when we last decorated... And we definitely need a new carpet.

It's exciting, to feel that BIG things are happening in the house at last. Next job is the landing window to be double-glazed, then internal insulating plasterboard in the hall, then external repointing and finally, decorating the hall, stairs and landings.

Actually, if the decorating doesn't get done this year, it's not the end of the world - I can live with bare plaster for a while if I'm snug as a bug in a rug!

But before all that happens, I'd better set Mr Squidge to work on the woodpile; I think we're going to need it...