A month on...

Now it has been over a month since we moved in. A couple of 'teething problems' needed to be sorted out and still need to be sorted out. For example, getting the heating working properly was a bit of an issue. The heating company made a reasonable decision on how to heat the radiators (our second heating zone, the first being the underfloor heating). However, they hadn't reckoned with Alois. He heats downstairs with timber - an oven in the kitchen and a stove in the living room. Because he likes it toasty warm downstairs, immediately upstairs (the bedrooms and office)  get warm as well. Coupled with the radiators, it was too much, so now the radiator zone is turned off. It is still bordering on too hot.

Another issue with the heating system is coupled with a problem with the electrics. After Christmas we started having power cuts. It turned out that the main conduit from the electric meter downstairs up to our separate electric distribution box (the one with the fuses) was somehow damaged. Two of the three phases were shorting, and constantly tripping the main (50A) fuse downstairs - i.e. cutting out the power

completely. Since then I bought another cable to do the job - a big thick stiff cable which was wicked hard to bend, but which should easily deal with any power running through it. Whereas I was able to run the cable along the floor of the gallery (still OSB) with the other pipes (i.e. pretty much hidden), down through the hole in the corner of the living room floor (with the rest of the heating, electric and network cables), along the floor of the party room and out through the wall to connect up with the rest of the cabling, I still had to cut a channel about a metre long into the freshly plastered (and painted) wall (you can see it in the picture). I also had to cut through the outside plaster to get the cable to the box. Petermaier will have to come and plaster it up again as soon as the weather gets a bit warmer.

Other than that, our shower is finally finished. It was finished well before Christmas, but the glass wall was missing, meaning that it was hard to use. The week before last, the company came around to put it in. It was very heavy.  The cats have discovered that the underfloor heating is warmest in the bathroom (probably because of the tiles) so they are almost always to be found lying on the floor near the shower.

The next delivery is going to be our couch(es). I called up the company the other day and they confirmed it is going to be calendar week 8 - roughly the middle of February. It's a bit unfortunate it took so long - I can't hang the television on the wall until the couch comes. Otherwise I won't know what height to hang the television at. We got a new television about three weeks ago. The old one (a 32") is going to go into the guest room (also hanging on the wall). I need to get the right screws for it though.

Other than that we put up some pictures in Eileen's room and generally made it look

more like a child's bedroom. I also ended up painting a bit of a wall again, after Eileen coloured it red with crayon. We started working on getting the guest bedroom into shape as well. The shape of the room made is a bit of a puzzle as to how to turn the bed and the presses to make is some way logical. The presses are the old ones that were in the house before we started renovating. A bit of a cleaning and they were ok-ish. I still think they need to be stripped and re-varnished. My office is also pretty much finished. There is still to much stuff in boxes there for my liking (waiting on their final destination), but it's fine to work in. Below are some pictures.