Settling everyone into their new homes has taken a long, long time. Much longer than we ever anticipated. One way or another, we got delayed and exhausted. And on occasion distracted by projects that need doing and require less intricate logistics.

We’re coming out the other end of the exhaustion, though, and ready for the next part of the project.

Here is how Phase 1 went:

1) Finish renovating the bungalow
It took us until the end of February to finish renovating the bungalow to an acceptable standard. But it got done, with walls painted, carpets and wooden floors down, and all the amenities in working order.

2) Move Roger’s furniture and belongings into the bungalow
We had a number of mini adventures doing this. Some bits of furniture had to come downstairs, and we wondered how they ever made it up there. Roger also re-used a carpet from Westacre in his bungalow. This involved passing it out of the 1st floor windown, transporting it on the trailer, and having the professionals lay it in the bungalow. Nobody was hurt, but one light fitting didn’t survive the passage of the carpet through the bung.

3) Let the house in Harrow
When we had moved Roger to the bung, we were ready to go and empty our Harrow home at a leasurely pace. Just then, the agents let us know that the place had been let and we had 10 days to move everything out. We managed, and our tenants moved in and started paying rent. Which is brilliant.

4) Move Alex and Hilde’s furniture and belongings from Harrow to Westacre
We moved our furniture up the M40 by trailer. And we had to do it fast due to the tenants moving in at relatively short notice. It took 6 journeys. Thankfully we found a friend to help us with the heaviest pieces. Thank you Matt!

5) Find new homes for things that are no longer wanted
We tried hard to find someone who had both the time and the patience to help us with this. We failed. In the end, we loaded most of it onto the trailer and took it to a car boot sale. This was a very successful exercise in getting rid of unwanted possessions, and we made some money too. We’re very glad we waited for a nice sunny day, when there were lots of people out for a bargain.

The car boot sale

6) Turning the Westacre living room into a bedsit
We’d been sole occupiers of Westacre for a couple of months before we finally moved into the bedsit. The biggest job was constructing a makeshift kitchen in one corner of the big room. Alex had weeks of fun with electrics and plumbing. It looks very nice from inside the room, but the plumbing going through the (now hidden) kitchen door on the other side of the wall is a bit Heath Robinson. Still, it works. Just a lick of paint on the new partition, and it’ll look like we meant it.

Just a few days ago, we took the first step in Phase 2 of the project: Insulation. We are planning to wrap the entire house in external wall insulation, so the Virginia Creeper had to go. We had the help from our friends who came to stay, and who all got really motivated when they heard we were going to burn it all afterwards. Boys will be boys, whether they’re 45 or 8.