Side Project A

In order of conception, the first of our side projects was the cloakroom – oh, all right, call a spade a spade: the downstairs loo. [It’s so small there’s absolutely no room for any cloaks, anyway.]

Having decided to continue the kitchen/dining area flooring into the hallway, it was but a small jump to continue it into the downstairs loo. Shortly afterwards it was but another small jump to continue the flooring into the utility room.

Francine was keen to replace all the hardware, including the tiny radiator, and to incorporate a skinny vanity unit. The loo, after all, was original so must have been 40 years old. I’m willing to take on many DIY projects but exchanging a loo when the new one needs seating on a concrete floor with plumbing running through it is not one of them. So, way back when, we got our friendly Plumber Men to rip out the loo, radiator and hand basin, leaving the room denuded to ease the fitting of the new flooring.

As readers will be only too aware, the fitting of the flooring became the ripping up of Floor v1.0, followed eventually by the fitting of Floor v2.0 after a seemingly interminable 2-month gap.

Expecting Floor v1.0 to be acceptable, Francine’s skinny vanity unit had been procured eons ago. With all the work necessary in our other rooms, the vanity unit was stateless and got shuffled from room to room like a refugee. Almost inevitably, yours truly managed to knock it over (it isn’t terribly stable when freestanding, especially on carpet) and a replacement was needed. A replacement proved difficult to get which incurred yet another delay.

The upshot is that we’ve been without a downstairs loo for the last three months. Since it was denuded for the duration, however, there now was plenty of room for cloaks. 😀 [No, we didn’t.]

So, first to be conceived is last to be completed. To be fair to the smallest room in the house, though, side project A would have been completed a shade before side project B, the utility room, were it not for the fact that we needed to find and fit a mirror and come up with a cunning solution for a splashback. To be accurate, that is Francine needed to find them [“yes dear”] and I needed to fit them.

Finally it’s done. We have Francine’s replacement skinny vanity unit, a matching skinny hand basin that I’ll never get my hands into, a modern loo with a very svelte cistern, probably containing insufficient water to flush effectively, a new radiator (hidden behind the door) and there still isn’t any room for cloaks.

Now we also have a mirror, there should be room for Francine to powder her nose, though. [I won’t tell you what I thought that phrase meant as a young child.]

I may have to do something about that hideous lightshade, though. 😀