Floor is down...and we're engaged!

So there has been rather a big gap since my last 'Taking on the Terrace' post. And minimal work has been done on the house. First come the excuses...

The biggest excuse and also huge news for us, is that we got engaged! It happened completely out of the blue (for me at least, Jon had been organising it for months apparently!), followed a game of tennis and involved Jon giving me the keys to my absolute dream car (an MGA Mark I for all you petrol heads out there) in my dream colour (racing green with tan leather seats) and saying something along the lines of 'if you'll marry me, half of this will be yours' (total bribery now I look back!). There was some lovely mushy stuff said too, but I won't sicken you with that here. But inevitably the next few weeks were spent celebrating and taking the car out (we have become those annoying people that 'go for a drive'!) which was amazing, but meant that nothing got done on the house.

The other excuse is that I am meant to be going on a shoot to Zimbabwe with work at the end of August (fingers crossed so tightly and trying not to get my hopes up in case it doesn't happen!) So with with me potentially being away for a couple of months, we made the joint decision to take our feet off the DIY-gas so to speak, and do some fun things together (pandemic permitting) before I left. I think this was a good idea for Jon's sanity as well!

In fairness, Jon has still been spending most weekday evenings working on the house and in doing so, single-handedly managed to get the floor down and oiled. It is engineered oak and we admired it for all of a few hours before it was swiftly covered with a protective layer.

Jon also busied himself building the under-stair storage cupboard. This was designed specifically so all his work bags and toolboxes can slide in easily on the shelf bit, and our shoes (well, probably only a small fraction of mine!) will be stored in the pull out drawer below. He has used a special closing mechanism for both the storage section and the downstairs toilet so that you don't need handles on the outside, it just looks like the whole section is panelled.

Apart from that we have given a number of walls and skirting boards a final lick of coat, re-plumbed the radiators (so Jon can finally have a hot shower) and measured up for carpets, which I find very exciting!

Also, since it's taken me so long to write this blog post, we have also had time to address the garden, which had got very wild! It's now been weeded and levelled (although still more soil to be removed!) and we have created raised flower beds out of our old attic purlins.

Maisie of course had to be in on all the engagement action. Here, in true cat style, you can see her rejecting my hope for a 'family' engagement photo, turning her nose up at some gorgeous congratulatory flowers I received and avoiding eye contact in the garden on the same day.