Chaos Reigns!

One of the things I have wanted to do in this house for years is, replace the flooring. Downstairs the carpet is either ok (living room) or really worn out (everywhere else). Upstairs, the carpet is pretty horrific. It is poorly put in, stained, rippled and just generally awful. Not only that, in no 2 rooms does it MATCH. So, I've wanted to replace it for ages.

As you know, I'm getting the house ready to let out. I talked to the estate agent, and he agreed that having more uniformed flooring would be a help, and that hard floor is best, since it's so much easier to keep clean and if a portion gets damaged, you don't have to replace the whole room. I prefer hard floor, anyway, so I thought, right. Let's have a look at this.

I started getting estimates for the work being done, and was sad that, it looked like this was going to be another project that would have to wait. I just wasn't going to be able to afford the £1500+ estimates I was getting. Not for another year, or so, after I'd had the house let for a while, anyway. There were other things (like getting the outside wood repainted) that were more important to the continued maintenance of the house. Well, yesterday evening, my neighbour's ex-husband came round. My neighbour's still friends with him, just happier not being married to him. So John came in and asked if I was looking for some work doing on the house, and said he'd be happy to give me a quote. I knew he'd done some (lovely) work for my neighbour, but didn't realise that was his JOB. Anyway, he went away, measured up the house (my neighbour's house is the same floor plan and size as mine), priced some things, came back and said he'd do the flooring AND the painting, materials and labour, for £1,000. I told him then and there that he had the job.

He went off straight away and got the flooring materials, dropped them off, and this morning at 9.00, he came round to start the flooring. Bless him! He says he can have the flooring done in 3-4 days, and the painting done in another 3-4 days. 2 weeks max? £1,000? Wow. And he does lovely work. I've always admired the flooring in my neighbour's house. Oh, and the flooring he's using is much nicer flooring than the ultra cheap stuff the quotes I was getting were going to be using. Bonus!

Of course, this means I can't move around the house because it's all topsy-turvey. Here's a look at my bedroom. I'm currently sitting on my bed, in the 1 foot gap between the upended mattress and the bedside table. So funny. And to get into the room, you have to climb over the new flooring, under the door to the spare bed (leaning against the door to my room) and then further under the skirting!