Our New House–Materials Starting to Arrive

This is the first of two posts today. As promised, I am keeping the progress of my new ARTHaven separate as it is an area of more specialised interest.

My hubby and I went over to our new house this afternoon as he wanted to do some more work in the garden, and I wanted to see if anything was different, and if so, to photograph it. My hubby cleared some more undergrowth, and started painting the shed/summer house and the fencing with Cuprinol. The whole garden is looking a lot tidier and brighter now, and it was amazing to see the Leylandii trees cut a bit more down to size! They will come down completely, eventually, when he can get some help. There’s a huge pile of clippings and weeds to be carted away, and he has a friend with a truck who is coming to help next week.

We took some more of my ARTHaven boxes over today, and my room here is now looking a lot less full, although there’s still a long way to go! I don’t want my hubby to take too many over at once, although he could take 20 or 30 with the trailer – the trouble is the loading and unloading, and carrying upstairs etc. which is quite exhausting – much better to do half a dozen at a time, and have energy to spare for other things. We’ve got time, and the job will soon be done.

When we arrived, I was thrilled to see that the bathroom tiles and ARTHaven laminate flooring had arrived! All these materials were stacked up in the hall. Here are the bathroom wall tiles for the en-suite:

Here’s a close-up to give an idea of what they look like:

It’s a bit difficult to see through the polythene wrapping, but they have a lovely natural marble/stone effect.

These are the sheets of border tiles – Andy will use three strips of this around the whole room, about half way up.

Again, it’s a bit difficult to see exactly what they are like. The light was poor, and with the light on, it gave a very yellow effect which I have tried to correct, but it doesn’t really do it justice. There are strips of green glass (like sea glass) amongst the ceramic tile strips – a very subtle colour. These border tiles look absolutely gorgeous in real life, against the main wall tiles.

The floor tiles haven’t arrived yet. When Andy and I went to B&Q last week, they only had a few left in stock, but this is a regular stock item and they will be getting more in, probably this week. They are darker in colour, and with a lovely non-slip texture.

It’s very exciting, seeing the stuff arriving! When we got back, we found some Howden’s samples on the doorstep – Andy had evidently called round while we were out. I was sorry to have missed him, because we both need to discuss various things with him. He left a kitchen unit door (light oak) and a very heavy “book” of laminate flooring samples about 1 foot square. I was hoping for a small sample of the natural stone one we’d chosen, and a little slip of the light oak so I could actually carry them round the tile place to get a good match for the splashbacks – I can’t see us lugging this lot around!! However, seeing the flooring “in the flesh” and being able to feel the texture, is very nice. It feels amazing – just like stone, but warmer to the touch. I think it is going to be beautiful.

My next post is about progress on my ARTHaven.