Destroy and Rebuild - a tale of eBay and (somewhat) Polish labour

We've been renovating, as you know, and slack in posting about it, as you also know. So here's what's been happening.

We used the marvels of eBay to turn our unwanted goods:

into a whopping 29.99€ with only a minor bugger up (the people who bought the kitchen sink never turned up, which they bought for the grand total 1€), but a 9€ tip (the oven people) as well so we're definitely coming out ahead - that money might buy half a bucket of paint ;-)

We made our pile a bit neater, so that we and the builders could actually get in and work.

Stripped the remaining wallpaper, night after night after night until it was finally all done

We ripped out the bathtub with some help from Matt, decided that open plan living was the way to go, and then decided that the open plan loo was perhaps a bit much - it's just too hard to concentrate on the newspaper when there's so much else going on

The electricians have been doing a great job of making the place somewhat hazardous, but the builders will be patching that all up in good time (i hope)

The plastering has been started, the ceilings are almost done and the walls are started.

Speaking of walls, most of the new walls are up too

We've also been running around like headless chickens trying to get all the stuff we need, suddenly realising that we have nothing no knives, no forks, no towels, no vacuum, no mop, no broom, no bed - and done a surprising amount of shopping on the net. Bathtub, taps, microwave all online and so far so good. The prices have been right and the service better than expected.

With time counting down (end of Feb we have to be out of this place) so we're hoping to be able to get in and do some painting, would be good to start that in the evening next week, that way if we do some before the floors are in we wont have to care about the mess so much... and hopefully we can get at least one room done before we have to be out of here.