SPRING 2012

  GARDEN

Spring has arrived in Cambieure. There is so much to do in the garden before the sun bakes the earth to a hard crust. It's hard to believe that just 4 weeks ago we had -13 degrees and a week of snow! The temperatures of the last few days have reached 27 degrees and the sky is clear and sun brilliant.

Planted before winter, the peas, onions, garlic and broad beans are now surging ahead with spring growth. The broad beans have flowers and soon the stems will need to be secured. It's a race to remove all the weeds before we can no longer pull them out of the ground.

Fruit trees have started budding or flowering and the birds are busy gathering nest material and singing at the tops of their voices - such a cheery sound.

  HOUSE

In the house, work continues on the bathrooms - one large bathroom split into an ensuite for us and a private bathroom for one of the guest bedrooms. Anyone familiar with building and renovation will know that most of the work is behind the walls and preparation.

Before work started

Hallway space to be blocked

You can see from the pictures above that we bought quite a colourful house! The space in the hallway is directly to the left of the shower and will be included in the new guest bathroom.

To start, Wouter had to remove all the fittings, wall tiles, mirror, and the wall beside the shower (to the hallway space). Imagine the dust....

Removing tiles

Plumbing in place, shower trays in, wall marked

The next job was to get the plumbers in to place all the holes, waterlines, etc for the new layout, fill in the old shower tray with concrete (this forms part of the base for one of the new showers). Then, a doorway had to be made in our bedroom wall and temporary door to prevent dust and debris going throughout the house.

One window removed and blocked, temporary door to our room

Making wall between shower and loo

Evening walls in preparation for tiling

working on centre wall

While the plumbers were in, we also installed a sink/vanity unit in one of the bedrooms - the ensuite for that room will be completed later. Another job was to remove the water cylinder from our wardrobe and place it upstairs alongside the others. This will allow us to change the room later. The electricians have been in to complete the wiring, so now it's on to the next stage for us.

Check out the new look on the La Prade website:
La Prade