In between stressing about planning permission for bat boxes we’ve been trying to get ahead on decisions.

Decisions that have been called for are mainly very practical eg which Air Source Heat Pump to go for (recommended one) and location of drain for shower in plant room.

The more challenging decisions have been around things for the future. Lots of different thoughts for kitchen, all very much influenced by price as well as practicality and look as we know we will be very low on funds by the time we get there!

We’ve decided to have most of the kitchen along the back wall but turning forwards behind the stairs for the hob. And we’re going for a Paul Metalcraft kitchen (from Source Antiques in Bristol, like our English Rose one was in Nottingham) for the corner, drawers, oven and sink/dishwasher, but to get a plywood double deep drawer unit made for the hob nearer the time. The fridge and freezer will balance a plywood worktop over them with some filing cabinets between for extra drawers! (At least to start with).

The drawer and door fronts will be dark teal (to go with the window frames if the planners give us the goahead for thise and we don’t have to paint over them!) RAL 5020

We’ve had lots of toing and froing on door choice. It’s very important to Clare to have some consistency across the house, and I think she is right.

We want a couple of glass doors, and these we aim to have as similar to the external doors as possible, so a Pattern 10 glazed door such as this: https://www.xljoinery.co.uk/GWPP10C-FD-Product-Pattern-10-Internal-White-Primed-Fire-Door-With-Clear-Glass (choice of supplier will be on price as it’s a pretty standard door type!).

You can get Pattern 10 non glazed, too, but I’ve advocated for plain flat slab doors and Clare has come round to it… plan will be to consider painting the edges bright and exciting, we shall see. They are much the most ‘affordable’ doors, particularly for fire doors.

We will go for pocket doors (which slide away into the wall) for a few locations where there isn’t much space.

Now onto what is called ‘door furniture’! This means handles (or, I hope, knobs instead as they are less injurious to an Emily walking around the house). Light switches and sockets - do we care enough to pay more for metal ones? Do we even prefer those? OMG it’s difficult!

And floor upstairs - we are going with concrete throughout downstairs. Should we have cork or lino? Plan for either is to us stick down tiles (which are ok with underfloor heating specially v low temperature as we will have, with the Air Source Heat Pump running most efficiently that way). We will try to do this ourselves at weekends (so as not to be in the way of proper builders) as they are meant to be pretty straightforward, and after all we managed reclaimed parquet in Nottingham. Any thoughts? Experience?