Keep calm and Carry on

Thanks to our good friend John for giving me this stellar, very British mug to help me through the last throws of university and the house move. I have been using it every day, repeating its message like a mantra (or perhaps like a mad woman...). In true student style, I am updating this blog instead of writing the last 2000 words of my dissertation. What's with that?!

I went to meet with the builders this morning, finalising the wall paper decisions and checking what they had. One that I wanted is no longer available, but thankfully the ones I really wanted are. Soon these walls will no longer be mustard yellow! Below are some of the choices, but missing is our bedroom, Ben's bedroom and the Japanese (tatami) room, which we changed in the meeting today. Ben's room will have a light blue ceiling by day and pods of dolphins by night. I tried to convince him to get stars, but he was determined to have the dolphins. I don't mind, except he might get sick of them in a year or two. We're still in discussions : )

The sink area - the white is for the walls and ceiling, and the blue will go behind the wooden antique cabinet. I just found two stainless steel barber mirrors to go here as well, which should arrive any day!

Three walls will be the right hand side beige and one wall the red washi in both Kaoru's and my study.

The wallpaper on the right will be on the back wall of the kitchen as well as one wall in the entrance. The rest of the walls will be in the left hand side paper. The ceiling is a slightly lighter shade, which makes the ceilings higher and the space lighter.

This is for the toilets. Ceiling and walls the left, feature wall the right.

Also, the stairs are almost complete - it was a shock to walk in this morning, after not having gone up yesterday, to see how much work had been done. This is what it looked like 2 days ago:

The first few steps.

The underside of the stairs 2 days ago.

To the left, you can see the underside of the stairs has been enclosed and the cupboard made.

And they even added a cheeky monkey! I love how they encased the underside of the stairs in Hinoki wood as well.

In the meeting this morning we discussed the extra space under the stairs here, next to where the washing machine will go. A floor will be put in (left, under stairs) and it will become a nifty little space to keep the laundry basket. Sweet!

The most beautiful boy in the whole world. Full stop.

The view from the 2nd floor balcony today. It was foggy in them thar hills!