Well it was only just over a week till our visit from my Mum and brother Mark, so we decided that we needed to sort out the kitchen, paint the bedroom and at least the toilet plumbed in. As usual it was a visit to Vidin. For the kitchen we visited Myra, a furniture shop, in fact there is 3 in Vidin. One sells kitchens , dining furniture and sofas, one sells bedroom furniture and the third one sells all wood bedroom furniture. We visited all of them ! I must admit we were pleasantly surprised at how cheap things were and how much there was to choose from. We purchased kitchen cupboards to fit one wall, kitchen sink and a solid wood bed frame. We also bought carpet for the bedroom and Lino for the kitchen floor, total cost 895 Levs (£397). I’m sure you will agree that is bloody cheap!
First job was to clear the bedroom, fill in all the cracks then paint the walls. Took us 2 days to complete including fitting the carpet. it wasn’t perfect or the way I would like it but it was a lot more presentable and at least we had a bed, no more mattress on the floor!
Next was tackling the kitchen. It was the usual agenda, clear the room, fill cracks and paint. The trouble with having to clear the rooms every time we do something, is that it’s hard to find enough space to store all the furniture and stuff. Bit of a nightmare to be honest. The kitchen was worse because I still needed to make lunch and dinner. Our living room was stacked, so was the back room, so not much room to move about let alone cook. Another 2 days of hard work and our kitchen was finished. It looked so much cleaner and brighter and we were both really pleased with what we had achieved . Ok we still didn’t have plumbing or electrics for the cooker but it was still a lot better.
As we had worked so hard we decided to take a morning off and meet our new friends in Vidin for a coffee. As usual it was great to catch up and relax. Andy was discussing the electrics and our friend offered to help us instal a new circuit board and electrics for the cooker. We decided to take up the offer,so it was arranged to be done the following day. It only took a couple of hours to instal and I finally had a full cooker to cook on, pure luxury! Amazing how we take things for granted.
Next job to tackle was the drainage for the toilet. Took us a while and a few holes till we found where the pipework ran to the main drainage in the street. Next job was to tap into it. We had to run it under the path and around the back to where our bathroom was going to be, so that meant breaking the concrete path and then digging the trench. That was hard work as we only had a sledge hammer to break up the concrete. In some parts it was so thick we thought we would never get it done on time. It took us a full day to dig the trench, connect the drain pipes and instal the water to the toilet. To be honest it was a bloody nightmare, trying to make sure the pipes had the correct flow, especially as it had quite a distance to go and screwing and unscrewing the water connections because there were leaks, was really testing our patience but in the end we finally had a flushing toilet. It isn’t secured to the floor and the water connection has only been temporarily fitted ready for my family’s visit because when they have gone we will be disconnecting the toilet so that we can get the bathroom done properly, shower, sink, tiling etc.
Having a flushing toilet after all these weeks was pure heaven. We were both like little kids taking it in turns to flush it as if it was a new invention, you would think we had never had a toilet before !
Yet again another back breaking week but we have achieved quite a lot in such a short time and at least when my family come,they will have a few home comforts and I can at least enjoy their visit more…….