Isn't it? I can't believe I never looked under there before - I had just assumed there were wood floorboards there!

Nice surprise. Hope it's in good order?

Stair and hallways are starting to get done. Have gone very neutral here as the rest of the house has quite a bit of colour. The ceilings are white, walls almost white, and dado and below (including stairs) a mid grey. Plan is for interesting mirrors and black-framed prints/photos here to keep a monochrome look. The wood floors on the landings are rich and should lend depth...

I found a stained glass specialist today who has quoted to replace 3 panes in the front door when we refurbish it. Departing from the usual red-bordered design you see on Victorian doors here in London and going with a green, purple and clear combination, with different textures of glass. This should complement the off-white with dark green detail Nina Campbell Barbary wallpaper going in the hall (the monkeys look great!), green kitchen, and mauve/pink living room. It also echoes the existing internal stained glass in the hallway, which is clear and a very light mauve. The front door itself will be a dark green with brass furniture.

Hi Ami! Two frosted glass panes are going behind these windows. So some daylight will still reach the hallway . On the bathroom side you will see two frosted panels at floor level. I am putting Phillips Hue controlled RGB LED strip between those panes and the old windows,so that we can have mood lighting of whatever colour we want in the bathroom, and spilling into the hallway (I expect it to be set to white much of the time, but we can have some fun with the colour for parties or when having a long soak etc).

Hey Karen! The house already had connected fire alarms in every room to make it compliant. The regs are pretty tough on this to be honest. Many people fit cheap fire doors for the inspection, and rehang the originals after sign-off it seems. We have detectors in every room and hallway. Ugly, but they make me feel happier.

Restored windows being reglazed with toughened, low energy double glazing. All locks being replaced with high security hardened items: not just between sashes as is traditional, but also locking the sides of the stiles to the frames with mortice locks: no unsightly and breakable bolts, and all locks are key lockable, and also serve to pul the windows together to stop draughts and make it harder to get a jemmy bar in to break them Ultimately if someone wants in, they can smash their way through, but this will be very noisy (and set of the alarm and house lights). This has been an appalling expensive job - payback in terms of energy efficiency has to be decades. But better comfort and security will be the benefits.

More happening this week. Lights going in - I wanted the pendants to be modern and simple, as a counterpoint to the ornate period features. Went with polished brass accents to give a bit of a luxurious feel if I could - seems to work nicely with the greys used in halls and stairwells. The smoked glass pendants are used from porch to the upstairs landings, so there is continuity - the only variation is the entrance hall light in the first photos. Individual rooms will have different lights though. as they have different paint colours and looks.

Ceiling roses being installed. Irritatingly they are not quite square, and taking them down will mean destroying them and replastering ceilings. Tip - get ones that do not matter if they are off by a few degrees. Or be there when the decorators are putting them in. They are lovely, though.

Love the stained glass and the light fixtures! Fabulous!

Black thing is a badly covered smoke detector! They were going off constantly while we were sanding the floors, so have been taped up. Will be far less ugly (but still not pretty) when we uncover it.

The lights are from MADE.com - and to me are a really good price. £99 for the entrance chandelier, about the same for the smoked glass ones. Both are designer jobs. Some of MADE's stuff is a bit hit and miss, quality wise, but the stuff designed for them by designers tends to be nicely made, presumably as designers probably don't want poor quality associated with their names?

I am currently loving this sofa from them. Not cheap though! Luckily for my bank account we have enough sofas for the house already...

https://www.made.com/jules-3-seater-sofa-charm-cigar-premium-leather

Definitely! Would have been great for the TV room but I can't stomach
the price, and I have already bought a sofa for there for far less...I found this G Plan leather electric recliner sofa on eBay, and it was an absolute bargain. Electric recliners can be a bit ugly, but these G Plan ones look better than most, and are absolutely perfect for watching films. (I'd have preferred a dark brown, but getting the sofa for under £500 instead of the £2700 RRP means I can live with this mid tan and decorate around it).

This is for my dark green TV room and the colour matches the sort of
masculine, cigar club type decor in here - all dark green, tan leather,
brass and mahogany, with old film and art posters on the walls. The carpet will be a dark grey - allows me to change wall colour in the future without changing the carpet too. These individual seats bolt together to form the sofa. It is the most comfortable thing I have ever sat in.

I liked the design, and was very lucky to win the auction on ebay! Very 60's look - and should go with my Dad's old oval G Plan mahogany coffee table pretty well (I think you have the same type of table if I remember correctly?). This is a small, simple room, but I think it will become a favourite...

No photos for you guys, just some musings as we get towards the end of this project.

The budget is about on track, remarkably. We have probably have had about £5k worth of unexpected work on this house, from fixing the roof to dealing with soil pipe issues etc, so that is not as bad as it could have been. I have specified lots of extra work: when we first bought the place we were going to leave some rooms and bathrooms undone, but we decided to dig deep and do it all now. Hopefully when we are finished, we can breathe a bit easier and get the outside slowly done over time.

Our move in date is pretty much 3 months and 1 week from the day we started
work, immediately after buying it. This is not at all bad for the amount done, I think - but still over a month than originally anticipated!

There have been some frustrations.

-The kitchen company. They were perfect in my last house, but this time round, they sent some doors and worktops that warped. Their customer service is great, and they replaced these quickly. One issue was that we simply did not trust their oak worktops, and upgraded to Zebrano - they have never been able to give us a date for the arrival of these, telling us each week that it would be next week. After 5 weeks of this, in the end we specified another wood they had in stock. This means the kitchen is still not finished.

- Sash windows. A very expensive part of the refurb. We are using a one man band and his work is excellent, but they have taken more time than planned, and are still not in. He will still be working after we move in. I should have just stuck with the original plan of secondary glazing: but then, I have security worries, so refurbing and securing them seemed necessary.

- Heating system. Whilst it was newly installed in 2014, it has needed
some tweaks, and is still not perfect. I suspect the winter will be
spent fettling it. It is a big system with 24 radiators, and I do not
think that the pump will be man enough for the job. We'll soon find
out...

- Flooded cellar. That's going to have to be re-tanked in the summer. Not looking forward to that bill.

- Foul water drains. They need some work. One for warmer weather when we are digging up garden and driveway anyway.

- BT/Openreach. Absolute clowns. This house is meant to have fibre. It doesn't. It won't for some time.

- Roof. Has been bodged. £2k of unexpected remedial work needed in Jan, and frankly probably a re-roof in the next 5-10 years.

- slugs, huge spiders and giant anthills. All will be KILLED WITH FIRE.

There have been some great wins too:

- The builders. I would use these guys any time.

- some suppliers, have just been brilliant to deal with. Honourable mentions to Will at Quorn Stone and Jason at Pane Less Glass for great advice, communication and adaptability.

- The house itself is an absolute belter, and that has become more apparent as it gets refurbished and the period features really start to shine. I knew this in my head when we bought it, but as it starts t feel like a home, I have developed an emotional attachment to it unlike any other property I have owned. I really hope that it doesn't turn into a maintenance nightmare (it will!)

- The garden is also really, really special (for London, anyway), Cleared out, it has
all the promise of a properly secluded haven.

- our new next door neighbours seem like really decent people; time will of course
tell. Our first party should see if they still like us or not...

- the restored floors are absolutely lovely, and give the house a much
more period feel than I had intended, which we will adapt to.

At this stage, you just want to move in and even the smallest things that delay that become disproportionately annoying! I am also sure that other things will become apparent once we have moved in and started using it as intended. Although I am sure that this is one of these places that will never quite be finished...

And expensive ami! But like everything on this place we thought we'd do them properly, and only do them once...I hope. The slight shame is that the lovely, slightly wavy Victorian glass has gone (rather than chuck it I sold it to some reclamation people as it can be recut for use in smaller windows in listed buildings etc). But there are some areas where modern technology is simply more fit for purpose. The toughened, UV screened double glazing is warmer and more secure than fitting secondary glazing would have been.

Honestly spent the past however long getting up to date with this whole post, what a journey!

Thanks guys - we did a lot of experimenting and testing on some old floorboards before deciding on this stuff. The Osmo oil gives a deep and rich finish on old pitch pine that looks very different to varnish - deeper and with more of the grain being brought out. It's more like a beeswax finish from olden times, without the backbreaking labour and maintenance. Interestingly on the new boards (in the top bedroom), it makes far less difference: the new pine just looks yellow and shiny, much as it would if varnished. But the oil should be tougher and lower maintenance.

We decided to restore these floors rather than replace as they were actually in remarkably good condition: this house has never had fitted carpets fitted, nor central heating fitted until 2014, and when it was installed it was installed with regard to keeping the floors intact (many systems installed in past decades saw the boards sawn up and hacked about). I wanted look that is obviously original, and can't be mistaken for engineered wood.

I did think about a limewashed finish, but bottled it at the last minute and went totally traditional, as I thought less risk of a finish done to a trend that would be hard to reverse.

Have started one! Will post pics as things get finished...

Love seeing your before and after photos. The bathroom looks particularly fab! Love the tiling. Have you considered furnishings yet? I think a pod could work perfectly within this home. A cosy place to curl up but also a great feature to a room or garden.

Things look awesome!! So cool to see your progress!!