Books, books and more books. Oh - and some cds.

Remember the bespoke AV unit we commissioned?  We liked it so much we approached the company again with a view to getting a bespoke CD rack and some bookshelves.  Several renders were passed between us and the company and we finally took delivery in the last couple of weeks.  Yet again we're very pleased.  Both units are incredibly solid with not a single screwhead, dowel or other join visible anywhere.

The empty CD rack:

And filled with most of the collection - it holds just under 800 cds.  I had to be ruthless and get rid of some of the lesser listened to albums but before doing so, they were ripped in hi-res flac format and stored on the server to be streamed to the naim.

The bookcase arrived in two parts and weighs a ton!  Luckily it's on castors so fairly easy to move about when empty, not the case when full!

Again, we had to be fairly ruthless in deciding which books warranted a space on this shelf and which were relegated to the old shelves in the conservatory.

Minor Updates

Once the kitchen was finished late last year, we decided to take a break and just enjoy the house for a while.  During January/February we made a couple of minor changes and bought some nice things!

We decided to make a feature out of the wall in the corner of the lounge so after much swearing and sweating we ended up with this:

The wallpaper is from B&Q and to be honest, is just enough.  The colour matches well with the green accents in the room and it adds something to that corner.


We also wanted to fill the large white wall in the kitchen without taking away from the clean white lines so a trip to John Lewis in the sales bagged us this:

Kitchen completed.

Apologies for tardiness in getting these pictures up.  The kitchen was finished a couple of weeks ago and we're really pleased with it.  The quartz worktop is fantastic and the quality of the Schuller units is immediately obvious in use.

Let the pictures do the talking...

Bespoke glass splashback from The House of Ugly Fish.

Small steps forward...

The light at the end of the tunnel is getting ever closer.  We now have running water in the kitchen and the extractor hood but we can't get in there until Wednesday when the floor tiles have set.  So far the under floor heating adhesive is curing and the tiler is coming back tomorrow to finish up.  Our custom glass splashback looks the business!

Kitchen Update

The end of week 2 and we now have a worktop.  No hob, extractor or water and the sockets need to be straightened out but we're getting there.  These guys did all the work, quickly, efficiently and tidily.  As ever, pictures are worth more than words:

Kitchen Update

The fitter has been on site for 3 days and is more or less finished.  The worktop has been templated and will be installed in about a week, we've gone for a white with grey flecks quartz composite.  Once the worktop has been fitted the floor tiler moves in and the job is complete.

This weekend sees us painting the ceiling and walls and trying to fathom the user instructions for the Neff appliances.

Let the pictures do the talking:

The magic disappearing oven door!

It's arrived!

Remember this - the render of my bespoke AV rack:

It's based on an Aveos model from Blok but we removed a drawer, added the top shelf and widened the central section to accommodate my centre speaker.  The order was placed at the end of July and it was delivered this weekend.

To say we're pleased is an understatement.  It's a serious piece of furniture, very solid and very heavy.  Thankfully it's on castors so it is easy to move about, even when fully loaded with our AV kit.  Here's the pictures.....

For the curious the rack contains the following:

• naimuniti - a combined cd player, DAB & FM radio, network music streamer
• Yamaha RX-V1065 AV amplifier
• Castle Keep II centre speaker, the floorstanders are Castle Severn MkII's
• Sony blu-ray player
• PlayOn HD network media player
• Virgin V+ box
• Nintendo Wii (well, you just have to really.....)
• Network switch and wireless acces point (the naim, blu-ray player and PlayOn all require network access)