29th April 2008.

Click on the pictures for larger images.

It has been a month since I last updated the house pages. The builder has finished his part in the kitchen and quite a lot has happenend.

Picture of the kitchen with tiles and paint finished.
The kitchen finished.

The photo shows the dining end of the kitchen/dining room with the tiles and paint finished.

We are very impressed with the way the builder has worked and he has even worked with us as well as sugesting extra things to make it look even better.

He was not too impressed though when Sue asked if he would lay the floor tiles diagonally as that meant quite a bit extra cutting and working out. He has done a good job of it though.

Picture of submersible pump before dropping down the well.
The pump before being put into the well.

After the builder had finished, it meant that other items could be got on with. The next job was to put the pump in the well so we could have running water in the house.

This photo is of the pump all sorted before being dropped down the well.

We needed to break through the well wall and connect the pipework up. A two metre length of galvonised steel pipe was fitted to the top of the pump and a non return valve fitted to that. Then the flexible plastic pipe was fitted and it then went through the trench I had dug and into the house.

We fitted a bucket to the bottom of the pump to keep any sediment from the water entry. An extra safeguard.

We now have running water but only to one tap. Other pipes need to be connected to various parts of the house so we can then turn on a tap and get water from it.

I don't think we will miss going to the well to draw water but we will miss meeting up with neighbous and having a chat when we wnt for water.

Picture of the flat packed kitchen.
More work for Ian.

Over the past month we have had three lots of visitors. Our second lot were picked up by us from the airport in Otopeni. This meant we had an excuse to look round firms such as Ikea that don't have a base up North near us.

When we picked them up we had a look round Ikea and when we dropped them off later we took our list of items and bought the cabinets from Ikea.

After ordering what seemed like a lot of boxes we just hoped that it would all fit into our smaller van. It did fit in and with not too much room to spare.

Picture of Wood burning boiler.
The wood burning stove, delivered.

We have bought the wood burning stove and it has started to be installed.

It is now in situ, and some of the pipework has already been installed.

I am looking forward to it being all ready to be fired up for the first time and seeing it working.

During the summer we don't want to burn wood just to heat up water. Once we sell the apartment we are living in, we are looking to install solar water heating. It will mean that the hot water will be free as we don't need to burn anything to heat it up and we get very hot weather here in the summer in Romania.

Picture of Wood burning boiler in situ.
The wood burning stove in situ.

We need to sell the apartment before we can do any more work as we need the money from that to invest in the house.

Hopefully I will not leave it too long before my next update.

Keep coming back for more updates.