Notes from England - Housing Developments...internal shots!

Hi all!

Just a quick post to show off some internal shots of the new home after I went on the 'home demonstration' today. Unfortunately, since some of the electricals weren't hooked up yet, it wasn't a terribly exciting 'demonstration' as far as demos go, but I got to see the inside of the flat and that was really, really exciting!

The walls still need paint and the floors still need...well, flooring...but you should have a good idea of what we're after with these pics!

I'll start with the kitchen area. As you can see, our cupboards are fitted as is the sink, the fridge, oven, stove top and hood. It's really come together very, very nicely! There's plenty of lights under the cupboards for over the counter, and there's track lighting on the ceiling which lookss good! The kitchen floor will be finished in a soapstone tile laminate. Can't have real tile on the 1st floor (that's the 2nd floor to Americans. The first floor is the 'ground floor' in England)

Across from the kitchen is our living area. here we have the door which opens out to our 'Juliet' balcony. It's really cool in that the door, which is a slider (great considering space saving features) tilts out at the top! Basically, you pull the handle out towards you, and the top leans into the room whilst the bottom stays in at the slider. This allows you to just 'crack the door' for fresh air. If you want to actually open the door, you just pull again and the bottom pops out and you can slide the door to the left. Slide the door back to the right, the bottom pops in, you push the top in, and close the handle. Brilliant! We (obviously) need to buy a light fixture for the living room. The living room floor will be finished in a light brown 'mushroom'-coloured carpet.

Leaving the living room you enter the hall. To the left you have the spare bedroom...the smaller of the two. Across from the bedroom is the main bathroom. Further down the hall on the left is the master bedroom, which has an en suite bathroom attached to it. The hallway continues on around to the right where, on your right is the service cupboard is, which will contain our washer/dryer. Currently inside Inside is the water heater, which is an energy-saving model designed to run at night when energy costs are at their lowest...so that's fab...and the fuse box for all the power to the flat. The hall turns left again at the service cupboard and continues straight on to the front door. I couldn't tell you why I didn't take picture of the entryway...I suppose it's because the service people were standing right there and I'd feel like a muppet taking their pictures...never mind! There are energy-saving lights in the hall and will need to be planned for accordingly.The hall floor will be finished in American Oak laminate rather than carpet due to the heavy traffic it will inevitably handle.

The main bathroom has the tub, (no shower) a basin and toilet. It also has water-saving features with half-flush toilets. Brits may be used to things like this, but Americans aren't. It's got a button in the lid of the toilet used to flush it. The button is spilt in half...sort of yin-yang style...one half smaller than the other. If you don't need a 'full flush', you use the smaller button. If you've had a bit more...'activity'...I'll let you use your own imagination for that one...in the bathroom, you can push the bigger button and get the full-on-flush that we all know and love. You can also see in the second picture that there's a towel rack on the left wall. It's a heated towel rack that is set to the same timer as the heating for the home. I.E., you set your heating to come on at 5 or 6 in the morning and when you go to have a bath/shower (if you're in the en suite) you have a nice toasty warm towel to greet you when you step out into what, after being in the nice warm water, may be a slightly chilly bathroom! It also serves as the radiator (as near as Ann & I can tell) for the room. The bathroom will be finished in a grey, slate-like 'calcite' tile laminate.

Next is the spare bedroom which is actually bigger than it looks on the plans. With our plans of a single bed, a wardrobe and computer desk in there, we'll have absolutely no trouble moving around as there's plenty of room. The windows are an interesting point in that there's actually little vents above the window (hard to see from the picture) that you can open for fresh air if you don't want to open the windows themselves. This will come in handy in the winter months, for example when you wouldn't want a window open but still would like fresh air. The vents are recessed into the top part of the window sill and slide down to let the air in. They are actually open in this picture...so you can see they're not obtrusive at all. There is an energy-saving light in this bedroom and the bedroom floor will be finished in the same carpeting as the living room.

The master bedroom is larger (naturally) than the spare bedroom, and also has the added benefit of an en suite. We used the same tile for around the basin and shower as we did in the main bathroom, and we used the same calcite flooring. The bedroom will have the same mushroom carpeting as the spare bedroom and the living room. There's not much else to say here, so I'll simply include the last couple of pictures which show the bathroom tile a bit more closely and there's a shot of the shower. Enjoy!