Renovating the sitting-dining room and other parts of my house

Roses alongside the front door © Ricky Yates

As I wrote at the end of my previous post, K & K, (as in K & K renovace nemovitostí Decín), besides renovating my study-bedroom, have also done work in other parts of the house. This is the promised further blog post describing and illustrating their work.

The ground floor of the house has only three main rooms – my study-bedroom, a kitchen and adjacent small shower room, (completely refurbished in January 2018), and a sitting-dining room.

The sitting-dining room, along with the adjacent entrance lobby, is the newest part of the house. As a result, there was no need to do anything to the walls, other than painting them . . . → Read More: Renovating the sitting-dining room and other parts of my house

Renovating my Study-Bedroom

Stará Oleška 44 © Ricky Yates

I have now lived in my retirement home in Stará Oleška for six years. During that time the only major work I’ve had done to the interior of the house was the refurbishment of the kitchen and adjoining shower room in January 2018 when, for three weeks, I was living in the middle of a building site.

At that time, I did ask Elefant, the firm that installed my new kitchen and shower, if they would be interested in carrying out further work on the house. But they were booked up for several months ahead and also were really only interested in work that involved kitchens and bathrooms, installing units and fittings that they themselves sell out of their showroom in Decín.

. . . → Read More: Renovating my Study-Bedroom

It’s taken a long time but, my Lean-to is finally complete

Lean-to in May 2017 © Ricky Yates

At the end of a post I wrote more than four years ago entitled, ‘Making progress‘, I featured two photographs of the incomplete lean-to on one side of my house. This one on the left, taken in May 2017, just a couple of weeks after I moved to Stará Oleška, and the one below, taken after ‘Jan with his van’ had taken away a whole load of unwanted items left by the previous owners.

In that September 2017 post, I wrote, ‘Once I’ve removed some remaining loose timber into the wood shed, then I plan to lay a proper concrete floor. After that, I hope to be able to hang the door that is already sitting there, propped up on one side, and create . . . → Read More: It’s taken a long time but, my Lean-to is finally complete

My Vine

The house and vine in March 2017 © Ricky Yates

On the front of my house is a well-established vine. In this photograph, you can see the outline of it, in between and along the top of the double-glazed windows that enclose the verandah. The photograph was taken by me in March 2017, at the time I agreed to buy the house. It has appeared previously on the blog, in this post entitled, ‘The new house in Stará Oleška‘.

At some point in the previous six months, the vine clearly had been pruned for which I am most thankful. It was the only thing in the garden that appeared to have received any attention in the months before I purchased the property. I believe that once the previous . . . → Read More: My Vine

Out with the old and in with the new

The old wood-burning stove with heat proof walls on either side © Ricky Yates

When I had the kitchen in my home completely refurbished, back in January 2018, other than the tiled floor and an overhead florescent light, the only other thing that was retained from the previous kitchen, was the wood-burning stove, because it was the only source of heating for the whole house. As part of the refurbishment, two heatproof walls were built, either side of the stove, in order to protect the newly installed neighbouring kitchen units.

Once the stove has been alight for a couple of hours, it does heat the house quite well. But the associated oven takes a very long time to heat up and it is very difficult to judge what should . . . → Read More: Out with the old and in with the new