Getting serious once more....

...but first a few odds and ends...

 The front wall is finished, at least as far as the bricks:

The gate posts look a bit incongruous without gates. They're on order, being fitted mid-August. We also need another house sign for the wall. The one purched on top of the curved bit of the wall will go on the new gates.

Here's where it gets a bit serious. When we bought the house, the estate agent's pics of the sitting room fireplace had it look like this...

Which is only a tiny bit hideous. To be fair, it is a nicely built effort, but the width of the fireplace compared to the fire itself is huge, and that little fire really doesn't have much chance of heating the room. So it really had to go. It will be replaced by a log burner. Which means the fireplace has to go. The builder's opening is what's needed, this is what the housebuilder left for whatever fireplace the person finishing the house wanted. You can see this below in the whole room pic.

Luckily we had that bit of wood lying in the garden. It had come from the playroom fireplace. I just hadn't chucked it out thinking a big piece of wood like that would come in handy at some point. Well, it just did. Not sure how many barrowfuls of hardcore came out of that fireplace, but it's serious when you have a wheelbarrow in the house, and 110V tools (note yellow transformer).

We're having  a bit of a blitz on the inside of the house for a few weeks. Want to get this room ready for plaster over the next week or so. Then we can decorate and have Mark the floor man back. This room needs a few more things like radiator covers and a cabinet built to house the electrical/electronic gubbins. The hearth and fitting the log burner will also make this a longer process too. I'll also need to make a swingy-arm thing for the TV. So a fair bit, but looking forward at least to having this room modernised!