Ch ch ch changes

(David Bowie, 1972)



It's been a while since we've updated you on the news, but that's not to say that nothing has happened. On the contrary, we have been bounding forwards.

First of all, we received the planning permission from the Commune. In record time in fact: we received it within two months of filing the application. Another reason why Schaerbeek rocks (and further confirmation that Belgian works quite well without a government).

So now we are waiting for the architect to finish drawing up the Cahier de Charges (the building specs) and the Metré (the list of quantities) and then we can start getting quotes from builders. The plan is still that they start work in August, but it all depends on whether the right man is free for the job.

Second, we've spent a few weekends at the house and can really see the difference. So here are a few before & after pictures of a couple of rooms.

Guest bathroom (second floor). You've seen this room before - it's the one at the front of the house with the leaking cornice, which explains the damp. The cornice has been fixed, and we've taken it back to the brick to dry out. The bathtub stays though.


Dressing room/ main bathroom to be (first floor). This is the lovely big room at the front of the house, which will have a bathroom box on the left hand side (hard to explain but you'll find out what that means in due course). The rest of the room will be dressing room, though could potentially become a bedroom.

Here is how we found it...


And here it is with a hundred years of lino and wallpaper steamed off.



Adjoining this room, through the double doors, will be the main bedroom. It seems to have previously been used as a kitchen, so that had to be dismantled, as well as the many layers of wallpaper and lino.




And here it is now:



So that's the first floor pretty much ready for the works to start. There is still some more wallpaper peeling to be done on the ground floor, and some plaster/ceilings to take off/down in the basement and the second floor, which will keep us occupied for another few weekends.

Oh and I haven't even started telling you about what we are doing in the way of energy efficiency.. As I mentioned before, we are aiming for the house to be officially 'Low Energy' (meaning that we will consume less than 60 KWH/m2/year), so there's a whole world of PEBs, PHPPs, Blower Door Tests to discover. That will have to wait for another time.