Tap me up

My beloved tap has finally given up. The centre bit that pulls out like an excited donkey is really stuck, and has become stretched from being yanked. The arm that controls water flow and temperature is getting stiffer by the day. It won't be too long before something explodes and I'll be standing in a fountain of Thames Water's finest.

Fortunately these taps are pretty common now. And for something virtually identical to what we have now you can get away with spending around £50 on sale (taps always seem to be 'on sale'. So do bathrooms). The replacement tap is guaranteed for 15 years. Our current tap limped towards 5 years and we paid £90 for it (down from £160, apparently). I'm sure it's guaranteed for longer but due to various adjustments it had to endure to get fitted I'm pretty sure all guarantees are void.

Not sure if Rob is going to be OK installing it or if we need to get in the professionals. Will report back. In roof leak news, Sunfold are coming back (again) in two weeks time. The rain is rumoured to be letting up next week so at least we can remove the towels and saucepans from the floor. I can't believe it's the middle of July and we've had so few days hanging outside due to the persistent rain! If I hadn't had a week in Croatia recently I'm sure I'd be suffering from seasonal affective disorder.

Fixing things up

I only got around to phoning the carpet installers on Friday, but the very next morning they were back to fix the rogue bit of carpet that had lifted off the stairs. Result. Also this week we'd been on the phone to the Tap Centre - my beloved tap was completely broken. It turns out the plumber or builder had a bit of a job getting the tap to sit flush on the concrete counter top and had performed some kind of alteration. This meant the tap wouldn't sit tight and wobbled from side-to-side.

When we asked for it to be adjusted so that it was more snug, the bottom bit sheared completely off, which meant the tap leaked and couldn't be anchored in place. The Tap Centre couriered a replacement part the next day, but it was for a different tap. They then sent the correct bit the next day, and Teia came round to re-fit it. In all we were without a kitchen tap for four days, and now it sits perfectly snugly. However the counter weight that pulls the nozzle into place isn't in the right place so it doesn't retract completely. I'm sure Rob will play around with it and sort it out...

Concrete counter

Ok, so this photo doesn't really do it justice, but here's the concrete counter top and our new tap. The counter top is going to have a coating of lacquer and then it'll be buffed to a high shine. This shade of grey might go a tad darker with the lacquer, but then a bit lighter with the buffing. Either way, we'll end up with a concrete coloured counter top, made from, uh, concrete. It's really wide and solid, which should help reduce wear and tear - and cracks, hopefully. The white kitchen with a light grey contrast is an aesthetic I really like, thanks to Pierre Koenig. Recently I read that he'd designed houses with acoustics in mind because he loved music so much. A man after my own heart. It's a shame we forgot to wire up our own home for speakers while the walls were exposed...

Kitchen tap

Five weeks in and I reckon the build probably has another eight weeks to go (not counting the glass which is being manufactured in Germany). Not bad really. At least the end is finally in sight. We've started shopping for various items and it's a combination of frustration (I wish we had another £10,000 to spend on everything!) and fun (oooh, maybe we should go a bit silly on the uplighters, most of them are hideous…).

First purchase was a tap and I have to give a shout out to Tony Morton from The Tap Centre. We emailed back and forth a dozen times because the Burgess II tap we originally wanted was out of stock. Then I thought it was back in stock... but it wasn't... so I had to get clarification on the replacement product several times over. Rob is a stickler for detail and it's not enough for him to know that there's two tap settings, he wants to know where the button is to active it, and what kind of spray settings they are… Anyway, a couple of weeks of going back and forth and I took possession of our new Burgess spray tap (pictured) last week after being couriered overnight. It's actually ten times better than we expected - it came in it's own dust bag, is extraordinarily heavy and much bigger than we thought it would be. The components feel pretty solid and despite having a chrome plated plastic spray attachment, the whole thing looks expensive. It cost £89.95 (RRP £160) and we're pretty chuffed. Can't wait to see it in the kitchen in a few weeks.

Tasty bathroom

Image from wallpaper.com

As mentioned the new bathroom will be about 2/3rds the size of our current one, and we're addressing the lack of natural light with the addition of a Velux window (probably one that opens with a remote control).

This is a photo of a similarly sized bathroom which I really like. The small dark tiles look like they'd wear better than our current big, square, white ones - which weren't sealed properly so the grout always looks like it needs a good scrub. I'm a fan of natural wood too, and the plan is for the architect to design something bespoke to house the pipes and towels.

We had a meeting on Friday morning and discussed bathroom options, instead of a steel bath (which isn't very sensible as it doesn't hold heat) he advised us to go for a Villeroy and Boch Quaryl thing, which retails for about £500 + VAT. Ouch.

Another suggestion he had was to avoid visual clutter by filling the bath using the overflow and a bath filler. This means there'll be no taps in the way when you have a bath too, brilliant.

I really wanted a dual shower head option - one fixed to the ceiling, with another hand held for hosing down surfaces but apparently having a triple mixer (shower head, hand held shower, bath filler) plus a thermostat is a really expensive unit, so I've been talked into just having the hand held... good job I have this blog so I can keep a tally on the compromises!