Day zero of the bathroom project

We've been planning this one for years. It's the finally step in future-proofing our little one-storey terrace so that we can keep living here for as long as possible, even if we become decrepit (or more decrepit) as we age.

For a year or so we've had an agreement with our builders, who did our most recent reno here at no 8 Finlay Street and the complete make-over of 1A Little O'Grady Street, that if they found themselves with a 2-3 week gap in their schedule, we'd like a bathroom makeover.

And it's TIME. Tony gave us a call last week to say they could start Monday 5 September. That's tomorrow.

Under current lockdown rules, builders can't work on a site that's occupied, so we are moving next door to 1A for the duration. We can return to the "big house" in the evenings to cook dinner and watch TV, but we need to be out by the time they start work in the morning. Given our attitude to early rising, it's no surprise that we've decided to sleep and breakfast elsewhere.

So today we had two jobs to do. One was to move everything we need for sleeping, bathing, dressing and breakfasting next door. The other was readying the house for builder invasion. This meant

• Emptying the bathroom cupboards. Lots of mysterious and ancient objects have been thrown into a box. Serious culling will be done when they are returned to new cabinetry, which may be some time away.
• Removing a nearly dead orchid and the cat litter tray from the bath (that's all it's ever used for)
• Clearing out all the other odds and sods from shelves, benchtops, basins, and the shower.
• Writing GOES or STAYS on various items so it's clear what the few things are that are staying in place.
• Removing all the pictures from the hallway so that they can't get damaged by a bath on the way out. That means there are more than a dozen bits of art leaning against the bedroom wall and the hall looks so bare. I hadn't realised just how much we've got on display in that long skinny space.

Bare hallway, except for the panels destined for the walls of the new shower. 

What will happen over the next few weeks? If it all goes to plan, at the end we will have:

• a much larger, shiny new shower recess where the bath was
• new cabinetry and at least one new sink. One cabinet will just be a new version of what's there. The other will be a slightly larger under-trough cupboard which will be located where the washing machine now resides. 
• relocated stacked washer/dryer - will now be where the old shower was.
• new wall panelling (no wall tiles)
• new floor tiles
• new taps, towel rails, fans, lights, heaters

- all in all bathroom that will work even when we're on walkers.

Watch this space for a daily update.