A whiter shade of pale

Well I think these deck stairs are starting to look really good, what do you think?

We take pride in our colour choices. We agonise for days about different shades. We must have all the Resene paint colour swatches. So we thought a nice off-white with a hint of green would go nicely with the red kitchen units. Jo liked the fact it was called Ionian, like some Greek god of kitchens. So when we asked when they would be doing our final coat of Ionian only to be told the white walls were in fact Ionian, we were a bit confused. It didn't look like the Ionian colour we had chosen. So, after we were blamed for choosing a niche paint colour, which seems a bit unfair, it turns out the paint mixer has done this before and not quite matched the colour very well (or even close which surely means they have failed as a paint mixer). So we are going to get the kitchen in and then see if we want to get the proper colour painted. 

The Ionian colour card against the wall apparently painted in Ionian. If only the painter had done this kind of comparison before he painted 128 square meters of it. 

We had planned to tile the area under the kitchen and island, and then leave the rest of the room as floorboards. But we decided not to because it would create a lip between the tiles and floorboards which might be annoying when moving the island stools out or trying to place the dining table. We have instead decided to go with the existing floorboards so that there is one level floor throughout the room.  

Another insight into the history of the house.  This is before our time - the cut out section is where stairs down to the basement used to go. The steps are still in the basement. This section, and the triangular section in the top left, now need to be replaced to blend it in with the surrounding floorboards. 

The work in progress to replace the cut out section. 

Spot the kitchen. Despite the fact that we had made the decision to not tile the floor which meant they couldn't put the kitchen in yet, Goldmark insisted on bringing in the kitchen and all our kitchen appliances which have now filled up our second bedroom. 

Central heating update: hopefully it will be turned on tomorrow. 

Mouse update: mice not dead despite putting down loads of poison - there's too much other food for them to eat. They are now scrabbling around the walls in the middle of the night.