As H&D regular readers may remember, I'm currently renovating an 1895 Victorian House, and when I say renovating, I don't mean from the comfort of a caravan in the garden, 2 weeks and you're done kind of project, I mean 12 months slow frustrating progress complete with fed-up wife and overly helpful and productive 2 year old.

We're within sight of the finish line now and the Electrician tells me he only has one day left on the total rewire (and that's basically just the snagging list). The plasterer is long gone (in a cloud of pink dust), and the plumber still has a sink and en-suite to plumb in, but that can wait until the new year.

But the project still left to do which is causing me the most heartache at the moment is the carpet. We ripped up the old thick-pile orange carpet (not our choice of colour, but felt lovely on your feet), preparing for new carpet to be laid throughout. And now we're cold.

So cold.

I don't think I'd really though about the draught-excluding properties that a layer of hardboard, a layer of underlay, a layer of carpet, and actually having skirting boards has on a house, especially a house with floorboards, and a 2 foot air-gap underneath.

You can feel the wind coming up between the boards, and from the gaps where the skirting boards once proudly sat nailed to the walls.

I will get around to laying the new carpet, once I've done the hardboarding, and the cutting, painting, and affixing of the skirting boards, and the repair of the floorboards the plumber split when laying the new central heating. But for now, we're relying on having the central heating on and the fire burning - that's one thing the Victorians definitely got right, the fire is fantastic, and we're currently experimenting with the most efficient fuel to burn - in fact we've set up a poll we'd like you all to vote on... what is the best fuel to burn on a fire?

About the Author

Adam Colthorpe

Adam, his wife and 2 year old daughter live in a late Victorian house in Kent. Having moved in August 2008, they have been breathing life back into the house through a combination of renovation and decoration.