The floorboards arrived several weeks ago after a protracted negotiation to have them delivered to the island.
I’m always perplexed when companies say they won’t deliver here – we have a land bridge to the mainland so it’s no more difficult to get a lorry here than it is to Glasgow. But you’d be amazed how many companies simply refuse to deliver to anything other than a mainland address. It’s infuriating.
They arrived in driving rain (of course) so husband and I worked like fury to get them indoors and stacked before the rain soaked through their protective wrappings. This was before my recent operation, thank goodness.
They’ve been stacked in one of the bedrooms for some weeks now acclimatising to the humidity levels in the house, which will hopefully ensure that there’s no warping when we put them down.
We now have them laid in the living and dining room areas and hope to complete the installation in the remaining ground floor areas next week.
These are engineered oak boards from Russwood, a local Scottish company, finished in Osmo oil. They’re designed to be compatible with the underfloor heating that we’ve installed.
We really wanted natural flooring and there are so many options these days with bamboo, stone, porcelain, cork, lino, rubber etc. that it took us a while to sift through the alternatives. I’m hoping that these will prove classic and easy to live with.
The price of wood has gone through the roof over the last twelve months and if we’d waited another year I’m not sure we could have afforded these, but taking the long term view we figured we’d be living with them for a long time, so we should buy the best we could afford.
I’m so glad that we did.
We’ve just ordered the wooden staircase and we’ll be onto the interior doors and skirting boards next.
Ravencroft Skye 
Course the price of wood has gone up. It doesn’t grow on trees you know 😉
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Why oh why is there no groan emoji 😊
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We used Osmo oli on our oak doors and it is fantastic. The delivery costs to the island is rather annoying. I tried to purchase some art paper from a company on line which cost £10.00 and they were going to charge-£16.00 delivery. They will not be getting any of my business. 🤨
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It’s madness, isn’t it. I could understand it if they had ferry costs to get here, but there’s a land bridge! Husband has had some success calling various customer service departments and asking them to double check with the courier that they use, at which point they often say “actually yes, they can do it”…
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Those boards look good. It is really beginning to look like a house now isn’t it! I can sort of understand companies from Southern England thinking deliveries to the islands involves ferries and therefore much more time than usual but you would think a Scottish company would know which did and which have road bridges!
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There’s no reason for it. Just laziness meaning they’d rather not check. It’s an island, isn’t it 🙈
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The end is in sight!! So much finishing to do, all those pesky details like skirting boards and doors and kitchen fittings, then you can move in and spread out. All those firsts to look forward to…
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Thank you. Trying to keep positive that we’re on the final bits..
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You are close. So much progress has been made, you have come so far.
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