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After what seems like endless painting, undercoats and top coats of all the MDF and then walls and ceilings, we eventually finished. The new unit looks great, we've organised someone to refit the carpet next week and there's still some skirting boards to paint at some point but otherwise for now we're finished!

We just got in from our nice dinner out at Monteiths in Edinburgh for Valentine's day. We used open table this year to book it online which was a first having not used the service before. It added a reminder to Google calendar for me and has been reminding me all day, and the restaurant were expecting us too so happy days. Dinner was lovely, Dani had monkfish whilst I settled for some lamb with some roast potatoes on the side. Very nice indeed. Today has been a much nicer day in Edinburgh. The sun has shone all day with blue skies and mild temperatures. We've had a great time so far, visiting Holyrood Palace on Monday and the underground attraction Mary King's Close today.

It was a fairly grey day on Monday when we visited Holyrood. Sadly there aren't many photos as you aren't allowed to take them inside. We had a tour of the state apartments including those of Mary, Queen of Scots, accompanied by an audio guide to tell us what everything was. The palace was really quiet with very few people about. We finished the tour outside the palace in the ruin of Holyrood Abbey which despite its ruined state, maintains some of the structure that gives you an idea of how grand it once was. We were probably only there for a couple of hours including a visit to the cafe so still had time in the afternoon to explore a little further. We headed over the bridge to the new town and walked up Carlton Hill to see the Wellington and Nelson monuments. Reaching the top you are rewarded with a nice view back over Edinburgh and even down over Holyrood Palace. We had a bit more of a wander around before heading back to the hotel. We ate at Byron burger later in the evening as it's really close to the hotel and picked up some desserts from a bakery on the way back.

Today with the sun shining outside, we headed underground. Not the best timing, but nevermind. The Mary King's Close experience takes you underground to the site of one of the original close's of Edinburgh, some of the original buildings still exist now with valuted ceilings to support the Royal Exchange now built above. The tour takes about an hour with a guide taking you though the history of the area and walking you through a number of rooms and buildings including the narrow street that originally ran all the way down to the loch - now filled in and home of the Waverley train station. We spent the afternoon exploring Edinburgh a bit more including a walk around the Grassmarket and a walk up to the Scott monument - which had sadly closed just before we got there.

Edinburgh Castle tomorrow - hope the weather stays nice! 

There were two main jobs to complete today. First we needed to get the extra wood for the shelf back panel, cut and fit it, and secondly we needed to get some paint. We ended up buying another full sheet of MDF and geting some shelves cut, as the size of the piece needed for the back panel required the bigger sheet. Whilst there we had a look at the paint colours as they are in the middle of a 3 for 2 offer. We saw a Farrow and Ball paint colour, "Pigeon" on the colour chart that we quite liked, but B&Q didn't have it in stock, so we ended up coming away with nothing more than a couple of colour charts. On the way back we also picked up shelf supports from Screwfix for our new shelves.

Back at home we decided to make a trip over to Homebase as they tend to have a larger stock of the Farrow and Ball range. Sadly they didn't have any tins eiither, we did ask about ordering it in, but it was going to take 14 days, so the assistant suggested looking online. Back at home again we found we could order the paint from B&Q with the 3for2 offer and get free next day delivery - winniner! With the paint ordered, we made a start on our other job, cutting the back panel. This ended up being a massive faff, with a height difference of more than 10cm from left to right, this was in addition to cutting the angle away from the back. It took a long time but we were really pleased with the final result. We added wooden blocks to the rear or the backpanel and then secured it in place screwing through the underside of the shelf from inside the cabinet into the blocks. Finally we added decorators caulk along the edge where the MDF met the underside of the eave, and the job was complete.