So living in the house for the past month and a bit has allowed me to ease off the pressure a bit and start snagging / finishing some of the details. 

I have underfloor heating under the main bathroom tiles but it wasn't working well. Barely noticeable at 40oC !! Turns out the electrician wired in both temperature sensors and it was adding the values together so after Schluter tech support suggested I check - I removed one pair of wires, lo and behold I have a warm floor. Really nice experience but uses about 2.5kW for an hours worth of heat. One advantage is it warms the room and as I'm still waiting on the bathroom door this keeps it more comfortable than it had been first thing in the morning. I've set a schedule using the app and the controller connects it online via wifi. Working well now! 

Alongside this I've a load of sensors and smart lights, switches and sockets around the house. Now I'm in a position to setup Home Assistant for the first time and figure out what I want it to do. I setup an initial dashboard to organise the myriad of sensors and entities and allow me easier monitoring and control. Work in progress but have a look at the setup below! 

I've still to figure out Daikin integration (The app works fine, just nice to have more data / energy usage in one place) and get my Sonos text alerts to work but I'm making progress. I have older Hikvision cameras but the integration for that isn't working yet. I wanted to use human detection to trigger security lights front and rear but for now I'm using the smart doorbell out front and might use a contact sensor on the rear lift and slide door to rig something up - otherwise newer cameras might make things easier but I'm not giving up yet! There's a lot you can do with Home Assistant besides automating lights - one of the rewards of building your own house just as you like it!! 

A lot of the newer appliances come with some type of smart integration but sometimes you don't want them all spying on you so just a smart socket that tells you when power usage drops to zero for more than 5 minutes is enough to warn you that the washing / drying cycle is finished in a notification message you can choose and hear. I've a couple of sockets that can do exactly this! 

I've start selling off some of the left over items as I don't need them anymore and have had some success. I can see more easily what I'll need and use now than I did before. Some of my appliances survived storage some didn't but I've ended up replacing everything at this point and registered 5 year warranties where available to maximize returns. One less headache! 

Over Christmas the plan is to finish the living room so I can sell the scaffolding tower and move the last of my furniture in. I put the sheeting on the rear oriel window and bought some cushions / edging and a blanket so it's suitable for reading a book / relaxing in. The bottom edge is already getting frayed so I'll need to source something tougher to withstand punishment. 

Next project is finishing the internal window at the landing that overlooks the living room. Got a price of €900 for the glazing - I'm blocking off the right side but will have a small window on the left in addition to the big main window. Again, there's a seat up there to perch on with a book and relax in and a double socket at your feet to plug a charge / light into etc. 

I've only 2 areas left to plasterboard, the vaulted ceiling in the living area and the landing/stairwell. Hope to give these a good shot over Xmas and then settle on filling, sanding, priming and painting in January. That camera faces the kitchen in the picture above to let me monitor any pots from boiling over when I cook! Also if I'm away and the fire alarm goes off and I get a notification I can check the internal cameras for the likely course so see if it's just smoke or fire! 

The only mystery now is a noise from somewhere at 4:45am every morning that wakes me up. My EV car is parked outside my bedroom window so I suspect that's the source but it only lasts 3 seconds so I might have to set my alarm early and record it but it's just SO early when you have work the next day.....