Bathroom Window

Bedroom Window

Missing Tiles

November Progress

Things are progressing fairly quickly now and we've been working flat out to get the top floor ready for us to move into on the 1st December!

The 2nd floor bathroom is almost complete - with only the architrave left to be decorated. There is a problem with the floor tiles though : ( They were end of line and the builder thought there would be enough, but we ended up being 2 short. The 2 replacements he has supplied are not the same so he's trying to get us some that match - let's hope he does, or there WILL be tears before bedtime!

We now have a tap, with cold running water! We have radiators but no boiler. We have some lights but no fuse board.

October Progress

Rob and Martin have finished all of the plastering on the second floor and its starting to resemble habitable space. Huge thanks to Ian who came over to show Taz how to fit skirting and architrave (the phrase "blind leading the blind" springs to mind!). Also thanks to Fox who has been working with us for the last few weekends. He's started stripping paint off the staircase and now I've discovered that the paint comes off the spindles fairly easily, he'll have plenty to do over the coming weeks.

Other progress; some of the double glazing has been fitted and I have finished painting the 1st and 2nd floor external window sills (although not ideal while all the dust and grit is still flying around). The finish is a little gritty, but had to be done as the scaffold is finally coming down this week.

This week we are expecting to see lots more plastering to the first floor and the tiling in the 2nd floor bathroom to begin. Malcolm is also putting in an appearance to put in some major cables and hopefully do a partial 2nd fix where he can. Hooray lights! This will enable me to do some decorating in the evenings during the week at least.

New Roof

Second Floor Bedrooms

Second Floor Landing

The inevitable low(s)

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later! We hadn't had a bill from the builder for 8 weeks and what a shocker it turned out to be... almost all of our budget and we are not nearly finished! That was just over a week ago, we've just about got over the shock and are trying to come up with a solution to fund the rest of the project. Anyone want to buy a child?

The main roof is now complete and the roofers are finishing off the smaller roof at the rear. The velux windows are great, especially the one above the landing. We personally didn't achieve a great deal at the weekend, we were both exhausted and demoralised from worrying about additional funding. As soon as we have detailed costs we can arrange additional borrowing - just hope the interest rates don't increase too much!

Progress

The roof is coming off today and plastering has started downstairs. I'll take some photos at the next possible opportunity, we should se esome vast improvements over the next few weeks.

Mulching Schmulching

It's been a couple of hectic weeks. The was away for 2 weeks, leaving his very capable and lovely son to manage the job. Rob was finishing off rebuilding the front of
the house, only to find he'd managed to put the window back off centre!! Rob has now put it back to its correct postion and has promised me he will start plastering next week.
The plumbers have completed first fix. We were having a few problems with mains pressure but Severn Trent water are going to replace the lead mains pipe in the street to a wider one. The builders will also have to dig up the drive to lay a new feed from the street to the house (hopefully this Saturday).

All the render has now been removed from the side wall. Its been acid cleaned and is back to its original red brick state and looks great. I'm thinking I'll have a go at repointing whilst the scaffolding is still in place!

The Spouse and I have been busy: I've been stripping and sanding the exterior stone work in preparation for decoration. Balancing on the scaffolding has been quite hairy at times, but managed not to fall off. The Spouse has been going over all the interior walls removing any final scraps of wallpaper in preparation for plastering.

Thanks to Fox who has been helping out in the garden, he's cleared most of the flower beds and getting rid of loads of crap that was left behind. It's starting to resemble a real garden!

Last weekend was a joy; Ben (The Spouse's Brother-in_law) arrived with his chain saw to chop down the 8 leylandii that were an eyesore and too close to the house for my liking. I'd like to say it went smoothly, well it did in terms of no one lost any limbs. But it was a bit hair-raising at times. The Spouse ended up holding a rope that was tied to a large tree which desperately wanted to fall into the neighbour's garden. Ben and Fox narrowly diverted a potential disaster by coming to his rescue. We were gutted to find two very stunned baby birds and their nest in the debris, but we helped them to safety and haven't seen them since. After a full day of cutting down trees the chainsaw blade became blunt and we had to stop. Ben is returning on saturday to finish the job. We are also hiring a mulching machine to dispose of the waste responsibly. (If anyone wants weed free mulch for your flower beds you can come and collect this saturday between 11am - 4pm).

Bathroom SHOPPING!

Whilst we were away Rob the builder erected the stud wall for the 2nd floor bathroom. Its gonna be a good size bathroom and doesn't impose too much on the two bedrooms.

This has been a very exciting week in terms of spending (although I reckon the Spouse would disagree!) I met the builder on tuesday in Nottingham to purchase all the bathroom fittings. We manaaged in the space of 3 hours to buy all the fittings for the 3 bathrooms and 1 cloakroom. And the builder is not one to hold you back when it comes to shopping.. (if only the Spouse was this good at encouraging me to purchase shoes). I won't bore you with the details of my purchases now as they will hopefully emerge via this blogg in the not too distant future.

The Spouse, the builder and I met up again on thursday to purchase the tiles. The builder took us to the Nottingham Tile Warehouse in Stapleford. These guys are amazing and have some fabulous stock. I would put a link to their website here but don't have one. Am VERY happy with everything we got here and can't wait to see it in situ.

Bang goes the contingency fund.

Grenada was amazing, really recommend the Spice Island Beach Resort to anyone considering a holiday in Grenada, it exceeded all our expectations. The Spouse, Phil, Mill and Mo all managed to get their PADI's. I attempted a dive but only managed 2 metres before hyperventilating and clawing off the instructors face... never again!
The builder called me towards the end of our first week with the bad news that the front wall of the house needed rebuilding from the 1st floor up. The original survey hadn't detected the problem despite the fact that the wall was sagging over 3 inches out from its original position. We may possibly have a case for suing the surveyor, which would at least enable us to recoup the costs of remedial work. But this has also put us back at least 2 weeks. : ((

Wallpaper Stripping Done!

The Spouse and I finally removed the last of the wallpaper this Saturday. The Spouse is overjoyed as he hated this task apparently. Think he's going to hate stripping paint more. Ah well, I'll surprise him with that when we return from our well earned break in Grenada. This is where we are going (sorry!)
Thanks to Clough who did a fabulous job on taming the garden for us, if we had left it at the rate it was growing we would never have found the greenhouse again.

Malcolm the Bright Sparky and his Crew are starting first fix electrics on Wednesday. The roof still hasn't been replaced yet, but we are keeping our fingers crossed it happens whilst we're away. I'm really looking forward to seeing great progress on our return.

Kitchen Ceiling, Joists and Lintel

Rob the Builder, can he fix it? Yes he can!

Rob created the opening for a much larger window in the ensuite last week and virtually rebuilt the very knackered wall. The ensuite is really taking shape - we almost have walls!

Ensuite is Taking Shape!

Bedrooms 3 & 4 and Hole for New Bathroom

Roof Space and Bedroom 3

2nd Floor Landing & Loft Access

July Photos: 1st Floor Landing & View through the loft space to the 1st Floor Bathroom

July Photos: Dressing Room & 1st Floor Bedroom

July Photos: 1st Floor Landing & Master Bedroom

July Photos: Hall & Lounge

Loft Space and Ensuite

Destruction is finally coming to an end (until the extension plans are approved at least) and construction has begun. In addtion to the unplanned bathroom on the second floor we also asked them to remove a precarious chimney breast they uncovered in the old shower room. This will give us an additional foot of space in the new family bathroom.

The builders have been putting concrete lintels in everywhere. The photo above shows the new access to the loft space, the top left hand corner is daylight, they were rushing to finish laying the bricks before it rained (again!). We will eventually board out that space and use it for storage. You can also see where the bathroom ceiling will be.

The second photo shows the new access from the master bedroom into the ensuite. The small window in the ensuite will be replaced with a slightly larger window under which the loo will go. All of the joists in the ceiling are being replaced in this section as they are rotten. this also provides the opportunity to higher the ceiling as we need to raise the floor level in the ensuite to reuce the number of steps down to it and and to conceal the underfloor shower tray.

Spouse and I are at the house for a long day tommorow as we are having sunday off, so will get lots more photos.

July Progress

The builders are making progress. Scaffolding started going up last week and is now complete. The roofer is a little delayed on other jobs due to the miserable weather we've been experiencing.

The Spouse and I are there every weekend stripping wallpaper, we have reached the ground floor already but the ceilings here are proving a lot more difficult than the others. Any assistance with stripping in the next couple of weeks much appreciated. We were both a little shocked last saturday when we went up to the first floor to find a huge landing where the bathroom, shower room and loo used to be. The ripping out is an immense and filthy job, we are onto our second skip and the rubble just keeps coming. 1metre of plaster and render has been hacked off on the ground floor in preparation for the damp proof course. The existing kitchen ceiling has come down revealing a lack of lintel above the window and the bathroom floor is like a wooden trampoline. The builder assures me this isn't a huge problem though.. gulp!

The Spouse and I have made a decision to put another bathroom on the top floor to service the 2 bedrooms up there. this wasn't part of our original plan but while the place is a building site it makes sense. We are also considering replacing the window in the current dining room, which is to become the study, with hard wood french doors (watch this space). The builder assures me that they will stop destroying the house by the end of this week and start putting it back together.

We have approved the plans from the architects and these are now with the planners. We are keeping everything crossed that this all runs smoothly and no one objects. If you're interested take a look at the plans:
1ST FLOOR
GROUND FLOOR
SIDE ELEVATION
REAR ELEVATION
SECTION

June Progress

June has been quite a hectic month socially, I did spend my birthday at the house with The Spouse taking down the ceilings on the top floor (more later). We appointed a builder and a great architect to draw up the plans for the extension, I met him at the house with my initial drawings back in May and I know he knows exactly what I want. He has come up with some fabulous ideas for the roof too.

Having discussed with the builder things that The Spouse and I can do to help keep the costs down, he suggested we take down the ceilings on the top floor. Armed with crow bar and club hammer, new steps, gloves and masks The Spouse and I started taking down the ceilings.

Our approach? Bang it hard enough and it will eventually fall down.

The reality? As The Spouse was working on the high areas using the steps, I was limited to working on areas I could reach. Luckily, the rooms at the top are in the eaves of the roof so there is plenty of ceiling area within reach. (I use the word 'luckily' very loosely) After taking down a couple of meters of lathe and plaster we began to hear a frightening slipping noise coming from outside, on the roof. the sound of heavy concrete roof tiles perhaps slipping gently downwards. I rushed outside and looked up at the side of the roof I'd been working on to see a scarily sized hole (approx 40x50cm). I wasn't too phased by it, as I knew the builder would be replacing the roof in a couple of weeks and it was summer, the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. So back to the roof I go to carry on bashing away at the plaster. To be on the safe side, I thought I'd work on the opposite side for a bit. My arms were getting slightly tired at this stage, we were both covered in black dust and visibility, well it could've been better. So when I missed the plaster and hit the the roof felt a few times I wasn't prepared for the cascade of sliding concrete tiles that I heard. Neither was I prepared for the vast hole I could see from the road. The Spouse being his usual resourceful self in situations of crisis was running around crying like an hysterical female lead in a 70's disaster movie. The Spousal problem was easily resolved with a quick but stinging slap to the face, the roof would take a little more effort. The builder was consulted. He came up trumps and sent over his small but very strong son, who had to assemble his 3 way ladder up to the roof, in blistering heat, with only a scorned Spouse to hold the ladder (rather him than me).

Many thanks to the builder's son, the house was water tight once again. There was no more summer sunshine after that day, just the wettest June since records began.

Initial Excitement

After several fraught months of dealing with the vendor/agent (yes the same person) we ended up owning the house at the end of May. We sold our house in April and agreed to break the chain because our buyers, Dan and Jane, had a cash buyer for theirs and they were keen (read desperate) to get in. Luckily, Phil and Tam invited us to stay with them for a month until we could move into ours. Once we were settled (terms of our tenancy verbally and therefore LEGALLY agreed - it'll take them months of legal action to prove otherwise) I could focus on planning the renovation and extension. Luckily, Tam and Phil said we could stay as long as we liked (saving themselves a few quid on legal proceedings). Seriously, thanks so much guys, we really appreciate it, would like to say we'd do the same for you some time... but we won't.

The first task was to clear the house of anything that wasn't actually nailed down and many things that were. The first weekend after the house was officially ours, we (read I) were keen to get in and start work. Carpets needed taking up, furniture needed removing and we took out the kitchen with some help from The Spouse's brother-in-law, Phil (thanks so much, more on your help later) and my sister-in-law Tam (in this case: more moral support than potentially-breaking-a-nail assistance). Thanks to Penny and David for providing the lovely lunch and birthday cake for the Spouse. Yes, so it was my lovely husband's birthday, but you have to remember that we had waited ages to own the house (problems with tenants) and patience not being one of my virtues I was VERY eager to get in. The Spouse was keen to be celebrating his birthday, ah well maybe another year.

I have been planning the renovations for months, and in my head everything was running like clockwork. So not sure how I had The Spouse in a starring role of DIYist extraordinaire. His inital task of removing the kitchen threw up a barrage of 'skills' issues. Luckily Phil was on hand with 100% common sense and a fully stocked tool box. Incidentally all the units and appliances were reused - I gifted them via freecycle.