More March Photos

March Progress - much progress

The foundations were poured, walls built and steels erected whilst we were away skiing! In only a couple of days they had most of the timber in place for the roof. The glass is on order and is a 4 week lead, which means the job is on hold until it arrives. The majority of the flat roof can be laid next week.

February Progress - Polish Builders & Foundations

We have a new set of builders. So far so good. They quickly demolished the old utility room and dug the foundations in only a day.

Issues

Well its been a long time since I posted anything. We eventually moved into the house on Dec 1st into the top floor. We worked really hard to get it ready in time. The builder eventually pulled his finger out and managed to cobble together a partial heating system (with enough nagging) so we didn't freeze to death. It took us 2 days to move the little stuff that's not in storage and by sunday evening I was ready for a hot shower and bed. Slight problem.... on running the shower no hot water appeared. There was plenty in the basin so couldn't understand. There could of course be one possible explanation... but surely not... surely our quality plumber couldn't make such a glaring mistake.. yes the toilet was flushing hot! Oh joy of joys - you can imagine our displeasure (will say no more on this subject, just taking a few deep breaths).

So went to work on monday morning smelling like a drain, and called the builder to let him know the problem. Was promised this would be fixed that day, so looked forward to getting home and having a shower. On our return I was greeted by water coming through the first floor ceiling and our temporary carpet in our one room wringing wet. Said plumber had 'fixed the radiator in our room but failed to tighten the fittings so water had been pissing out all day. He'd obviously come across it and fixed it, but then left for the day without telling anyone or attempting to clean up the mess (deep breaths). Oh well at least we had hot water in the shower - what more can you ask?

A couple of days later we are tucked up in bed and just about nodding off when Amilia is shouting that her radiator is leaking. Thinking its a slight drip I tell her to put a tray under it and we'll sort it in the morning. But her shouts became more panicked and I open her door to see her holding the top corner of her radiator, attempting to stem the water that is pissing out at a magnificent rate. Again said plumber failed ot tighten the valve.

This was by no means the end of the plumbing issues, but I won't go on as there's plenty of other issues to digress.

We are now in a dispute with our builder. After receiving multiple, unexpected, astronomical invoices and the cost of completion escalating on a daily basis confronted the builder with the assistance of a contract assessor - can't really say much more here as its ongoing and quite stressfull. Needless to say internal work came to a halt just before Christmas.

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!