The deocrators arrived last week and have made good progress. They’ve painted the en-suite, and the bedroom and are now fitting coving and skirting boards. Admittedly they do look like extra’s from a Dexy’s Midnight Runners video.
Dexy's Midnight Runners
They have done a lovely job cutting in the wall and ceiling, shame I’d forgotten to tell them there was coving to go up. It’s nice to know that under the coving the painting is perfect as well.
Cutting In
We’ve finally decided on the paint for the lounge, so that can be completed as soon as we’ve purchased it.
Tester Paint
The downstairs toilet is now fitted; needs plastering and then painting, but it’s in. The electrician has to complete his work in there first of all before that can be completed though.
New Toilet
The new porch is being completed. It’s a bit smaller than we wanted so some alterations have had to happen, the inner skin of the front wall has come down to allow the outer door to open fully so you can get round it to the other end of the porch. It’s also got doors and windows fitted now, pics of that later when I take them.
New Porch
Painting of the kitchen clearly isn’t far off starting since it’s been wrapped up like a CSI crime scene.
Murder Scene
The plastering has finally started, which feels like we’re working towards the final few moves of a long game of chess – it’ll all be done soon and ready for decorating.
Lounge Ceiling Plastering
They also removed the old fire and have opened the fireplace up to what was the original size. This is much better and makes the room feel complete as it pulls the two sides together.
New Fireplace Opened Up
The en-suite is now plastered as well, so once it dries we can apply a mis-coat to it before the toilet and sink are put back in.
En-suite plastered
The granite for the kitchen was fitted yesterday as well, so they can plaster the rest of the walls now and then fit the rest of it. The bit below is pretty much all we have as a kitchen right now for cooking and making coffee.
Kitchen
So, the guys have started fitting the new kitchen.
New Kitchen
Somewhat compact and bijou, they’ve moved the old sink and put it in front of the back door, plumbed it in and also connected up the washing machine – so we can still make coffee in the morning and wash clothes. In the meantime they’re busy fitting the new units but no pictures of them until it’s all complete in there.
They also started to remove the porch today, which is pretty much the last big job that needs doing.
Porch Gone AWOL
So, last week the kitchen was removed in preparation for the fitting of the new one.
Ripped Out Kitchen
Amanda was particularly pleased to see the back of the breakfast bar, which has mainly served as somewhere to put stuff whilst it gets in the way of cooking.
Look No Breakfast Bar
In preparation for the kitchen removal we boxed all the cupboards up and stored them, in the lounge. We also had all the stonework removed from around the fireplace, so it’s looking a bit bare now, but given that the fire no longer works (because it leaks gas) this is a minor problem.
Bare Fireplace
One morning I caught the guys discussing how they were going to plumb in the new drain the en-suite bathroom requires to the existing drain work. They commented that they felt as if they were starting to put the place back together. So it was quite a surprise to come home that evening to find a large hole in the corner of the kithen. Apparently there’s a pipe that ran from the existing drain to the corner of the kitchen and they’re using that to plump in, saves a lot of digging up of our path.
New Hole In Kitchen
The all seeing, all pervasive Google streetspy has been up our road, quite a while back, since we still have a flat roof in the pics there. For posterity, I’ve grabbed a couple of screen shots and present them here, so we can remember quite how ugly it was.
Coleswood Road - Downstreet
Coleswood Road - Upstreet
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Got a chance to get onto the scaffold last week and grab a few pictures of the house and street, an opportunity I probably won’t get again.
Down The Street
Towards The Trainline
New Tiles
New Roof Valley
Back Yard
Soffits
Garden
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
New lounge window inside
Old window bricked up
New Office Window
New kitchen window
New doors and windows at back
Finally the windows have been put in, all except the front door and porch were completed yesterday. It feels as if they’re now at the point of starting to put the house back together, although I think they’ve started to dig up the office floor today, so perhaps that feeling won’t last long.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Tuesday they finished the rendering on the outside of the house, just needs a coat or two of paint now.
Rendering
They also removed the back door and put in the opening for the new kitchen window.
Inside Kitchen
As you can see, the kitchen is pretty much unusable, although that’s mostly because it’s covered in a thick layer of dust every day. We’re resorting to microwave meals and pot-noodles, which are not as nice as they used to be 10 years ago when they were a staple of my diet.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Came home Monday night to find that the opening for the French Windows in the lounge, and the new office window have been created, the frame put in place and then boarded up. The new windows and doors are being fitted Tuesday week.
French Windows
Sadly, they didn’t look at the drawing before starting on the office window, so it’s far too low; the office floor is moving up 6 inches, so with it being as they set it the window would be about 18 inches off the floor. They’re fixing that now.
Office Window
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The guys have now built the new lounge wall so it’s not one huge open space downstairs any more (well, unless you count the lack of door). The steels have gone into the ceiling cavity and are being bricked in tomorrow, then welded together before the inspector comes to check them. There’s one more to get into the lounge, at the back for the French Windows, which is causing some pain as the outside has been rendered over the old pebble dash, which is proving difficult to remove.
New Lounge Wall
I was chatting to the lads trying to figure out where the water main ran under the house, so we can figure out where to put the water softener. We went outside to find the stop cock. Quick prod around revealed it’s probably full of cement from when the steps were build beside it, but it also had a frog down there. They weren’t happy about leaving it there (big softies) so then spent 20 mins in the rain trying to get it out.
Frog Hunting
Quote from two of them during the escapade:
“It’s stuck to the floor.”
“Course it is, gravity will do that”.
Finally they got it out with a couple of bits of wood, and it’s now lurking at the bottom of the rosemary bush.
