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Rendering and Kitchen Window

david — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:03:57 +0000

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.

Office and French Doors Started

david — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:59:32 +0000

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

The New Lounge Wall

david — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:01:03 +0000

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.

No Longer A House

david — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:19:26 +0000

In fact, it’s barely some walls now that they’ve started hitting things downstairs.

Old Lounge Steel

They cleared off the covering of the original steels which is going to be replaced eventually.

Lounge From Front Door

The lounge looks quite large from the front door. I particularly like the light switches which are free hanging in the middle of the room – shame they couldn’t use invisible wiring.

Lounge From The Corner

This view looks into the new part of the lounge, that we’ve pinched from the kitchen area.

Kitchen Joist Removed

They also removed the old steel in the kitchen which was holding up the old back wall, but since that’s been removed the steel was no longer needed.

Amanda Helping Out

Amanda’s keen to get on with the decorating, so has started to remove the wall paper from the lounge walls.

15th Feb 2010 – Downstairs Begins

david — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:07:39 +0000

I think this is about the point at which we stop living in a house, and start living in a building site. They started downstairs today; we spent the weekend packing up and moving everything from the lounge that we could, and as much as we could from the hall/kitchen area.

View From The Fireplace

This was what greeted us this-evening when we returned – a couple of pit props holding up the lounge roof and a gaping hole where there was a wall (and radiator) this-morning.

Through The Looking Hole

And inside what was once a separate room, there’s more pit props, a few bits of now redundant central heating pipe and a socket that clearly won’t meet building regs, given that it’s just hanging around on the wires from the floors.

Thankfully I moved the telephone socket over the weekend so that didn’t get trashed, and it means we also have the internet – so we still feel part of society, even if we’re living in a sty.

We’re starting to wonder when our last meal cooked in the current kitchen is going to be – the only warm room to eat in now is the bedroom, and the cooker is about the only useful heating system we have downstairs.

12th Feb 2010

david — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:52:25 +0000

I’ve lost track of the days on the build, but they’re still making progress.

The Wood Pile

Out side we have a big pile of wood (which was tidied up by Monday night). It appears to be mostly the frame of the roof from the kitchen.

Lightwell

The lightwell in the en-suite has been framed, although the window isn’t in yet. It’s a touch larger than I imagined, and takes up about a third of the total roof space, we’ll be able to bathe by moonlight.

New Roof, Old Tiles

The old tiles went on the back of the house, as you can see above.

Lights and Switches

The printouts I gave the builders with markings for where we wanted lights and the switches has been transferred to the new bedroom, mostly by use of a bit of chalk. They’ve put the boxes in for the socket, including one half way up the wall for a TV when we get that far; do need to figure out how we get the Sky scart signal to it and some other bits of wire that I’d forgotten about.

Up To Day 28

david — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:32:24 +0000

It’s been a while, but I was in Tokyo for a week and then didn’t get to see the house in daylight when I had the camera to hand for a bit.

So, the roof frame was built, eventually covered in weatherproof tyvek and the hole where the window will go was boarded up – it’s not a very good insulator on it’s own is that tyvek and board – house is now very cold.

Another brick less in the wall

They started to take the inner wall down now that they’ve done the brick work. Window still in place though (this was just after I’d returned from Tokyo). All the rubble is plied up inside the bedroom as we don’t have a skip outside yet.

Why have only one roof

The old kitchen roof is still there, with the new one above it. Lots of natural light in the room during the daytime, bit dark and cold at night.

Roof poking over scaffold

You can just about make out the top of the new roof poking over the top of the scaffold (a taller photographer would have got more in). Not yet tiled yet as we haven’t seen the samples at this point.

Looking better already

From the front you can see that it already looks better, with the flat roof gone and a nicely tied in roof replacing it. The tiler has started to re-use some of the tiles, but the ones from the kitchen roof are a different shape and colour so they can’t be used easily on the front – going to have to choose some different ones.

ePub formatting and specificaiton

david — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 07:38:28 +0000

http://www.lexcycle.com/faq/how_to_create_epub

Contains links to tools to convert to ePub format and also through to the specification.

Day 12 – Blockwork appears finished

david — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 17:31:25 +0000

Finished Blockwork

Friday morning the scaffolder arrived and put in the ’second lift’ which allows the builders to finish off the block work on the bedroom. They arrived in the afternoon and got on with that, meaning they don’t have to turn up on Saturday now.

The snow has now cleared in the back yard so you can see all the tiles lined up ready for putting on the front of the house when the new roof is complete. The water butt is now upright, thanks to the builders, and will drain out once all the water inside defrosts.

Tiles and water butt

Also had a look at how we would lay out the bedrooms once it’s all complete and have come to the conclusion that we may need to move an internal wall in order to get the en-suite into the main bedroom without that bedroom becoming too small.

Building Begins – Days 8 and 9

david — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:47:44 +0000

Day 8 and the brickies arrived hoping to be able to lay some bricks. The weather conspired against them, but they did move the bricks from around the front of the house to the back in piles on the scaffolding ready for when they started.

Day 9 and it’s sufficiently warm enough for the brickies to get on with it. The picture below taken a few hours into the day and they’ve already made good progress. The rolls of padding I’d seen in the garden turn out not to be cladding to keep the roof warm, but insulation for between the walls.

First day of bricklaying

Working from home was entertaining today; the cement mixer is right outside my office window, so there’s been a constant sound of that in the background of all my phone calls today. The brickies working out the back are getting on with it, but it sometimes sounds as if they’re throwing the bricks onto the wall from some distance.

Tomorrow I’m lead to believe the scaffolder is returning to put another layer on for them as they’ve got as far as they can go right now. They should finish Thursday (Day 11) and the new roof timbers are arriving on Friday – given the chaos when the bricks were delivered I think I’ll make sure I’m out of the way and safely at work before they all turn up.