Well it's definitely looking more like a finished room now. The plasterers had finished by the end of Saturday as promised and so the electrics and plumbing can be finished next week.
The only thing we're slightly unsure of is why we appear to have three centre lights when the electrician knows we only wanted two... I just hope the plasterers didn't move the supply cable for the extractor hood into the middle of the ceiling by mistake.
The plasterers have been in today and after two months, we've got a sealed room again! Ok, so there are still a few holes to the outside, but the room is almost entirely plasterboarded. Although it was dark, I managed to get some photos...
It's already feeling a lot warmer in the house; I'm not sure whether that's because we're sealed or whether it's the small heater that's been left on in the kitchen, but it's a definite improvement! Tomorrow the plasterers start skimming and they should be done by the end of Saturday. Next week the electrician and plumbers will be back to put sockets in and connect up the under floor heating! The heated floor will make one happy wife for Christmas!
As always, with good news seems to come bad; nothing too serious, but a few minor problems have been uncovered. The building control plans call for the surface water drainage to go into a soak away. The problem is, the builders have no idea how big the soak away needs to be, nor how deep it needs to go. So.. A bit of phoning around including a call to the architect will be needed to see what we need to do...
Finally, with the freezing cold weather we're getting at the moment (odd for the middle of winter...) The renderer can't come back to do the final cost as it won't adhere properly and will fall off once the weather warms up... As long as water can't get through the first layer, then living with an unfinished outside doesn't really bother us!
One door hung the right way around! It went quite well this time, but I still hate hanging doors...
I've decided hanging doors really isn't a job I enjoy doing. Before today the verdict was still out, but today has confirmed it: I hate it.
I've been battling all afternoon to hang the spare room door so we can scrap an old one which is in the way most of the time. The first frustration was when I was planing it down and it suddenly dug down too deep and took the veneer off down to the ugly chipboard underneath. I was just about at the point where it'd close without fouling on anything when I came to the devastating realisation that I'd hung it on the wrong side!! It's the way most modern doors would open into a room, but unfortunately the way I've hung it blocks the light switch.
Not all is lost however as the door should be the right way around for our bedroom when I come to replace that... Always look on the bright side of life!
It was the first fit for electrics today, nothing too exciting to report as there's no fittings, just wires. What is exciting though is the board has been removed from the back of the kitchen door which means we can go into the kitchen from the main house again! We no longer have to go outside to see the progress made!
Who knew doors could be so problematic? After we finally went through the pain of choosing different doors and paying extra to get the new ones delivered quickly, they still got delayed! It didn't make too much difference because the joiners weren't arriving until today... The doors finally did arrive, but instead of just fitting the doors, the joiners had to assemble them too!
Still, they're finally in and fingers crossed, we're now watertight! Despite not being our first choice I'm very pleased with them now! They really do look good. (Pictures to follow when I get a chance to see them in the light...)
Next steps, electrics and plastering then we're done!!
Today wasn't quite as productive as yesterday but that was mainly due to having a long (and well needed) lie in!
I started off the day (read as afternoon...) with some decorative work on the wardrobes. When we custom fitted them we left some rather ragged looking edges exposed where we'd had to cut through the veneer. I basically just stuck some decorative facias on top to hide the ugly cuts...
The second and time consuming job of the day was to tackle the Soffits which had fallen down before we even bought the house. The front facia which holds the guttering and soffits in place had rusted through the screws of one of it's brackets and as a consequence they'd fallen down. I wasn't planning on tackling it quite yet, but the neighbours are having their roof re-tiled and guttering re-done. As we share the down spout we needed something doing with ours before they could re-fit theirs. It took a few hours and was freezing cold, but in the end the improvement to the look of the front of the house made it worth it!
Well today was infinitely more productive than last weekend, but that's mainly because this time last weekend I was in bed feeling sorry for myself.
I've varnished three doors, fitted a floor stop, blocked up and insulated a hole in the wall and finally, hung a mirror.
The screeding guys finished this morning and so as usual I went to check the progress. I got around the back of the house though and was rather disappointed... The guys had covered up the back door hole which meant I couldn't see in! I managed to peel back one corner of the tarpaulin and eventually saw our new floor!
Having lived with a building site for the last month or so it's finally turned the corner and has started looking a bit more like a finished room. By Monday we'll be able to walk on it!
Let's just hope it doesn't get windy this weekend though otherwise I don't think that the blocked up back door will stay blocked up for long.
Well not quite, but definitely a step in the right direction. We've now got windows installed and a back door. One concern is that the door is currently untreated meaning that if it gets a soaking it might stain it or worse still delaminate! It's currently covered up with some plastic sheeting as best as can be expected. Let's just hope we're lucky with the weather until I get chance to paint it.
Well today was an interesting day. We were supposed to be getting our doors and windows fitted today to hopefully get us closer to being water tight. At 9 o'clock the phone rang and it was the project manager; there's a delay with the door manufacturer and they won't be able to deliver until February!! Three weeks lead time had turned into three months! Not the best start to the day... One problem I remember us having initially with the doors was that there was only one place we'd found that made the doors exactly as we wanted... We've got a few options open to us, but we'll have to wait a few days to see in which direction we go...
The day never really got any better. There was part of the build so far which was concerning Mel the steel that had gone in to support the upstairs will wasn't properly supported. The builders tried to reassure me that it was fine, but I wasn't convinced. I decided to give building control a call and they confirmed my worries. Some patching up work well need to be done, but at least it's still accessible and shouldn't be too much trouble to rectify.
At the end of the day however, the project manager came round and alleviated all our worries. The remedial work will be done (to satisfy building Regs this time), and we discussed what to do with the door. Fingers crossed we'll come to something we're happy with!
We now have a level floor! It's not the finished surface, but it's yet another step closer! We've also had the 'cavity trays' installed at the insistence of building control. It's a good job we're having the back rendered as it's made a mess of the wall!
