Progress report week 11

Well another bank holiday week means only 4 days available by Thursday the building regs drawings were ready so work could start up again. Firstly more scaffolding. The scaffolding is now up to the level of the roof. The builders spent Friday removing all the tiles from the roof. Chris had a great time up there with them! Then they cut a hole in the roof to get in and out. A steel went in to support the dormer. By the time I came back from a bit of shopping I found out we had hit a major problem. The structural engineer had assumed that one of our walls was a supporting wall when it isn't. This meant the engineer had to spend the weekend redrawing the drawings for us and making everything run at 90 degrees to the original plan!! It looks like we could easily have a 2 week delay due to changes in the steels, and other things. - Complete nightmare!

Progress report week 10

Again another quiet week while all the building regs are sorted for the loft conversion. The weather hasn't been conducive to doing much work on the roof for much of the week anyway until the weekend. This week the builders have blocked up the windows in the bathroom completely as the main bathroom window will be in the back wall not the side wall (or the study wall as it now is) so we now have no natural light in the bathroom or the kitchen.
They have moved the soil pipe so it is now inside rather than out. And we have a mole hole! For those who don't know a mole hole is defined as

mole hole -noun a cupboard, usually under the stairs which holds a large amount of "stuff" often including vacuum cleaner, torch, hot water bottles and random things needed at unexpected but regular intervals. It is unusual but not impossible for a house to have two mole holes, this is not advised however due to the extreme confusion which usually results when "stuff" is returned to the wrong mole hole.

This means our kitchen is now back to the size it was when we bought the house and we remember why we wouldn't buy the house unless we found a way to make it a little larger (just as a temporary measure, one which lasted 8 1/2 years!!)

We had a few icecreams on the roof today as the sun is out!!

Progress report week 9

It's been a quiet week but a busy day!!
We haven't seen the builders all week till today as they couldn't do much till the building regs drawings are through for the loft conversion. Our bathroom walls are now held up entirely by the steels (or at least they will be once the cement dries) It's all very exciting.

Water in the kitchen

Who would have thought it? We have the novelty of water in our kitchen, yes running water in the kitchen!!!!
It's one of those things which I hadn't fully appreciated before, how much we really use and how often I go to the sink to wash hands, put water in a pan, wash food, make drinks etc, etc, etc and that's before I even star to think about washing up or cleaning surfaces. Well now we have water in the kitchen so it's all great. (the only trouble is we keep going to the other room to fill the kettle!!!)

This means that the kitchen is pretty much complete until we get the whole thing done with new units, flooring and work surfaces etc but that wont happen till the extension is finished.

Progress report week 8

Another 4 day week due to the bank holiday has made for a week with fewer photos than previously. The builders have pretty much finished the walls now and are ready to move onto the loft and roof. They've finished the pointing on the front wall and it looks fantastic. There may be a bit of a delay while the details of the loft conversion are finalised.


Meanwhile Chris has done some work in the new kitchen. photos here

Progress report week 7 and Lofts

In one week the second floor has arrived! It seems amazing.










Today the planning permission for the loft has arrived. We are allowed a rear dormer as long as its the right colour!! This will mean more time spent on the job but will be worth it in the end.

Progress report Week 6

This week has been a weird one which has brought both progress and frustrations. We now have a house surrounded by scaffolding. We have bricks at the front and breeze blocks all the way round up to first floor level. The steel at the back has gone in now to help hold the upstairs up! For other posts from this week see here

Progress report Week 5

It has been a wall building and insulating week.
for more detail see the posts here, here and here

Wednesday week 5!

Its been a busy day again. I had a chat with the builder this morning. Over all we've had two good pieces of news today. The first is that they will not be knocking the corner out of the house until the walls are up and the roof is on!! That's much later than I was expecting and will mean that the house remains secure for much longer It also means that the extension stays "out there" rather than coming inside with all its dust and mess. The second piece of news is that the scaffolder has worked out how to get the scaffolding up whilst still allowing Eddie next door access to his garage which is brilliant. Otherwise I think his car would have had to stay outside for weeks. We now have double skin walls complete with insulation in between up to a fairly decent height.
Chris has also removed some of the plumbing which went up to the bathroom, he has replaced it with the work he was doing yesterday this means that the hot water now theoretically has a shorter run to get upstairs. There aren't photos of the pipes Chris removed!!

"You want to make another hole in another room.... oh ok!!!"

The title says it all really
today it was the turn of the bathroom to have a small hole knocked in it to get the new plumbing up for the bathroom. The existing plumbing comes up the wall downstairs which will be knocked out, as we don't want pipes coming up in the middle of our living room we decided we ought to move them!
Yesterday Chris put a new stop tap in our hall so we don't have to find it out in the street if ever we need it. He's got a new pipe bender and is making the most of it.