Catch up....

Blimey, no posts for 3 weeks.....

The last time I posted, the floor had been ripped up in the old lounge and the stairs had gone. Well it took the best part of that week to clear and level the soil ready for the new slab. The following week, the kitchen came out and the floor came up. Few words but a massive upheaval. The rest of that week was getting ready and laying the concrete slab - which went in tuesday afternoon - very late, and a big concern to Martin in case it wasn't set in time to lay the UFH.

Anyway, come wednesday PM and although the concrete wasn't the flattest ever, Martin declares it OK. They measure up and find the floor is 50mm too low. My fault for 20mm as I changed to Anhydrite Screed which is thinner (but mainly, because we can turn the heating on after 3 days instead of 21 for sand and cement and because it leaves a level surface for the Karndean....) not sure where the other 20mm came from, but there we go... So Martin rushes off to the local builder's merchants and orders a load of 50mm thick polystyrene sheets, so we'll have 150mm of insulation under the UFH! Very eco.

So thursday and the insulation goes down, but.... Martin is again concerned that the floor is not stable enough for the screed, which can crack, so friday morning he arranges for the screed expert to come and check - if it's no good either the insulation will have to come up and the floor raised and levelled, or we go to sand and cement...

Friday morning and the screed expert tells Martin to stop being a pansy! The floor is fine - all go for the screed saturday morning.

Saturday morning - no screed. Later saturday morning - no screed. the driver hasn't turned up to collect it from the depot. Cue many phone calls to Lafarge (the supplier) with the end result being that Martin arranges for Tarmac to deliver on monday afternoon.

Now bear in mind we've been away for two weeks, I am due back with the kids monday pm and we'll have a liquid floor and no stairs, so we agree with Martin to go into a hotel at Lafarge's expense until at least weds when the stairs can be installed.

Monday pm and the screed is laid and everyone goes home (apart from Sarah who goes to the hotel to meet us) and we're all fairly happy.

Tuesday morning, Sarah goes to the house to find the floor is still completely liquid and a dog has got in, chasing a cat. We trace the cat prints to Holly, our moggy, and we suspect next door's dog is the culprit - so our expensive, very smooth floor, has a load of footprints across it - FANTASTIC.

Anyway, Geoff manages to float some of the worst out as the floor is still very wet. We wait until Wednesday.

Come Wednesday (28th), the floor is now drying out so Geoff starts to install the stairs. We now have
no bathroom
no kitchen
1 electrical socket
no indoor access to the toilet (we have to go outside to get to it)

So we stay in the hotel and book through to friday night!

Thursday - and we turn the heating on after a few conversations between Geoff and Martin finally sorts out how to connect them initially (despite the complicated manifold, for now it's just a flow and return!)

By friday, we have most of the stairs in (although we still have the sub-landing as there was not enough head room under the landing, it will still need raising but not much now - the stairs look great, Geoff is doing a good job putting them together).

Saturday afternoon and we return to the house..... and the lounge is 1/2 inch deep in water. It has rained all day and the temporary cover on the rear roof has been blown off and water has peed into the lounge - all over the expensive new floor....... So we mop as much of it as we can, hide in the snug - which is dry and closed off (the guys built most of the dividing wall during the week and blocked the gaps with insulation and polystyrene)

Saturday night and the one electrical socket cries enough at being expected to power everything and we lose power - and the boiler! So I clamber downstairs in the dark (the torch has got lost), disconnect everything, turn the power back on to get lights, and plug things back in one at a time until we discover the dodgy extension - another cold night for the fish in the bedroom!

We pester Geoff to come out on Sunday and make good the temporary roof - which he does. So we mop a bit more and turn the fan heater in the snug up to full. We have some of the polystyrene down on the floor, and the UFH is starting to work, so the snug is almost... well, snug! Sunday evening - and we run out of heating oil! I think someone dislikes me......

Monday morning and full tilt. Geoff gets the guttering up on the main roof so the rear roof only has it's own rain to deal with and not the run off, Pip has grouted some of the en-suite and got the cabinet for the sink in - wow, it's starting to look the biz now. We got some more oil and the UFH is starting to do it's thing now - the floor is warming up and drying out nicely now.

Came downstairs this morning and it wasn't ice cold - the UFH is starting to have an effect - pretty good at 35-40 degrees instead of the 55 it will run at eventually. Still having to put shoes on to go to the loo or clean my teeth - oh, and take a torch! The lead flashing on the rear roof should go in today so we'll be just about watertight there. the front bay window is ready to go in, as is the front door glass, so we may be almost watertight by the end of the week! And by friday we should have full temperature to the UFH. Still on the old boiler which is disappointing but pip is concentrating on getting us a loo and sink in the en-suite.

Photos to come but no way to get them from the camera to the laptop which is the only way I have net access at the moment....

Over the worst of it now so things 'can only get better' to borrow a phrase - bout bloody time too!

Open plan bathroom....

Well, we got an unplanned wall removal last week when the wall between the bathroom/office and the extension developed a huge crack. When the guys put the beam in the wall became unstable so we agreed to take it down and rebuilt it. I wouldn't advise the open plan approach quite like this:


Now the wall is going back in:



This is the view from downstairs the other side of the shuttering is our front room! Brrr

Shopping frenzy

An eBay-tastic couple of days. After the success with the basin (got - very nice) and sink unit (not received yet), I guess we got a bit carried away. We have received the tap for the bowl. It is really solid, and from what i can see we got a bargain at £26 delivered, RRP is more like £260! From "the Kitchen and Bathroom Outlet" on eBay. (All suppliers in the links list)



We have also ordered the shower and mixer for the ensuite. Apparently, the control should have been £600, but we got this for £150 - bargain! In theory it can control both a bath and a shower simultaneous with sufficient (1 bar per outlet) pressure. It has preset programs so I can set one temp and the wife can set another. We could even set it to turn on at a certain time. More practically, we can use the second outlet for body jets one day without needing to buy a divertor and shut off valve - they are expensive on their own. The controller came from "bathroomstuff4u" on eBay, the shower itself from HIE Plumbing Direct.
The shower is a neat design. The water comes in through the mounting bracket at the bottom of the rail. Above and below that you can just make out the In-line valves - these mean that you can have one or both of the heads operating at once - so we only really needed to add a thermostatic control as the flow control is built in. The digital controller is overkill, but at £150 it was on a par with any decent concealed thermostatic control.

Finally, we chose this light at Morgans months ago, but it's RRP is £200! So when we got the chance to nab one for £50 we had to take it. From "airmyncc" on eBay.



The single basin came from "i-bathrooms" and the vanity unit from "bathroombits4u".