Completely Plastered.....

The rear porch is the only major bit of build left to do. We're going for a flat roof to save some money, but the top half is conservatory style - just waiting for it to come from the window company and be fitted.


Here is the cupboard at the top of the stairs. It's a bit smaller than we hoped because the landing needed cutting down to give us clearance up the stairs for building regs, but the cupboard in the bathroom is pretty big which will make up for it.


The ensuite. It looks a bit cramped on the photo, but it isn't in the flesh - the gap into the cubicle is 800mm wide.


This is the secret door at the bottom of the stairs so we can get things up without going round corners.


The main room - not my best photo, but it's all plastered now.


The new front door - it's brown on the outside to match the windows.


All those wires..... New consumer unit is huge to accommodate them all.



The new drain outside. Inspected and passed yesterday so ready to be finished off.



All of this is (almost) just in time. The fridge comes tomorrow, the appliances Monday and the bath on Tuesday. Flooring is booked in for 16th feb - we've found a really good deal on Amtico at T J Flooring (via eBay)

Honey Oak - Ground floor (except snug):



Ceramic dark tiles - bathroom floor:

Jan 16th Update - almost plastered...

Well, downstairs is practically plasterboarded. We are just waiting until Gary the sparky comes on saturday and he can hopefully finish up the kitchen area and Geoff and the guys can finish plaster boarding the big room. The bathroom is boarded and we have a little cupboard at the top of the stairs.

Hopefully not too much electrics work to go, apart from the big switch over when we stop using the old board and cables and move to the new (as yet unfitted) consumer unit - which will be huge going by the cables hanging in the front hall..... then we can get the new light fittings up and have something other than a single bulb in the main room.

Cooker hood is due today, going to order the fridge this afternoon, ovens, sink and hob on order from Biasco due week after next, bath due next week (in stock, but no taps yet), flooring company coming on sunday to measure up and show us some samples, and Hilarys are coming on wednesday to measure up for blinds...... should be a busy couple of weeks.

Plus the rear porch should start going again next weekend and when the wind dies down we'll get Geoff to replace the ridge tiles and do the last of the flashing on the rear roof.

January update - visible progress

These pictures were taken on 12th december last year. You can see how much cable has gone into the main room...

Some plasterboard was up, but not a lot.

The woodwork is the false ceiling to level the main room and hide all the beams.

This is the vaulted ceiling. We have 2 lights going on this vertical wall so we can put up some pictures.... gonna need a long feather duster!



On the 19th december it looked like this before we went away.



By the 10th jan it looked like this:
This is the re-instated snug wall with a new doorway.

The doors to the front hall and the kids room.

The guys working in the main room - you can see all the plasterboarding on the ceiling. This is the the only light in the room!

The vaulted ceiling and Velux look really good now.

This is the new door from the rear hall into the main room. Going through here is pretty risky at the moment as there is almost no floor whilst the soil pipes for the downstairs loo are re-laid - they used to block as they join another pipe - urgh....

Recycling in action - the door from the kid's bedroom does duty as a temporary back door. At least we're warm now. Thanks to Joe and Eric from Churchtown plumbing and heating for getting the new boiler and tank up and running last week. Upstairs was warm straight away even running the rads at the 50 degrees the UFH uses, but after 3 or 4 days the UFH has really started to work and downstairs is comfortable in a t-shirt most of the time now. Considering the state of the back door and that the front door hasn't been fitted completely, and we have no internal doors, that's really good news.

Update 4/1/08

Well, what has happened since december 6th.... A lot and not a lot.

The sparky installed the majority of the cables in the lounge, including runs to the rear hall and bedrooms for new sockets etc. He reckons he's installed about 1km of cable - a typical houses worth in one room. We have 7 lighting circuits in there, 3 TV points and 10 sockets, plus controls for some of the outside lights and the thermostat for the UFH.

The ceiling has been insulated and most of the room is plasterboarded, as is most of the kids play room and some of the front hall.

The oil ran out in the middle of december leaving us with no heating again.... bloody cold. So we arranged for a delivery but since it was only a day before we were going away we asked the guys to switch the heating on a few days before the new year to give it all time to warm up......

When we got back on new years day, we had no heating and no power. We fiddled with the fuses and got the lights on but no cooker. It turns out that the boiler had sprung a leak all over the electronics box that controls it... Geoff tried to get it going with no luck. The following day he tried to bypass the controls since we just want the boiler on all day, but it gave up completely so we have no heating at all now - just 3 fan heaters, and with no internal doors, they have no chance.

Yesterday we moved into a Travellodge.... and today Geoff found someone to get the new boiler going on weds so we'll stay in the hotel until then - fingers crossed all will come good.

The rear porch is now down ready for measuring by the window firm to put the door, windows and roof line together. Hopefully that won't take for ever as it's a gap in the outside of the building and in this weather it makes the heating seem to struggle. Oh, and the new drain for the cloakroom is coming so the back of the house can be tackled soon. Now the boiler is dead, we may as well get that and the little wooden stove behind it taken out so the utility is a bit clearer. Would be good to get a washing machine again...... and there are connection points already under the sink in there.

We have ordered the bath and taps (Thanks Dean!!!) Thats coming later in january, as is the new bed. Sarah has been painting the skirting boards in the bedroom and dressing room and the ensuite walls. Apart from the towel radiator, the ensuite is ready for the new boiler (the old tank had too little hot water pressure for the mixer taps). We have a loo in the bathroom (waiting a cold feed, but plumbed to the soil pipe).

Apart from the heating, we are over the worst of it, but the heating really put a dampner on things and I lost my rag with Geoff a bit....... Once the new heating and electrics are in place, things should start to improve rapidly. The landing has been trimmed to give us the clearance up the stairs for building regs and the door casings are going in downstairs.

The plasterboard makes a big difference - when it's not freezing it is actually starting to feel like a house..

I would strongly recommend getting a caravan if you are doing anything this big. Although Geoff has tried to keep the place habitable, keeping the services up has been a struggle, and unless you like roughing it (and have no kids) it's not worth the hassle - plus it slows the building down. Had I really known what was coming, I would have bought a cheap caravan, stuck it in the back garden and skipped it at the end of the job, but there we go - hindsight is great.

Photos when I can get new batteries in the camera and a computer to load them onto!

Wow a video!

A short video montage of some photos from today - the ensuite, the false ceiling and a panorama of the big room:




That panorama photo in full: