Day 168 - Upstairs plastering is nearly done

 
Plaster (and Jed)

 
Boys front bedroom (and Liam)

 
View from the half landing

 
Now Frank's started on the lounge, a deceptively large room he says...

Day 161 - We have roof!

Finally the flat roof outside the Master bedroom french doors (above the lounge) is complete. This means we're water tight, finally.

 

 

Day 132 - UFH & Plumbing

The underfloor heating is also complete in the new lounge

 



and the connections are in the storeroom

Day 83 - Steels are in, walls come down.

After a hectic week we finally got up to the property on Saturday, with the boys, to check out the changes since last weekend.

As the steels came on Tuesday we were hoping for major changes, which we got!

The chimney wall has come down so we can now see the full size/shape of the store room








And the old back wall of the lounge has gone too now the big steel is in place to support the upstairs


Here's the big steel



Upstairs our old bedroom now has temporary steels




and holes in the floor



A view from the back



And the Thorpes pose through the new study window

Day 57 - Patio door negotiation

One of the issues we've been battling with is to get the size of the patio doors increased.

I'd had several conversations with Shaun about it but things didn't happen till we clarified that we needed to speak to John (architect) to get agreement on the size.

This is all to do with the the relatively new building regs which control how much of a room can be glazed for insulation/eco reasons. The simplest rule states that the amount of glazed area must be less than or equal to 25% of the surface area of the ceiling/floor. Importantly for us, if the room is being extended, you are allowed to include any existing openings in the 'old' room that will be covered up in your calculations.

We did the calculations and worked out we could go up to 3 metres wide on the doors according to the rule - thankfully John agreed.

The downside was the builders had already built the doorway, with the narrower width. We didn't like to make them redo it, after all they had just followed the plans, but the view from the old patio doors was one of the best features about the house and we really wanted to preserve this feature and maximise the light and views into the lounge.

The first opening was 1.8 metres, it's now closer to 3m - acres of glass!



And in case you're wondering, at the moment we're going for old fashioned patio doors as they let in the maximum light and provide the most unrestricted views. We thought about those fancy expensive folding doors you see on all the home shows but that part of the garden only gets sun in the very early part of the day and there aren't that many days in the UK when you'd want to open them right up. Also I think they work better off a kitchen/diner rather than a lounge. I suppose it's just a lifestyle option too far for us!

Day 52 - The Wall dividing East and West Lounge goes up

Part of the changes we're making is to steal some space from the lounge to make a study/den for the boys. Somewhere they can play computer games on the laptops, do homework, play on the wii and watch what they want on the TV - not all at the same time obviously!

It's not going to be a huge room but it should be big enough for some desks at one end and a small sofa and tv at the other.


Lounge side view - this will end up being a corridor with access to the storeroom, utility room and the new lounge


Study side view - The boarding is what used to be the patio doors in the lounge. At some point they'll be a window there

Day 52 - Openplan ensuite anyone?

The toilet door gets blocked up




and the wall between the toilet and lounge comes down


and a strange hole appears in the hall

Day 5 - Plunged into darkness..

Today the french windows in the lounge had to be boarded up so they can be built/bricked up to.

This meant clearing the lounge furniture away from the windows. Lee, the youngest builder, who also gets to make more tea, was tasked with this. I gave him a hand but lived to regret it. I was moving the exercise bike when I managed to bang into the DVD shelves, in a comedy moment worthy of a bad sitcom a collection of heavy things on top of the shelves wobbled and then fell - onto the back of my head. I was too dazed to see exactly what had hit me but it was either a green ceramic vase, a wooden game board or one of four marble eggs! Boy did it hurt, I saw stars and felt very naseous. And poor Lee was very worried, it's not good when the client nearly knocks herself out when she's helping you! Of course it was my own stupid fault - both for knocking and for keeping that stuff up there in the first place!



Chatting with Shaun, the foreman, about what was planned for the windows I spotted a dead bug that had been under the sofa. One of those crunchy flying bugs about an inch long, a bit beetle like, but they fly? (after some research on the interwebs it was a May bug although you may prefer it's real name, a cockchafer! It's also known as a Billy Witch or Spang beetle) Martha likes to bring them in from the garden and then chase/bat them around until she's bored. Either she'd batted him under or he'd limped under there to die in peace. I picked it up and Shaun took 3 steps backwards. Turns out he's a builder who doesn't like bugs or spiders!! Surely they must encouter them on a regular basis?!

I decided to throw the bug out into the footings so he could be a permanent part of the new extension - he did not die in vain.

Nursing a killer headache I snapped some final pics of the french windows and the view before the darkness descended.