Builder's logic

One of the things that continually amazes me about this project is the way the builders sequence the works and solve the problems that arise. While I'm sure it's all well-practised and very much born of economic necessity, there must be unique situations in every job. Yet any that ours has thrown up have been dealt with carefully yet effortlessly.

Today, for instance, I arrived home to find the key of the back door missing. I searched the floor for anywhere it might have fallen and then checked the drawer where all the keys are kept. No sign of it. What had the builders done with it? We had given them a key to the side door, but it was occasionally necessary for them to use the back door and they always left the key in its place afterwards. What was going on?

At this point I had a look at what happened in the kitchen today and realised the key would be near the front doormat.


They had been in to finish boarding up the kitchen. With this done, the side door was obscured but the builders were still inside. The front door is deadlocked and they don't have a key so they went out the back door, taking the key. They locked the back door from the outside and dropped it back in the letterbox. It turns out they also phoned Dara to tell her that they'd done this, but I was left to do the detective work myself. Elementary.

The outside kitchen wall and side door remain intact on the other side of the woodwork, for now. Other than the kitchen partition, the other work today concerned the drains again.


This delightful exposé shows where our yard drain (above right) and soil pipe (above left) join up and are carried away (below left) to meet the neighbours. I'm not sure what they're doing here: it looks like they've poured cement into the hole. Whether they intend to build it back up into yet another manhole, or reroute the pipes to join up with our new drains at one of the new manholes (just to the right of shot) remains to be seen. I am concerned by the sheer number of manholes we'll have in our patio and side passage: two each so far.