Casual Friday

It doesn't look like the team exerted themselves too much today. The hall was plastered:


And the plumber seems to have successfully removed the back boiler piping:

It looks like it was a fairly messy procedure.

He had suggested that our hot water tank would be arriving, but it didn't, so all we got was a new poop chute.


Does it look to you like a project which is a fortnight from completion? Me neither.

Sink transplant

The plumber was particularly busy today. Most significantly, our old kitchen is now a thing of the past:

And the sink has been moved and replumbed in the utility room.

This is the first time we've made real use of a new part of the house.

More plumbing happened in the library, with pipes for the heating laid and the carpet removed.

The piping for the outside tap has been put in place as well:

And work has begun installing a shower in the en suite:

The shower tray arrived:

It turns out shower trays are available in two varieties:

Judging from his choice, I think our plumber may be some kind of masochist.

Gearing up again

This morning's meeting was a long one, but positive and productive. Despite a couple of days' understated work, the team still definitely have the end in sight and are heading directly for it. We gave them a full list of colours we want the rooms painted in, so the next Big Issue is the plumbing. Once the water tanks and solar tubes (they're tubes, not panels, says the plumber: they can be replaced like lightbulbs) are in place and the system is hooked up, they can paint the extension, put in the floors, add the electrical fittings, and those rooms will be ff... fuhnn... Fin. Nished. Finished. Sounds odd, doesn't it?

What they have been doing recently mostly concerns the outside -- rendering and the like. They had samples of the finish for us to choose, which we did, but they've taken it off the wall now. Have a picture of an empty meter box instead:


The horrible tiles at the old front door are gone:


This is in preparation for the new front door, which arrived today:


As did the frame it fits into:

We'll get ironmongery for that at the weekend and it should go up next week or so.

And that will mean the hall can be finished. They did some preparatory work for plastering it today:


The drylining and plastering of the library was done today as well:


Meanwhile, more of our old kitchen had an appointment with the skip:

They've plastered the ceiling here too, happy enough with the state of the bathroom joists above, though the floorboards will likely need replacing when the lino comes up.

Finally, back to the plumbing, the boiler has arrived in the utility room.

We finalised the layout of this room with the plumber this morning. Just as well, since this space is about to become a substitute kitchen. Temporarily, we hope.

Board now

The builders voiced some concerns about the condition of the floor joists under the bathroom. And rightly so -- they're in terrible nick. It looks, however, like they just went ahead and replaced a couple of them today:

I don't know if anything more needs doing here, but I'm guessing the floorboards aren't too healthy either.

More floorboard action upstairs, with heating pipework going underneath:





More plumbing in the downstairs toilet, and plastering too.


This last few mornings the builders seem to have been working on the scaffolding outside, but I've no idea to what end. Meeting tomorrow: we'l l find out what's going on then.

Snooping at home

It took a bit of work to find out what had happened today, though that was because I didn't immediately look in the library, where the plastering was done and someone decided our fridge and freezer would look better on top of one another:


Clue two was in the kitchen:

No, not the wood shavings (dunno what they're about) but that the radiator had been removed from its sarcophagus and connected to the copper pipes.

The same happened in the living room, even though the wallpaper behind here still has to be stripped:


The box is also off in the master bedroom, where the fact that these so-called radiators aren't exuding any warmth is very much to the chagrin of certain parties.

Tubular

The vent issue from the last post seems to have been resolved satisfactorily, via the judicious use of flexible tubing:

It has left a massive hole in the wall, though. See, there's a reason we're doing this in the summertime.

The builders took the first bite out of the defunct kitchen today, namely the tall unit which used to be on the right here:


Lots of work in the hall today, with plastering and the fitting of the TV room door:


Another door came off, though. The understairs toilet one was removed to facilitate work in there.

The horizontal beams will, in due course, have a sink attached to them. The single switch on the left there will control both the light and fan, in accordance with building regs (the windowed bathrooms will have these separately switched). Also in accordance with daft building regs, the fan will have to run for fifteen minutes after switch-off. Mental.

A few bits and pieces in the living room, including more plastering:


They've also begun looking at the back boiler area with a view to its removal.

The stove man, who was in yesterday afternoon, will be kangoing out the fireplace opening into a recess for the stove. Before that, we'll need to get our furniture moved out of the way.

Fortunately, the attic is just about ready to receive whatever I can shove up there:


Time to get boxing.

Pipe dreams

Controversy of the moment concerns this pipe:


It's the vent for the understairs toilet, leading to the outside kitchen wall. The builders planned to encase it next to an existing steel beam in the ceiling, like so:


The whole thing will end up being very wide, with all that boxed dead space between the pipe and the beam, so we've asked them to run the pipe right next to it and then just bend it to the right at the end when it reaches the wall. It looks like they've begun work on that:


Lots of other work going on, including the plastering of the kitchen ceiling.


More radiators too. This is the large front bedroom:


They're also hard at work insulating and flooring the attic. Hopefully we'll be able to move some of our impedimenta up here soon.


First thing this morning, however, the roofers were out and, with the help of the first dry day in ages, managed to finish the whole roof.


Ridge tiles and all.


Tomorrow I understand we have to see a man about a stove.

Firing on most cylinders

We took a few days off to get the dust out of our heads and lungs. It turned out to be the busiest three days since work began, with just about every current activity happening.

Most significantly, the barrier in the kitchen came down giving the first idea of what this open space will be like:

Sort of. It'll be better when it's not full of building supplies and defunct kitchen units.

Above, the rooflights have been installed and the rafters have been boarded in, with insulation behind them.


The clever trick we pulled with the utility room lightswitch and doors is now apparent:

Well, to us anyway. That's the kitchen off to the left and the TV room to the right.

Out front, the hall now has a new doorway into the TV room.

Through the dooway the device affixed to the wall is called a "radiator". Apparently, when attached to a thing called "central heating", it will somehow warm up. Sounds great, eh? Can't wait to see that in action.

There's another one in the living room:

They've also installed the new warmboard insulation at the back here. They'll be plastering over that shortly, I'd say.

This morning the two front bedrooms were similarly boarded, and today they were plastered:




The small front bedroom is storing the last couple of internal doors, and a bunch of other stuff we own. There's a lot of that around the place.

The master bedroom has a radiator too now:


And in the hotpress, an immersion, or something that looks very much like part of one:


Finally, for now, we have the beginnings of roofing on the kitchen.

Just as well, what with the rain and all. This morning we choose guttering. That'll help too.