That Friday Feeling

Whilst the scaffolding came down two days late, the kitchen came a day early!  It was quite a scene on site this morning!

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Looking Good

Yeah, we are getting there!

Plasterboard going up, we’ve even started to paint! We’re getting ready for the scaffolding to come down on Wednesday and the kitchen to go in on Saturday – now it’s really exciting.

and I finally got a new lens for my camera, so I can start taking pictures again

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The good, bad & ugly

The whole experience of building a house is a rollercoaster and each day you can go through a whole range of emotions.  Generally though each day will bring, in varying degrees, good, bad & ugly elements.

Good – This week, cracking on with plumbing & electrics final first fix ready for plasterboarding, took ownership of our gorgeous new bath and showers – it took 7 men to get our bath into the bathroom, not because of the weight, but because there was nothing to hold onto.  Gas boiler and cylinder in, utility room looks like a machine room, plus kitchen is being made and we picked up this cooker hood for £350, instead of £1995 due to a slight dent in the corner!

Bad – another leak in the basement, not funny anymore.

Ugly – we had a visit from the planning investigation officer concerning our ‘un-opaque’ window after a complaint from our neighbours, even though we assured them that it would be made opaque in situ, following an error in manufacture.  hmm…

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Ups & Downs

When you build your own house, there are some elements that you envisage never compromising on and yet when you are faced with decisions on the spur of the moment, you better make the right one as you know you have to live with them, or it could be a costly mistake.  So, last week, screed may just have been one of those very cases.

The vision; stepping from the living room on a flush finished floor out onto the deck, the reality is that because our front door is lower than it should be, the screed had to go in 20mm lower than we would have liked and we now either have to a) step (trip) over the sliding doors for the rest of our lives or b) pay for a second layer of flooring compatible with the screed that it is already down, grr…

I could kick myself

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Roof On!

The roof is finally on!  After the appalling no show from the scheduled roofer, we managed to find a great one who has turned things round very quickly.  The slate roof looks stunning.

Last week, we also managed to lift the large panes into the entrance hall; six guys lifting 160kg of toughened glass onto the 1st lift of the scaffold was a sight.

Front door today…

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Windows

You know that bit in the last post about not having to worry about windows anymore?  Well, I was wrong…

Firstly the window fitters came to weather-seal the front Velfac windows and promptly told me that they couldn’t because the face of the brickwork was too deep. So the only solution, short of taking down the bricks is to re-set all of the windows!  Then, the large panes for the entrance hall arrived on Friday (which was quite amusing as they tried to deliver to our rented house, reversing an artic down my cul-de-sac – picture me running down the road on the school run, waving my arms) and the opaque pane, is not opaque, grrr.

Needless to say, this week has been a heachache.  Topped with the roofer not turning up and the school coach hitting the back of my car.

HOWEVER, the back windows are in and it looks amazing!

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Milestones

Each day brings milestone after milestone – bricks done hallelujah, ground floor windows in praise the lord, gas pipe in, fascias complete, man I’m soo glad that I don’t have to worry about windows and fascias again, funny that I didn’t even know what a fascia was until 3 months ago!

Family room windows, 1st floor and cedar cladding tomorrow – yeah!

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