Alan of Grey Gables

This may give you a better idea of the zinc cladding - rather swish, isn't it.











Another huge excitement - the bifold doors arrived yesterday and today they've finished fitting them -  this is the rear door which is a continuous 3-pane door

and


this is the west face door with Alan testing the opening handle.  This one has a separate pane to the left which can be opened separately and then three panes which zigzag to the right

We've got a zinc-ing feeling

Work is under way on the zinc cladding. They've done the back of the garage and will continue with the main gable ends next week. Looks spiffing!

At the bottom of the pic is the incoming water main. This has finally (after three months) been inspected by Southern Water -and declared acceptable. We are starting to get our hopes up that we might have the water supply connected before we move in.

The shuttering is starting to come off the stairs...

...nothing has fallen down yet!

We've had a minor plumbing set back. The taps we selected in March (after much agonising) have been discontinued. But after a quick trip to the bathroom showroom in Salisbury it seems there is a near identical variant still available.

Sneak preview for next week: work continues on the roof and zinc cladding. But the big excitement will be the arrival and (hopefully, if they've been made the correct size) fitting of the bi-fold doors on Monday/Tuesday.

Stairway to heaven

Actually that's far from what the builders were calling it yesterday when they were casting it.  They reckon that no hurricane is ever going to shift this staircase:


Meanwhile upstairs the battens are going onto the rafters for the plasterboard to mount onto, and you can see a door liner in place, although this is (we think) a dummy for fitting which will be replaced by the oak linings later.

Outside the soffits are now Lamp Room Grey, the leading in the gulleys around the gables is in place and there are slates stacked on the scaffolding ready to be fitted.

And this is the really exciting bit - on the right you can see the roll of zinc sheet and on the left is the pressbrake for (I presume) cutting and forming it.  Shame I'm at work tomorrow, looks like I will miss the excitement of it happening...

How many builders does it take to build a Sparrow House?

This morning, the answer seems to be a couple of dozen - I can count at least 8 vans parked in the yard...

Rooms at the Top

Today as promised we had the Sparrow Family Inspection - by Alan's parents and brother John.  This panorama pic courtesy of John shows this in progress - don't be fooled, the two fence lines are actually at right angles - the back/north fence is on the left and the side/west boundary on the right.

But here's the big excitement from yesterday - the upstairs walls all suddenly came into being.  This is the view if you've just come up the stairs and turned left at the top - you're looking through the middle bedroom (office) to the easterly one (guest bedroom) with the bathroom on the right.


 Look left here - see the sexy curved wall again? How much will we curse its existence when we try to fit stuff in, I wonder?! Hat stand?


While here we have turned right at the top of the stairs into the 'the west wing'.... - master bedroom and ensuite.

Castle Sparrow is fortified

There have been huge excitements with progress today but I'm going to hide most of them from you as Sparrows en masse are arriving to inspect the works tomorrow.  I will however show you the siege engine that is being constructed in the living room - clearly Alan had a hand in the design here and we can now sling missiles at any potential visitors.
 -


If you look at the pic on the right you can just see the reinforcement bars - it is actually the 'Final Staircase Solution'.  Originally the plan was to use a pre-cast concrete stair because, our architect informed us, it was as 'cheap as chips' - much cheaper and simpler than an oak staircase which was my original plan.  Somewhere along the way though, it proved impossible to anchor effectively at the top and so now we're being cast in-situ.  So...umm... we're paying the chippie to make the formwork rather than the staircase.... ummm..... ah well, I'm sure it's going to be good when it's finished.

Unless of course it really IS a siege engine...

We're getting felt...

And - ahem - our hole's been filled up! 
We've been away for a few days hol and on our return the gas tank hole has been backfilled - so thanks all for the suggestions but looks like no hot tub etc etc.

 Not only that, but the ventilation-spacer battens were all in place:

 and today I got home from work to find this!  Cor!

Caulking in the Wild West End *

Well, not quite caulked yet, but as you can see the west gable is boarded (as is the east gable) and we are told that Ray has the tubes of foam at the ready.  You can also see that with the exception of the top gable, all the roof insulation is complete and about to be battened for felting.  The warm roof construction requires a ventilation layer over the insulation and below the slates, so it is battened vertically to provide a spacer, then horizontally to fit the roof cover.  Apparently there are 2km of battens on site!  Meanwhile at the site meeting today the revised build schedule was officially issued which shows a 3-week slippage - it's taken longer than anticipated to finish the roof due to a combination of unanticipated complexity, shortage of carpenters and several days washed out in the last couple of weeks.  However all is not lost as the original plan brought the build in 3 weeks ahead of the contract due date so if they stick to the revised plan, it's still due for completion in the last week of November.

*if you have to ask, you're clearly not a Dire Straits fan...

Anniversary greetings

It was one year ago today that we moved to West Tytherley - here's to many happy years to come!