Half roof/half mad dog

The front half of the  roof is now complete...

...back half next week.

And by special request from one of our readers here's a picture of "puppy".

General progress

Roofing continues - the front's mostly done now. The back is still to do.

Inside more plastering. Here's a couple of views from upstairs...


Internal doors are on site. Here's a picture of me trying to puzzle out why we have ten doors, but only eight openings.  Oak architraves on the floor behind me.

And finally we have, at last, one of the utilities connected. Fingers crossed for the water tomorrow.

Stairs

The shuttering was removed and the stairs didn't collapse - Hoorah! The builder (who hadn't done a concrete stair case before) seemed mildly relieved.

The roof slating continues...

Today we have a small puzzle. What do the following three pictures have in common?


That's right - the first is the unconnected electricity supply, the second is the unconnected telephone line and the last one is the unconnected water supply. The utility companies all have monopoly positions - and have customer service that goes with it. The builder and I think we have made well over 50 phone calls between us to Southern Electricity, Southern Water and BT - and we still haven't got anything connected.

Socket to me

Second fit electrics have started - here's the supply to the kitchen island. And upstairs we have smoke detectors and down-lighters.

The light switches are very exciting...

And the limestone tiling for the bathroom walls and utility room floor has arrived.

Tomorrow they remove the temporary support structure from the cast concrete staircase. Expect pictures of either a free standing staircase - or a pile of rubble.

Slating!!

The roof covering is starting to go on at last and it looks like this

Courtesy of James and his digger we now have an electricity supply from the pole(behind the digger)  to the supply box (just around the corner off the bottom right of the pic).  Trench? what trench?

He's also finished the trench - which another poor lad was digging by hand! - for the telephone cable.  Last Sunday I spent tunnelling through the hedge to make the access possible - our fence line originally went across the front of the picture and I had to 'prune out' a tunnel acroos our neighbours' land to the pole which you can see in the centre at the far side of the 6' wide hedge...  Still removing beetles from my hair...

Time to get plastered!

No, this doesn't refer to Mel and Conny's wedding yesterday, but to our walls and ceilings - here is one of the bedrooms:

They have also completed the insulation on the garage ceiling, and light fitting holes have appeared everywhere - we're having downlighters more or less throughout.


 



Here is the front door frame in position - as are the other external door frames.  The double height window over the staircase is all fitted and looks great, although I've not posted a pic here - it's difficult to get a decent shot as it's all behind the scaffolding.

Walls and ceilings

 The "tackers" have been working extra time and walls and ceilings are starting to appear. It's surprising what a difference a bit of plaster board makes.

As promised yesterday here's the time lapse video of the build so far. I've removed some of the wonkiness to pacify our moany photographer friends

West end bars

To stop the gables spreading, we have these stylish bars across the west end and front gable.  Here's the detail of how they are fixed at the ends - and during the week we've been amused to compare our oakwork with that of (sister) Nikki and Brian - they're re-roofing their house which was built around 1500 and is built the same way... Will ours still be here in 500 years?       Meanwhile the walls upstairs are now filled with acoustic insulation and yesterday afternoon the plasterboard all arrived - they're apparently working over the weekend so we expect a dramatic change over the next couple of days....

We've been framed!

It's all coming along!  - the window frames started to arrive yesterday, and the tackers are due to start boarding the rest of the walls today.  It seems that the staircase - actually, it's a sufficiently serious erection that I think I need to call it The Staircase - has been passed for going up and down as we've lost the ladder route to upstairs.  So we've sneaked up The Staircase ourselves - how exciting, rather like royalty sweeping down the grand staircase arriving at the ball, only in reverse...

You can see here how the gable undersides are boarded with tongue-and-groove.

 

Services are coming on - the gas connection man actually arrived a day early and so he had to be sent away again as there wasn't a whole hole for him to lay his conduit into!

Here's the gas supply going into the house - the tank is just out of view to the left.  The water board have inspected the pipe route and pronounced it acceptable and are due to come and change over to this supply today - will report back as to whether it actually happens...

The electricity needs a trench across the front of the house from the pole (SW corner of the plot) to the garage (SE corner of the house), so that has sensibly to wait upon the removal of the scaffolding but all is ready to go once that's done.


And here's how it looks from the rear at present - you can see they're zinc cladding the long rear gable and that's about all that is left needing doing out there.

Yesterday we went looking at stone.  The terrace to the west has a retaining wall which is going to be gabions - I am planning a deconstructed stone and flint wall in echo of the local vernacular and I'm sure Peter the Architect will approve of this - and we're hunting stone that matches the patio slabs.  Or vice versa.  We spent a happy 20 minutes wading through mud in a Somerset quarry so this morning's job is shoe-cleaning and emptying the boot of the odd bits of stone and rock we picked up during the day.

Slated for completion...

...or not.  The roof has been fully battened and the gulleys leaded for long enough that we're getting frustrated with the lack of slate on the roof.  Pat and Judy - you commented that you are looking forward to seeing it done - well, I can tell you - so are we!!!!
Tantalisingly, the slates are stacked up on the scaffolding

 but not yet on the roof, apart from this line here:


However, both end gables, the garage gable and part of the main rear gable are now zinc clad and looking great.

Meanwhile indoors is coming on nicely - the bathrooms both have walls - this is the main bathroom and that's the MVHR you can see waiting to be installed over the garage. And in answer to John's question - the bifolds look very good, although the scaffolding does somewhat diminish the full effect!