Mud mud glorious mud

It's thick wet sticky clay and it's difficult to see how this is going to change until a fair way through next year - it's a bit too late for grass seed to germinate.  The space at the east side of the house where the vegetable garden will be is even worse.  And of course half our furniture is in the stable block and needs, fairly soon, to be brought into the house.  Sky hooks? Zipwire?  I expect a solution will propose itself to us in the next couple of weeks. 
Meanwhile the closer bits to the house are coming on well - the front drive is pretty much ready for its topcoat of gravel, and here is the terrace retaining wall nearly built.  The patio flagstones are, in a seasonal manner, 'behind you' in this pic and ready to be laid when the wall is finished.  We are told that the structural engineer happened to be in the area and drove up the road looking for the house he'd worked on but could only see what was obviously a barn conversion in progress... This has good and bad points - it's great that it fits that well into its location already, but it is NOT an imitation barn - for sure it has barn proportions but it's quite clearly modern to look at.  And I'm a a bit worried that he didn't recognise the house whose drawings he'd been working on...

On the left is the splendid pantry shelving as previously advertised, and these are the stair treads in fat beautiful oak.  The bamboo floor in the bathrooms is in place as is getting on for half of the oak flooring downstairs. More coats of paint have gone on everywhere including the garage, although there is some doubt as to whether the main wall colour is actually Chalk White, Chalky White or Pseudo Chalky Chalky white.  Or something.

Dehumidified!

The good news is that the floor screed has apparently dried out enough and they have started to lay the oak flooring downstairs.  And they've painted the garage.  And apparently the carpenters are so chuffed with the pantry shelving they're going to take pics of it for their own website, but as I haven't got a current pic of it I can't post one here for you.  But at least you know about the flooring now! 

Doors and floors

With only three weeks to go (maybe) the finishing touches are starting to appear. Here's the pantry door -  complete with porthole. It's in the pantry rather than in the door frame, but you get the idea.

Still waiting for the floor to finish drying downstairs, but work is under way on laying the floor upstairs.

...and the stone tiling in the utility room downstairs.

It'll all be over by Christmas - Official!!

14 December is the new completion date.  Which has a day's contingency in it...  We will hand in our notice to Bev accordingly.  And hope....
Meanwhile, today's report:
Ground Control - James the Digger, his dad and their No2 Connor (left) - are hard at work facing the gabions after we spent an hour or so working out how to circle the square this morning - the ones they've filled so far look gorgeous - but will my grand plan of a deconstructed stone and flint wall work?  We will know soon!  Inside, the pantry shelving is all built, the hearth stone is down and the oak flooring has been delivered.  The screed is down to 6% moisture, it has to be below 5% before they can fit the flooring - this is planned for late next week so hopefully it should be ok.

The decorators have put quite a lot more paint on the walls.  More bits are appearing slowly in the bathrooms. 
Guttering is going up and looks splendid - although the boys are cursing us as it's stainless steel and instead of clipping together like any gutter I've ever installed, it's riveted and then sealed.  Some of which obviously has to happen in situ.  And finally, out the front, the drive is getting the MOT roadstone layer (technical update for John) en route to the top coat.  

Hey Baby I'm your Telephone Man

You will recall earlier posts on the subject of utility angst.  The latest chapter came when we needed to move the phone line from the site van into the house. ..

You will recall (of course you will!) the pics showing a nice trench from the pole towards the house.  It was neatly lined with the trunking supplied, and a wire run through it to use as a threader for the right wire at the right moment.  So all the Telephone Man had to do was pull the existing line through the new route and connect it in the box on the side of the house.  Simple, eh?
And indeed he did.
And all was good.
...
But but but and again but.... part way through the following morning, the telephone number changed.  All of Ray the Builder's suppliers now had a line that when they called it said 'number unavailable', or, as there's no mobile signal, got his voicemail.  Doh!

You might like to guess how many more calls Alan made to BT trying to resolve this, but we lost count so we can't tell if you're right or not.  It became clear somewhere along the way that a ticket had been raised to put the number right, but repeatedly it didn't happen.

Then on Monday Alan spoke to someone who said 'Oh, but that's not a problem, I can put it right from here...yep, that's done, it will be on the overnight computer run'.  I had to administer smelling salts and pick him up off the floor.

And indeed in the morning, 309 had been restored to its rightful place and the (phone) bells rang out with the good news.

...It makes you wonder how much too much we're paying for utilities for getting it so wrong so often...

Dangle Barn

To fit in with the house's "barn" style the oak posts are mounted on top of short stone pillars. For reasons that remain obscure they built the house before installing the pillars. (I think it's called top-down design.)

So the house is being held up with acro props while they insert the the  pillars underneath.

Plans for the chinchilla farm come on apace...

...here's the team assembling the cages...



 


OK, it's really the gabion wall being put together.  No chinchillas will be hurt in the making of this house.

Amongst the many things happening on site today the decorators have been putting more paint on the walls, Sean is building the pantry shelving, Steve is putting the oak angle braces in outside - and here you can see the Rectory Hill gridlock as the Type 1 roadstone (I think that's what it is, John!) is delivered to be the base for the driveway.

Tomorrow we may well bring to you the latest episode in the Continuing BT Saga.  I think we've not mentioned it recently, so I suggest that the more nervous among our readers look away from tomorrow's posting, or at least view it from behind the sofa...

Can you see what it is yet?

Prize for the first correct answer...  (John, sorry, too easy for you, you aren't allowed to play!)





And this is the Utility Room - bamboo worktop, space for washing machine and tumble dryer; broom cupboard* and 100-channel heating controller.

*for storing my back-up transport, obviously ;)

I may be exaggerating slightly about the heating controller, but given that we basically don't have a heating system - one radiator and two towel rails - each has its own separate loop.

Outside the huge pile of mud behind the house has now been spread back around whence it came and the patio is laid out.  We're now able to start to envisage what it will look so have spent some time stood in the paddock considering garden design. 

What cheek!?

The answer in this case is, lead cheeks! - on the middle bedroom dormer sides.  That just about completes the roof.

Inside, sanitary ware is being fitted as are the utility room cupboards.  The Template Man measured up the main island and the toaster nook yesterday and they've gone away to mill out the holes in the worktop. 

There had been a problem with the double glazing units which apparently got damaged in transit and had to be remade - the team have been fitting those today.  And as you can see James-the-Digger has been at work laying the base for the driveway.


The pic below shows some of the boys, who are there around 7am in the morning,  collapsed with a cuppa at the end of the day.

Everything [but] the kitchen sink...

We spent yesterday afternoon happily measuring up exactly where the holes need to be in the worktop as the Landford Stone Templating Man is coming to template it this morning.  Here is Alan demonstrating that we have everything INCLUDING the kitchen sink.  In case you're wondering, the Dalek on the left is to mark where the top of the worktop comes out to over the 'knee nook' which is our cut-down breakfast bar slot.  All will become clear at some point...

And this morning, the 'Great Site Shed Conundrum' - how will they get the site shed - green, in the background - onto the lorry that already has a mighty great pump on it?  Today the team move officially indoors - although they're complaining that it's too hot inside, they're used to the cold!

Hot hot hot!!!

Just a quick update to give you the oh-so-exciting news that the boiler was commissioned today and the heating system run up!!  There was a brief moment of panic as water-pouring-out-of-somewhere-you-didn't-want-it-to noises rent the air, rapidly drowned out by cursing as the plumber discovered that the shower valve was open.  Swifly rectified, and now the heating's on helping the humidifiers dry out the screed.  The other wildly exciting news is that the repairs to the septic tank have been completed...

I can see clearly now the frame has gone

Most of the scaffolding has been taken down - so we can start to see what it really looks like.

Inside the decorators have started. It's impressive how fast some of the work gets done. It may be "only a mist coat" (the painter's words) but they painted the entire house, walls and ceilings, upstairs and downstairs, before lunch.

Islands from the stream

The kitchen units have arrived and Sean is puzzling how to put together the island from the stream of bits supplied by DIY Kitchens... (ok, it was a pretty poor pun but the best I can manage on this damp November Friday morning).  I've just checked the packing list and there seems to be one cupboard I'm not expecting... that's this afternoon's  job to resolve.

Indoors feels cosy now it's all closed up! The house increasingly starts to feel like a house rather than a building site, very gratifying.


 Meanwhile in the glorious weather yesterday we popped over to Landford Stone to pick our worktop - you can just about peer through the rain to see OUR piece of stone  here.  The island will be made of a slice all the way across the top, and the toaster nook will have the bottom left-hand corner.  If you think we've picked the wrong bits, don't bother telling us!

But possibly the highlight of the day is the hanging of the front door - here's Ray the Builder posing with it.  On completion they've covered it up with Kingspan to stop people using it so enjoy it now, it may vanish from the next few pics.

And we hope there WILL be a front view to show you soon - they're taking the scaffolding down at the front and sides as I'm writing this.  So as at Friday lunchtime:
Rear roof is now mostly tiled, scaffolding still at rear.
Patio and external works are due to start on Monday.
Kitchen island and toaster/oven block being assembled.
Plumbing including MVHR and hot water tank being connected - the garage roof space looks like a nuclear reactor control room!
Dehumidifiers are in and drying out the screed - we are on duty to empty the reservoirs every few hours over the weekend.

The light fantastic

With the electricity connected we've now got some of the lights working. Outside...

...and inside.

We are trying to firm up on a finishing date without, it must be said, much luck. We're still hopeful of being in before C********. (We're not mentioning the "C" word.) The biggest uncertainty seems to be whether the floor screed will have dried out enough to put the wood flooring down.

Meanwhile there's lots of fitting out work now being done - including windows, tiling, doors and wardrobes.

Another screed from us...

...this time though we're talking about the screed on the floor downstairs - I don't actually have a pic of it as we're not quite organised after our few days away last week. Having the floor in place makes it all look quite finished downstairs.  The key question now is how quickly it will dry out to enable the wood flooring to be laid.  Other progress in the last few days includes:  the rear roof en route to being slated; the plastering is finished; glass in several windows, second fix electrics mostly done (including lights that work!!) with all non-downlighter light-fittings now in place, bath and shower trays fitted and the rest of the sanitary ware delivered, bathroom walls in the course of being tiled.