If I had a hammer

Monday/Tuesday (Day 36/37) The sun shines once again! a fantastic start to the week and by the looks of it set to be the same all week. Perfect for putting on a new roof! Our new chippie turned up on Monday as the others went back to their other job. By Tuesday the one side of the hip roof was up and ready for felt and baton, a couple of more days and we should be ready for the roofers next Monday.

Yet another lintel went up and part of the stud wall was put up in the bedroom, you can almost see the shape of the walk in wardrobe and its quite exciting as you can see where everything will be going (not that we have decided on anything to go in the rooms)

Wednesday 22nd April (Day 38) Today was the day Jo dreaded and I looked forward to (well Jo was looking forward to it too) the kitchen wall was knocked down and opened it right up below you can see some before and after pictures. It is still not finished yet we got more of a different wall to knock down to make the room even bigger and then the steel beams can go in.

60 Minute makeover.

Week 7 (Days 31 to 35) Easter Monday arrived and so did the builders, (plural being very important) it was quite a shock looking out the window; there were more cars than you find at your average carcraft show room! Unfortunately it wasn't the 60 minute makeover team from the tele but just a horde of workman. In total we had 4 chippies/roofers, 2 Plumbers, 2 labourers, 1 electrician, 1 plasterer and 1 brickie.

On Monday and Tuesday the roof started to swing into action with lots and lots of joists being set up, measured cut and nailed into place. We have a pretty big hip roof going up which spans the width of the house. A fair bit of timber is being used in the hip and after a week and about three van loads of timber they still have more to get. (remember you can click all images for bigger versions)

Lots of plastic was used to cover over the roof to try and make it waterproof as possible, once this was done the builders started to knock through the walls upstairs, from the two main bedrooms into the new extension. A steel box lintel was put in across the 3m+ span that was newly formed. The plumber worked downstairs and ran the waste pipe between the joists and got some hot and cold pipes in position.

Towards the end of the week some serious head scratching went on after the builder looked at the tiny pillar holding up not only the steel lintel but also the new hip roof and the old roof joists. After a discussion with the structural engineer, he went and ordered two new steel beams instead. It turns out the structural engineer didn't read the drawings correctly and thought the gap was smaller (Do we really pay these guys.. makes you wonder what else he has got wrong). Some plaster boards were put up in possibly the worst part of the house where all the rain water leaks through (and sure enough it did on Friday) and the chippies got to making the utility room stud wall on Friday as it was raining too much to get on the roof.

It has certainly been a busy week even though at times it seemed like not much was being done! We should be getting different chippies next week (Starbucks will likely go bust) and we hope the roof will get finished or at least felted so it is water tight and then it will open up a lot more jobs to do on the inside. While they are working on that I think our kitchen will be the next part of the house to get the smashing hammer! Below are some pictures of the roof as it is now, the green tarp on it will give you an idea of the end shape of it.

What Really Happened Last Week!

Well what really happened is what Tim says, the water poured in over the new fuse box!
But this was partly their fault because we found out Antony the project manager had forgotten to organise the structural calculations necessary to build the roof. This resulted in the roofers not being able to start and consequently the builders being bored with nothing to do. So they decided to start knocking through bits that weren't supposed to be knocked through til AFTER the roof was built, these walls were keeping the rain out so when they were gone the rain came in!
Anyway I then told the foreman not to knock anything else down until the roof was on (Wednesday). Needless to say the calcs arrived and the roofers arrived 2 days later on Good Friday to start the roof. Although the weathers been great the roofers work has been slow cause they like to nip to Starbucks for coffee 4 times a day - they must be being paid too much!
Despite that looking on the positive side - between my roof and starbucks at least there is a positive effect on the economy!

Rain on me

Day 26 to 30: Over half way into the build now (if you go with the original plan :P ) and things were still going great. Monday was taken up with some more smashing work, removing the upstairs en suite, taking off all the tiles and just generally making a good old mess!

(I was asked to take some further away shots)

On Tuesday the roof joists arrived, so we had to cut out the rest of the old joists and put in the new ones.

The building really started to take shape once the joists were all fixed in place. Unfortunately though the left side of the building was left a little exposed, so Matt spent half the day coming up with a great water proof roof (yes again) with the tarpaulin. I have to say it looked as though he had done a fantastic job by the time they came to leave... that was until 10pm that night when I heard drip drip drip in my hall way. Water was coming in through the hall ceiling and even all over the new consumer unit that had just been installed, so I had the fun task of going out on the scaffolding in the rain and dark and trying to make some other water shield. It took me about an hour before I managed to hold the rain back best I could, the rest I just had to capture by stuffing sheets in some of the holes.

Not quite what we wanted to happen! still it wasn't so much the builders fault as the useless tarp we used, so a word of warning if you go camping, do not use green tarpaulin to make a tent! The next couple of days was spent making sure the building really was water tight and also some more window holes were knocked out. Our builders were so keen they even came on Friday (and Monday) to carry on with the job, the roofers came on Friday and put the main ridge beam of the new roof up in place. The extension is looking great now and you can almost see the outline of how it will look when finished. (you can just see the ridge beam at the very top in the picture below, its not very clear but the next update will have much better pictures, so make sure you come back!)

How many blocks does it take to build a house

Day 21 to 25: The update is a little late for this week as we were away in London for the ideal home show for a couple of days, so I shall do a quick summary and leave this update with mainly pictures.

The scaffolding was raised to a higher level and another 4 packs of blocks were delivered, these all had to then be taken from the ground floor up to the top level of scaffold. The block work was then build up to the same height as the house. Two new lintels were put in over the windows and wall plates (bits of wood screwed to the brick) was put along all the edges ready for the roof joist to attach to. Towards the end of the week the electrician came to wire up a new consumer unit. He almost ran away when we said we wanted the unit in a different place (we did actually tell him this before though!) He did move it in the end but not quite where we wanted it (supposedly the wires wouldn't reach) anyway, enjoy the pictures!..

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(its a huge consumer box, we may have enough room to stick next door onto it too!)