We Have A Kitchen - ish

removing the part of the kitchen where the new doors will be.

Richard cut some of the worktop onto one of the base units and screwed it down and rounded the edges so I have a work surface and storage.

There you go - A KITCHEN!!!

It is modular so we can move it in a few weeks time when the ceiling has to be re-boarded and skimmed, and then put it back again. It will do for a year or so until we can get a permenant kitchen, and its better than the kitchens I had when I was first starting out.

Have you seen my Glorious Frontage ???!!!!

The re-re-re-pointing is done

Isnt that better! And no more holes in the brickwork for the wasps, flies and rain to get in.

The bits which havent been re-pointed are where the porch will go. It has a hipped roof.

And the Hydrangea has gone berserk and is flowering it socks off in various shades of pink and blue. Do you think it heard me threatening it with extinction? But it still has to be moved somewhere, somehow. The path around the porch will go right where it is at the moment.

Lintels: All Present and Correct Sarg........

Outside, awaiting the lintels

Breaking through into the kitchen.

Putting the outside lintel in the doorway through to the kitchen.

Inside my kitchen. We now have both the doorway lintels in. Good job the ceiling needed re-doing anyway..........the window you can see is the side kitchen window next to where the side door is.

The kitchen back window now has its full compliment of lintels. Hubby has made an oak frame to replace the plastic one. It will be single glazed and go between the Summer room and the kitchen so I have a nice view while washing up, as the sink is on the other side of the window.

Ta Da!! the outside brick wall has been removed at the doorway, and the back of the house is ready for the framework and roof to come next week.

A Basket Case

The building work has got to hubby and he needed to escape

So he went to a basket weaving day...........and this is what he made !!!!

Isnt he clever : )

Houston.............we have a problem................

Usual brickie was off on Thurs…………..so random brickie was employed by Boss Builder to start the re-pointing. It was not a good experience.

 Is it me…………..or is that Poodle Poo White???????? I asked random brickie what colour would it dry, as I was a bit worried, and he assured me that it would dry darker.

Friday morning came……….it was still PPW (poodle poo white) so I rang the Boss Builder. Who came down right away (only lives in the next village). There were a few questions asked of random brickie eg. Didnt he notice the colour of the mortar used on the extension and next door?

There were a few frank and free exchanges of opinion and parentage…………..and random brickie left. Boss builder will be raking out the PPW mortar and re-doing it.

Today (working the weekend as they have now lost 2 days), usual brickie arrives and is doing a fabulous job of re-re-pointing in the proper colour.

Oh, and Our Shower:

A Grand Day Out

It seems that DH and i wont get a holiday this year, so we are having some days out instead. Last week we went to Llandudno Beach for the day.

Although it looks cloudy on this photo, it was mainly sunshine, with a gentle breeze.

The pier went on for about half a mile, with an excellent cafe at the end of it.

All in all a lovely day : )

Repointing.........sort of......

The bricks on the front and side of our house get the full brunt of the wind and rain howling along the valley we live in. We have hills to the front and back of us, and the River Severn down the road. So the mortar between the bricks have eroded away and let the rain in. The builders have spent several days with grinders removing the old mortar, ready to replace it with much tougher fresh mortar.

I got a bit of a shock this morning when I opened my eyes at 7.30am and saw a topless man standing outside my bedroom window.

It is a very messy business and our outside looks like the Sahara. Clouds of dust everywhere. Our neighbors are being very understanding. The builders have promised to pressure wash their house when they have finished.

There are two builders, one doing the front and one doing the side.

Meanwhile, I have a very confused hydrangea. It is both pink and blue. Dont know why. It will have to be moved sometime as it is now in the way of what will be the new garden path.

Wont Somebody Think of the Drains!!!!

After tidying up the sink drainage inside the house, we were left with a bit of a mess outside the house....

So the builders did their magic and put in a new drain from the upstairs loo to the septic tank and a spur for the drainpipe.....

And married a new bit of pipework from the sink into it.

They have also put in the drainage for the downspouts around the house. Somehow I hadnt thought much about drainage, but its complicated stuff. Only certain water types can be drained into certain pipes, so it all has to be planned and ducted into the proper places.

Brickwork is Done

I know its been  a few days since I blogged, but brickwork, if done properly, take a while. This is the fruits of 4 days work. The builders can only do so many bricks at one time, and this project is quite big.

All the internal and external brickwork has now been done, It turned out that 3 different sized bricks have been used in the various remodellings of this house over the years, so they had a bit of trouble finding suitable sized bricks and getting the courses to marry up where they joined the house. They have done a superb job.

The old front door has now also been bricked up. This will be part of the new porch and will be plastered. We are just using the side door for a few weeks.

More on drainage soon............

Lintels ARE important!!!

Now the outside bricks are being laid at the back, its beginning to look more like part of the house. You see the square window at the back of the original house, in the new garden room? we were going to keep that aperture and put an open-able glass hatch in. Unfortunately - yes, you've guessed it - there is NO lintel above it. What we all (including the builders) though was a lintel faced with upright bricks, turns out to be bricks, but no lintel.

The window blew yesterday, and I ran out to tell the builder. We notice a small crack appearing up the brickwork. This is the section of wall where my thermalstore is above. Scary!!! I am glad the builders were there. So we are going to brick up the aperture where the window was. There will still be plenty of light as the 5’ double doors through to the garden room are glass, all the remaining wall is glass round the garden room, and we are having a huge window on the side of the house, in the kitchen/diner, where the old side window and door are now.

And Richard has re-done the plumbing into the drain to the side of the kitchen so the drain pipe you can still see, under the window, has now gone.

I am learning so much about how a house is supposed to be constructed properly.

Knitted Blanket Progress

I managed to design and knit another 12" square for my blanket this week, and have another one started. The next one is based on a traditional patchwork square : )

Starting the Walls.

Progress is being made. The walls are coming along nicely. I felt confident in these brickies when I saw they cut the bricks from the corner of the house to tie the extensions in properly. There are also metal wall ties being added.

This photo brings home to me that the back is actually 5 meters long, the entire width of my kitchen. It feels HUGE

Almost all of the interior wall is done now at the back. The walls are low ones, for maximum window coverage all round, and I can see when the doors to the garden will be. Anyone want an oil tank?????

And they are all ready ready to start on the front extension walls tomorrow. My hydrangea is half the size it was, but is flowering its socks off.

Completing the Bases

The builders used sand to level the bases ready for the DPN.

Then the Damp Proof membranes are laid at the front and back, lining a trough for the concrete

 The concrete mixer arrives again : )

They used planks to level the concrete and tamp it down to remove any air bubbles.

And Ebony The Cat couldn't help putting his paw-print on the front base, just as the concrete was nearly set.

A final smoothing with a trowel, and the bases are ready.