House status

You’d have been forgiven for thinking that I’d given up on our extension. Sometime I wish I had, but I certainly wouldn’t have been forgiven...

So, anyway, last post was the end of July, nearly 6 months ago. The status was, that the structure was built, and I was waiting for a slater to do the roof and a bricky to build us a wall.

Slater arrived, set up scaffolding and spent 3 weeks slating the roof. Below are ‘during’ and ‘after’ pictures. I used some of the time (and the scaffolding) to do the facia boards on the dormers.





That picture above also shows the wall in the process of going up. We never did find a bricky, so that was my and Seiko’s effort. And Seiko’s Mum helped with lifting the concrete lintels over the door and windows in to place, shot below shows the rigging for lifting the lintels, and a chicken or two.



Next thing we did was built the sun room, shown below with a big tarp over it because the skylights weren’t flashed in:



And this is the inside of that bit, a poor picture but hopefully you get the idea...



Thanks very much to Rob for helping lift those big Velux windows into place, they each weigh a bit more than me, so assistance was critical.

That took us up to mid September, after which the picture record goes a bit blank. The outside of the job was covered almost entirely with big tarpaulins (except the slated bits, of course), and it still is like that, to protect the brickwork from frost before it has been rendered. This was also the time that the windows finally got ordered.

Various stuff got done during October and November - the very last of the demolition, then the hauling away of all the rubbish, damp proofing, structural work for the ground floor, flashing of the Veluxes and surrounding roof, a light tube for the bathroom (which has no window, but now has daylight anyway). None of it got photographed (not that it was particularly photogenic.

Mid December the windows finally arrived, and Seiko and I (again assisted by Rob) fitted them over the Christmas holiday. Here’s the sun room end (from inside)



and here’s the play room (with patio door on right of the photograph)



On Tuesday I finished the floor deck (all very well insulated too), you can see that above, and in the picture below, which also shows the light pipe going to the bathroom:



Obviously it is very far from finished, but it is a bit warmer than it was when we had no windows, and the kids have been playing in there, which is nice.

Next thing to do is to get the building warrant for the bathroom signed off (it is old and outstanding, if you are interested why, ask), then I am turning my attention to heating and electrics.