Goodbye 2010

It's New Year's Eve and the perfect time to reflect on 2010. Back in January, we had high expectations of having our house plans approved and builders ready to start so that we could be in our new home by the summer. As it was, we got our plans approved in the summer, met our builder in June and got underway in August with a date for moving in to the new home somewhere in the region of March 2011.

Since the start of building works, we've been conscious that March 2011 has to be the deadline day. I've always wanted to be "in" by the time my 40th birthday comes around and it will be on the 3rd April! We had plans to go to New York with friends for a few days for my birthday, but those plans have had to be shelved as our house "project" churns through our finances! Indeed, our annual sojourn to London during February has been cancelled this coming year too; as has a new car; our summer holiday is also teetering on the brink!

So. 2010 was a year of missed deadlines. 2011 must not follow the same pattern!

The spectacular amount of snow we got during December has already caused setbacks in that both the inside and outside plastering is currently outstanding. The majority of our windows are in, but not all. Plasterboard has been applied to the majority of the ceilings, but not all. In short... we're a bit behind schedule and my birthday present is starting to look like it may be late. I'm keen for that to be not the case, however!

On a positive note, the kitchen has been selected, deposit paid and is on its way. The sanitary-ware (a word I hate, by the way) has been selected, paid for and is on its way. Flooring has been selected - sort of - and prices arranged. The big decisions still left for us to work on are:

• floor screed - traditional or Ultraflo (from RTU)
• floor colouring - oak or brushed & oiled smoked oak
• stair colouring

And, of course, we still need to sell our current house! And in the economic situation we find ourselves, that may be trickier than we had previously hoped. In any case, a Plan B of holding on to both houses and renting our old one is still an option!

So it is time to bid farewell to a stressful 2010 and welcome in what should be Happy New Year. Fingers crossed for March!

What Does The Kitchen Look Like

It's amazing how many times I've been asked that question! What does the kitchen look like? Or, how much did your kitchen cost? Or, what colour have you gone for? Or, what appliances have you selected?

I don't know why I haven't uploaded an "artist's impression" of the kitchen before now, but here it is in all its glory:

We Have Windows

We were told that windows would be installed this week and right on cue, the window installer people were onsite today installing windows. I say windows. I mean window frames.

In fact, all but 3 windows have been installed from what I can tell. And before you start thinking that I may be having trouble counting, it was very dark when I was there!

NOTE: The window frames are currently covered in some kind of white protective covering. Underneath the covering, they are black!


The large window in the hall at the front of the house has not been installed (though I'm reliably informed that this will happen tomorrow). The window in the master bedroom is sitting in the kitchen ready for the big heave-ho upstairs tomorrow and the utility room is bereft of window material.

So just 3 frames to go then it is time for the glass. If the weather forecast for Thursday is accurate, it can't come too soon.

No witty title - they've all been taken

Today I really felt for the first time that our dream home was becoming a reality. The plasterboard in our bedroom really helps give you an impression of what it will be like. The sun streaming in on a December afternoon was lovely.

The girls climbed the ladder to see their bedrooms. Emily's room is v. big with nooks and crannies but has less light coming in than Rachel's brighter but more square bedroom. They were delighted for about 2 seconds and then disinterested for the rest of the time. Oh well, it's probably hard for them to imagine. We're delighted - that's what matters!

Picked our bathroom suites this week and we have managed to get the price reduced by nearly 50%, that's good news for our tightly stretched budget. I will probably make a few changes so the price will go back up a little, but not much.

Plastered

It shouldn't have come as a surprise to see plaster-board on the walls as I saw the plater-board being delivered just a few days ago. But it did. And it was pleasant!

The master bedroom is no longer a mish-mash of frameworking. It looks like a proper room with a proper ceiling and proper walls:

Proper ceilings seem to be in place for the guest bedroom, study and front living room too. Having said that, there is still plenty of plastering still to do but the goal of having that part of the project complete this side of Christmas is still realistic.

So the house is now wired and the plumber has installed the bulk of the pipework (with the exception of the underfloor heating system. All on track as far as those guys are concerned then. And we've also managed to select the bathroom suites we intend to install - understated is the bathroom buzzword which is certainly at odds with the kitchen! Poles apart in statedness (if I may create such a word).

The installation of the windows is expected before Christmas which probably means that it will be done next week! That will certainly be a milestone and may require the opening of some Champagne, which thankfully is on order thanks to a cracking 50% off deal being run by Tesco!

The last two weeks have seen a blanket of snow covering the property but a rise in temperature of just 5 degrees in the last 24 hours has seen that blanket being removed. Fingers crossed that the weather remains kind enough to allow the window installers to do their stuff!

Who Has Been Snooping

I paid my normal Saturday morning visit to the site to check that all was as it should be to find that the "gates" weren't tied together by the little pieces of rope as they normally are.

I thought it odd but figured that maybe one of the builders had just forgotten to secure the site properly.

When I'd finished my inspections, I tied the gates together properly and left only to return 2 hours later with my brother to show him the progress. Bizarrely, the gates were open once again! And footprints were visible in the snow leading round to the back of the property, in behind the garage and in to the far corner of what used to be the garden.

Given that it was a Saturday and that the builders don't work on a Saturday: I can only come to one conclusion. Someone has been snooping. I don't know if it is someone being nosey or if it is someone "casing the joint". Either way - I don't like it!

A couple of padlocks have now been applied to the gates which should be sufficient to keep the casual snoopers at bay. Anyone more determined to gain access to the site will be bitterly disappointed when they do as there is nothing there of any interest!

Virginmedia Runaround

I've been a Virginmedia customer since the days before they became Virginmedia. Indeed, I've been a customer of NTL since before the day they became NTL. I've had cable services piped into my house since the days of Cabletel. In other words, I have a long standing relationship with the company and they provide me with a 50mb broadband connection, a telephone line and access to more television channels than I could ever hope to watch.

Yesterday, I had a long standing relationship with my phone while I spoke with a number of Virginmedia employees!

I made the mistake of asking for them to send someone out to take a look at my new house and confirm that the wiring that is being installed is appropriate and that the location of the incoming cable is as they would expect. Not a difficult request. A simple "Yes, we will send someone out right away" or a simple "No, I'm sorry we can't do that" would have been sufficient.

The conversation I had, though, was anything but simple:

Employee 1: "Hello. What can I do for you?"

Me: "I'd like an engineer to perform a pre-install site survey please"

Employee 1: "Can you confirm your post code and house number?"

Me: "For my new house or to confirm my current customer credentials?"

Employee 1: "Current please"

I was, as you can imagine, perfectly capable of verifying my identity (though it did take a while) and the employee tried to be helpful though she couldn't understand why I was talking to her at all and why I couldn't give her a date for me moving house. Seemed irrelevant to me, but she decided (after a while) that she wasn't able to help and that she would put me through to another department.

Employee 2: "Hello. Sales department. What can I do for you?"

Me: "I'd like an engineer to perform a pre-install site survey please"

Employee 2: "Can you confirm your post code and house number?"

I've been here before, haven't I!

Employee 2: "I can order an installation right away."

Me: "I don't need an installation just yet. I won't move in until March."

Employee 2: "OK. I will order a disconnection for the 1st March and connect your new services on the 2nd March"

Me: "How do you know what date I'll be moving in. My builder doesn't have that information yet! In any case. I want a survey now first."

Employee 2: "Please hold and I'll put you through to a department that can help"

LONG WAIT

Employee 3: "Hello. What can I do for you?"

Me: "I'd like an engineer to perform a pre-install site survey please"

Employee 3: "Can you confirm your post code and house number?"

It might not surprise you to learn that Employee 3 (who I like to call Michael) was of no help at all. He couldn't understand why I couldn't give him a moving date. He didn't seem to understand anything I was saying. Maybe that was because I was starting to get a little agitated.

It won't surprise you to learn that Employee 3 decided (after a while) to pass me on to Employee 4 though not before I had to endure another few minutes of tedious jingles.


Employee 4: "Hello. What can I do for you?"

Me: "I'd like an engineer to perform a pre-install site survey please"

Employee 4: "Can you confirm your post code and house number?"

Inner rage was really starting to kick-in now. I think I had a rant at this stage and almost refused to give my Post Code and House Number. We did, however, get through that particular distraction eventually.

Employee 4: "I'm confused as to why you've been put through to me. I arrange for roads to be dug up with the local authorities. I don't deal with domestic installation."

Me: "I'm confused to. I don't want to talk to you. You are of no benefit to me. Please put me through to someone sensible and tell them they better not ask me for my postcode!"

Employee 5: "Hello sir. You're through to the Sales team."

Me: "WHAT? I spoke to sales at least 3 people ago! What is going on here. How hard can this be?"

Employee 5, to be fair, was the only sensible person I spoke to during the 90 minutes of torture that I had to endure. She was knowledgable, helpful and seemed in some way sympathetic. However, she couldn't provide me with an engineer for a pre-installation survey as Virginmedia don't do that any more.

And that would be the end of my story if it weren't for the fact that a 5 minute phone call a week earlier resulted in an engineer called Bradley phoning me to arrange for a pre-installation survey. He, however, didn't show up. I was merely calling yesterday to arrange for Bradley to make more of an effort next time.

So it would seemed that Virginmedia policy changed inside a week. Either that or very few people working for Virginmedia know what is going on. Which do you think it is?

In summary. I have found almost everyone working on our building project to be nothing other than professional and helpful. Almost everyone!

Gridlock Onsite

"Can we have a quick get-together with the plumber?" asked the builder.

Little did we know that parking in the vicinity of our property would be at a premium because not only was the plumber onsite, but a squad of electricians, labourers, roofers, site foreman and our main man, Adrian. The street was chocoblock with vans, trailers and cars. What must the neighbours think?

I'm liking the roofers though. The work they do is dramatic and eye-catching just now:

Electrical requirements have now all been defined - hopefully. That is, defined with the exception of the location of the Virginmedia cabling for which Virginmedia have been requested on-site to give their views on the situation.

Plumbing-wise, all requirements have now been defined though a supplier for the bathrooms is still to be decided. Any plumbers' merchants who fancy putting forward a case for why we should use them are welcome to do so!

In other news, Emily has decided that she wants a blue radiator under her windows. Rachel wants her bedroom decorated as if she were living in 18th century Paris! Should children aged 9 and 6 be given the ability to make these decision?

Restricted Access

We took our daughters to the "dream home" today with a view to taking them upstairs so they could see their bedrooms.

Unfortunately, the joiner seems to have restricted our access via the normal route and the girls didn't fancy the look of the rickety ladder that has been put in its stead. The sturdy scaffolding previously in place has now been disconnected from the landing:

I, however, did manage a wander around to see what else the joiner had achieved. Ceilings have been formed, stud walls are in place and even the fancy recess in the dining area is half done.

Roof slates and electrical work is still outstanding though - hurricane force weather hasn't helped matters for either profession.

Decisions have been made on the fireplaces that are to be installed. A frameless Studio 1 gas fire for the front sitting room and an Escamo 200 wood burning stove for the back sitting room come in at just under budget.

Stormy Weather

Hurricane force winds would prevent me from climbing on to a roof in order to nail down some slates but it hasn't stopped our roofers this week:

The inclement weather has diverted the joiner's attentions to blocking up the windows (in advance of the real windows turning up in a few weeks time). The inside of the house is taking on a slightly more sinister look and feel because of the darkness. I guess it is better to keep the weather out though!

In other news, it looks like the kitchen has been selected and the bathroom selection process is moving on apace! The spark turns up on Monday to do his first internal fix - let's hope we specified enough power sockets and ethernet points.

Internal stud walls have been positioned in the master bedroom too:

Won't be long now :-)

The kitchen

I am off to a kitchen showroom today to get a kitchen plan. I love looking at beautiful kitchens but find it difficult to choose between them! The first fix electrics was supposed to start today but the electrician has advised that it will be Monday now, so that takes a wee bit of pressure off!

I am veering towards something like these:

I like the one on the left, the other one is actually from B&Q! Not bad is it? Of course the one on the left is more expensive!!!!! Somewhere in the middle price range would be good.

Right, off to get ready...

Walkthrough And Decision Making

Yesterday, we had a site walkthrough with the builder and the electrician in a bid to determine where to locate the sockets, lights, swittches, CAT5 sockets, TV points, manifolds, consumer units and a multitude of other items. It took over 3 hours and that was after a 2 hour walkthrough on Wednesday.

Looking at drawings is all fine and well but it is only once you are actually in the house and walking around it that you get a feel for how you might actually live in it. And it is at that point that you start to realise where you might like things positioned. After all, the sun shining through the window in a particular direction can help you decide whether a desk goes against a wall or not (and therefore whether twin sockets are required on that wall or not).

It was slow going but well worth while and just a great feeling to be able to move about the house upstairs properly:

 

The roofers seem to be making good progess too. The slates are on at the back of the house and stacked at the front ready to be nailed into place this week.

The electrician will be on site this week doing his first fix and we should have a plumber soon to work out the pipe-work. It's all happening at pace once again but that only increases the pressure on us to make some decisions such as the layout of the kitchen. In fairness, we have the kitchen plan mapped out using the Alno Kitchen Planner software though the resulting kitchen it has produced looks like it will cost ~ £40K. In effect, though, we are looking at a straight run with upper units and a 2.4m island. We took the opportunity to lay out planks onsite to see how it would look (and included Jackie in the shot for scaling purposes):

The major issue we have been facing as part of our walkthroughs, however, is the positioning of a single stud wall in the master bedroom. Why such a simple thing should cause so much grief is a mystery but the issue boils down to having either additional space given over to the bedroom which will make it look impressive; or giving space over to storage (because you can't have too much storage). The storage argument seems to be gathering momentum just now and I've no doubt it will win within the next few hours. All that will remain will be how do we attach doors to the stud wall so that we can get access to this storage! That, my friends, is one for the interior designer in the family!

Mrs. Doyle

Well, Stephen has met the electrician and spent 3 hours going over the lighting requirements. We are meeting up again to tomorrow to go over the sockets. Apparently I may be required to climb a ladder. Oh dear, I have visions of me in a Mrs. Doyle type scene where she steps off the window ledge into mid air. I have vertigo at the best of times, so this will be interesting. Anyway, looking forward to seeing the roof - if there was some slate on it I would be delighted!

Water Tightness

I managed to pay a site visit mid-week for the first time in 5 weeks today and was half-expecting little change to have been made over the last week. I was pleasantly surprised.

The roof membrane has been applied and the battens are in place ready for the slates. The Velux windows are all in place too and the roofer was on-site doing his "roofing" business on the flat roof at the rear of the house. It seemed like too good an opportunity to let pass, so despite my lack of head of heights, I climbed the scaffolding to take a look at the flat roof:

So we shall be water-tight very soon which must mean we are in for some tough decision making in the next few weeks.

I wasn't alone during my visit either. I took Rachel with me, my nine-year old daughter. I took her to see her bedroom and asked her what she thought of it. "Not bad" she replied. I took her to see her younger sister's bedroom and asked her what she though of it. "Could be better" she replied. I didn't ask her any further questions!

BTW - here are the slates:

The Master Bedroom

Our master bedroom looks huge!

I managed to haul my lardy behind up the scaffolding to take a look at it and was totally gobsmacked. That was until I realised that the far end of the room would be taken up with an en-suite and dressing room. And that the near side of the room would actually be given over to a "laundry" room. And that really the room wasn't going to be big at all.

Even so... it should still be quite impressive:

The next big step though is to put the tiles on the roof - should that be slates? Probably slates. In fact, that decision seems to be holding up the project just now but rest assured, the decision will be made within minutes.... slate! Probably. Maybe!

Roof Insulation Update

The problem with working away from home is that I only get to see changes to our home at the weekend. Sometimes that's a good thing though as I get to see dramatic changes rather than wondering what has happened during the preceding few hours.

This weekend, I was treated to the view of a roof which is starting to look like a proper roof in that insulation has been inserted between the rafters and another layer of insulation attached "above" the rafters. To me, it looks super-insulated (especially when compared with the void that exists in my current home).

The hall is also starting to look impressive from the inside. Maybe it is tricky to imagine with all the scaffolding still in-situ. What do you think?

Apparently we are quite close to being water-tight which will be fantastic. But that kind of progress brings other complications. It's now time for us to make some decisions like where the power points are going; where the ethernet points are going; where the lights are going; what colour of window frame we will be having. And, of course, deciding on the location of power points around the house requires that room layouts are decided. And we need to have that decision making process completed ASAP. Today, ideally.

What a difference err.... 6 days makes!

Well, it transpires now that our "buyers" for number 34 have not completely walked away. Now it appears that if we fix the "problems", they might still be interested! Might have been nice to have known that a few days ago.

We are getting a copy of the surveyors report on Wednesday and then we need to open our already stretched wallets and spend some money....

No. 34 bad news

Well, crossing fingers didn't work. Our little first time buyers have been frightened off by their surveyors report (they should have seen the one we got 15 years ago - subsidence, asbestos, lead pipes and damp - none of it relevant of course as we have had no issues in that time). Unfortunately they were so scared that they wouldn't re-negotiate nor would they discuss the issues. Bizarrely for a house that's in such "poor" condition the surveyor valued it at 180k. I really do feel that this process is very wrong as the surveyor cares only about whether he is sued by his clients if he misses something. Only winner is him, he got paid. We lost our buyers and they think their dream home is some sort of hell hole.

So now we have no buyer and we need to have a rethink. S is away all week so not easy to talk this through.

There is a silver lining to every cloud though as we will be able to stay here for Christmas, rather than being in rented accommodation. I must be a bit weird but I felt a certain relief that we don't have to pack up just yet! :)

What Is Going On

Unfortunately, my working life often means that I am away from home and these past two weeks have seen me away from home almost exclusively! It is therefore very difficult to provide a progress report when I have no idea what is happening.

As I write this, I'm sat on a train heading to London Euston station after having spent a couple of days in Birmingham - you can see how it would be tricky for me to take photos of a house being build many hundreds of miles away.

However, the rafters are on and progress is good. As I understand it, the bedrooms upstairs won't have ceilings in the traditional way - they will be exposed right to the apex of the roof (or as near as we can get). This should give the rooms an even more spacious feel. Interestingly, though, the drawings might actually cause some confusion by showing "something" resting on the supporting beams but my belief is that these lines are "arrows" pointing at the underside of the roof. It's easy to see how mistakes could be made and that drawings can be interpreted incorrectly. I had to stare at it a couple of times!

I keep getting asked when the house will be water-tight. Unfortunately, I still don't know. I'm hoping it will be soon. I'm sure it will be soon.

Dizzy Heights

So today I managed to climb some ladders without falling off. I used to be OK with ladders. I used to be OK with heights. But I think I'm now very aware of my own mortality and I don't want to die - climbing ladders takes may a step closer to death. Or at least falling and hurting myself. Which may result in death.

Anyway. Today, I was a brave little soldier and climbed some ladders!

And where did those ladders take me you may ask yourself. Well, they took me up to the first floor of the new house from where the views are absolutely spectacular! The views, however, were not the reason why I put my life at risk. I wanted to see how progress was going 16 feet above ground level - I know, it's not really that high!

The result:

This it the view from what will be Rachel's bedroom towards the Master Bedroom and as you can see, the joiners have been at their work today.

So the roof is taking shape now which is excellent - in four weeks time, the dark afternoons will have returned and we will be entering winter after all !

No. 34 update

As of last Friday, we have a buyer for No. 34. First time buyer, so no chain AND they want to complete by end October! Thanks to Granda Jim we also have somewhere to stay until the house in Carnhill is complete. So, it's all systems go. An emotional time for me but it is what we want, no pain, no gain as they say. Fingers crossed that all goes according to plan!

Chim Chiminee

It would be fair to say that we didn't leave too much of the original house in place when we started to extend. So it came as a surprise to find that one of the few remaining parts of the original house was going to cause us some grief.

It seems that the original chimney stack has no lead tray in place - whatever that is. Actually, I do know what a "lead tray" is now after having asked enough questions. It has something to do with stopping water getting into the house. That's all I need to know. Well. That and the fact that it would be a good thing to take the chimney stack down a notch or two, whack in a "lead tray" and rebuild the stack. Which costs money. And that's the bit that really interests me.

When I visited the site today, there wasn't much activity going on. In fact, I felt quite alone until the nice man from Building Control turned up to take a "look-see". He seemed very pleased with progress and stated that we were in good hands with our builders - W&R Moore. So that was good news, eh?

Number 34 Update

The painters have been and gone and no. 34 is looking a lot better. S has been out and power washed the cement, scraped the drive, mowed the lawns, strimmed and removed junk. J has been on a never ending cleaning/tidying spree, diy, school runs and looking after the kiddies. We have had 6 different viewers and one second viewing in the one week we have been on the market. Some guys are supposed to come and clean the external PVC. Still waiting....

Imagery Update

It's Saturday morning and the sun is shining. I therefore don't have time for words, so here is a bunch of photos instead:

Scaffolding Is Up

It rained this week. Cecilia Daly told us that it would rain. And my favourite weather girl didn't disappoint. In fact, the rain was really quite Biblical at times. Building homes in the rain is no fun; building in a monsoon is practically impossible.

But there has been progress this week. The joists are in place across the entire house and the extensions no longer has that open-air feel about it. The steel beam holding up the landing has been "refitted" and we're now ready to take the block work up another few courses.

The scaffolding is now in place to help the bricklayers get up to the dizzy heights required to build the first floor. I say dizzy when really what I mean is that if I had to climb up to a height of 8', I'd feel dizzy. I'm sure the brickies shan't keel over after a bout of vertigo at those meagre heights.

The next floor should take less than a week to put together then we are in a position to put the rafters in place (I guess) and the construction phases will be almost at an end. At that point, we will have the long-drawn out affair that is the kitting out. (Again, I'm guessing...)

And finally... our first bill has arrived from the builder. It gave me that vertigo feeling!!!

Timber

Rooms are only rooms when they have four walls, a floor and a ceiling and up until now, we have been bereft of what one might call a ceiling.

Today, however, we got some ceiling action. I say ceiling when really what I mean is some timber work spanning the width of a room above head height:

For some reason, I thought the brickwork "upstairs" would be completed before the timbers went in and that holes would be cut into the brickwork to accommodate the timber. Obviously I was mistaken.

The weather forecast for the rest of the week isn't great:

• Wednesday: Rain
• Thursday: Sunshine
• Friday: HEAVY Rain
• Saturday: HEAVY Rain

Busy at No. 34

The rain is bucketing down and the painter (for no. 34) has failed to turn up - behind schedule due to the bad weather. He has been booked since the start of August. We are doing the viewings anyway although I don't think the house is being seen at its best. Viewer number 4 is coming tomorrow. There have been positive comments via the estate agent and one of the viewers is coming back for a second viewing later in the week. It is hard work to keep the house presentable and deal with the usual chores and the kids needs too! On positive side the house has never looked better!

Five Weeks In

Five weeks have passed since the start of work at Carnhill and of those five weeks, the past week has seen the least amount of dramatic change (from a visual perspective).

It's clear to see that the timbers have turned up for the joist work and some concrete has been poured into the sub-floor for the hall, guest bedroom and study. And two huge steel beams have been hauled into place - the beam in the hall looks like it could do with being levelled (or maybe my eyes are wonky).

So after four weeks of pure drama, this past week has been quite sedate - which coincided with me working away from home in Oxford, thus the lack of update this week.

In other news, our existing house went on the market this weekend and three viewers arrived before the house was even advertised on the internet or the local Property News paper. An encouraging start to the process and we have noticed a significant number of people stopping outside the house and staring because the For Sale sign is up!

House Walkthru

Our build has been on the go for four weeks and we can now confirm that the brickwork for the ground floor looks like it has been completed. Upstairs, not much brickwork was left, to be honest!

And to celebrate the downstairs construction, we have a special "walkthrough" video clip:

(sorry about the brightness)

A professional would have added captions and titles and voice-overs to the walkthrough. The excitement means that I didn't have the time to do that. In short, however, the walkthrough takes the following route:

• Back Living Room/Kitchen/Diner
• A look-see into the Utility room
• The front Living Room (or dare we call it a lounge? Prentitious? Possibly)
• From the hall, we swing round to look into the downstairs WC
• We then look at the guest bedroom and take a peak at the ensuite
• And finally we enter the study before moving out into the hall again

Hope you like it!

12 Courses Completed

I like brick-layers. Brick-layers make startling progress!

Here's the view of the extension, 12 courses high already:

And from a different angle, we can see the new windows at the back of the house in place either side of the chimney breast:

Looking inside the "kitchen" window, we can now see the larder at the far end of the room:

And, of course, the work continues out front with the new "porch" taking shape nicely.

It's all very exciting but we mustn't forget how early we are in this process. There is still a lot of work to do and a lot of things still to consider, such as:

• Underfloor heating (which will probably be electric)
• The velux-style windows in the roof of that porch (as I can't remember if that feature made it into the final plan)
• Stairs... we definitely need to go and get an idea of stairs ASAP

Men At Work

So far, I've been able to go to the house in the evenings and see the progress that has been made. Today, however, I got to be onsite while work was underway.

It was raining. It was mucky. But it was great to see the blocks being laid:

And the purpose of the visit? To confirm that a small window at the back of the house can be sited up against the chimney breast and that I was comfortable with that approach. And the reason for it being so tight against the chimney? We need an adequate number of blocks to carry the weight of the steel that will span the doors to the garden.

Demolition is exciting. But seeing construction in action is pretty good too.

The Brickies are Coming..

Exciting news that the brickies are arriving tomorrow - we will hopefully see some progress in an upward direction!

Underfloor heating

Am looking at underfloor heating options. Electric or wet?

Had initially thought we would be going for the usual gas fired wet system, however have discovered that there would be advantages to having an electric system. Thinner profile, faster warm up time, more efficient as uses 100% of energy provided, no cold spots. The downside - living in Northern Ireland with electric at 13-15p per kwh (compared with 6-8p in England) it appears that it could work out at £2000 per year to heat the house! Having said that the electricity prices here may well reduce now that NIE has a bit of competition.

Haven't worked out the gas cost but I believe it would be less. The wet system has its downsides too - less efficient use of energy, possibility of cold spots and has more "parts" to maintain also there is more work required to install it. I really fancy the electric option if it was a bit cheaper to run!

A Modern Fireplace

Raised voices could be heard last night in the vicinty of Glengormley as I desperately tried to explain to my wife how we would go about implementing the multi-fuel stove in our new home. Of course, being the husband in the marital arrangement means that I was no doubt in the wrong and I'm more than happy to accept that this was the case. It was my fault for being incapable of explaining some very basic concepts.

Panic ye not, though... resorting to caveman style grunting and sketching with sticks in the sand resolved all the issues! The result of the sketching:

Steel Work Deployed

The latest pictures of the house are quite exciting as we can now see some proper structure in place for the extensions. The steelwork has been erected out front, and the base has been laid out back.

More steel beams are resting in the garage just now. It's hard to tell where they are going but I can hardly wait to find out.

Foundations Dug

The workers keep on working and the progress being made is just fantastic.

Foundations have been dug front and back and the true scale of the extension can now be seen. From one angle, it looks quite small. From another, it looks enormous. The true extent is probably somewhere in between, I guess.

The blocks for construction have also turned up on site and the site has been secured with fencing. I've also notice that my builder has put a sign up stating that he is performing the building work so I can safely announce that the builder is W&R Moore.

In other news, my insurers have thrown the toys out of the pram stating that the work being performed is greater than they were expecting and have decided to cancel my insurance. I find this quite strange - after all, I entered into an agreement with them to insure my property and was up-front with all the facts. They knew the property was vacant and they knew there would be renovation work and they knew that value of the house post renovation. When I phoned to say that the work was about to start, I thought I would be considered a good citizen but the insurers have taken the opportunity to cancel my policy instead.

Getting insurance for 12 months is not like signing a contract at all... the insurers can perform minor miracles in order to get out of paying out on the policy and can cancel as and when they see fit. Staggering really. My faith in the insurance "game" has been well and truly shattered.

Carnhill is currently a building site and my builder has adequate insurance but I will have to source replacement insurance before next Friday. And because it is a building site, I am (of course) still living in my current property which will be put up for sale very soon. But therein lies another problem... getting estate agents to accurately value the house and define a decent strategy for selling.

There is quite a discrepancy between the lowest valuation and the highest valuation and none of the four valuations we've had thus far come close to what friends and family would expect the house to fetch. Are friends and family being too kind? Are estate agents desparate to price the property at a price point that they know will generate interest regardless of the house's worth?

Buying and renovating introduces you to solicitors, builders, architects, plumbers, salesmen, bankers, insurers, estate agents and all other manner of "professional" people. Most of them have lived up to the standards that I expect, thankfully.

Week One Completed

One week down, twenty-nine (or so) to go!

It's amazing how quickly things can be "removed" and I'm sure the builders have had a lot of fun this week with their sledge-hammers and diggers. Today, the internal stud walls were removed and the back of the house is now clear ready for the foundations for the extension to be put in place.

The site looks strangely reminiscent of 1982, don't you think?

No More Windows

Tonight's visit to the "Dream Home" revealed that the windows and doors have gone - all bar one. The roof has completely gone and the back of the house has been knocked through. All ceilings have been ripped out and the garden basically completely flattened.

Passers-by now stop to have "look-see"!

And here's how it looks... an empty shell!

It is fair to say we are some way off moving in but the builders seem to be making great progress which is positive.

Heavy Plant Onsite

Well it seems that machines can do the job of many men...

The heavy plant has turned up on site and the roof has completely gone. The front of the garage has completely gone. The overgrown shubbery has completely gone. The property looks properly dangerous now! Click on the images below to see how much one machine can get through!

A Room With A View

Further progress today although the real action starts tomorrow when the diggers move in.

For now, take a look at what will be one of the bedrooms...

Ultimately, this dormor will just be completely removed and replaced with Velux style windows but once slates are removed, it's amazing to see how flimsy a house actually is!

Demolition Day

Day 1 for the builders it may be, but we've been waiting a year for this moment. Twelve months have passed since we decided to buy Carnhill and extend it. The extension has turned into a refurbishment, remodelling, roof heightening, landscaping and all manner of improvements taking our original budget estimation of £50K - £100K and multiplying it by a factor or three!



Demolition
The builders set about their task by not exactly building anything. Instead, they set their sights on demoilishing anything that was going to get in their way. First task? Remove the roof. Second task? Demolish the garage so that the heavy plant can get access to the rear of the property in order to start the digging of foundations.

The result wasn't as shocking as I was expecting (though I do feel sorry for the neighbours who may have had to suffer quite a noisy day).

It's amazing what a squad of hard-working individuals can get through in a day! And when I say squad, I mean squad... the cul-de-sac had its first ever traffic jam this morning when van after van turned up.

Grafitti
Of course, now that the house is officially a building site, it will attract the unsavioury elements in our society. In fact, they turned up last week to leave their mark on the empty shell.

The scrawls on the windows gave away their political persuasion:

"We run this show"
"Keep out"
"FTPSNI"
"FTUDA"
"FTUVF"

Lovely language, but it is a miracle that they didn't provide us with this poetry before now! The house has been empty for over 2 years after all. Ah well... the windows will be removed soon enough.

Signed up

Just back from holiday yesterday and signed on the dotted line today... we have a contract now to pay huge chunks of money to our builder every month for the next 8. A bit scary but nothing ventured... etc.

He starts to rip it up on Monday morning. Stephen will be there with his camera no doubt.. pics to follow.

VAT VAT VAT!

From 4th, January 2011, the VAT rate goes up from 17.5% to 20%. This will increase the price of our renovations of course - I haven't found anything yet that decreases them! We need to get as much paid for before then as we can!

Ideas Part 1

I have lots of ideas of how I imagine our new house. As they say - pictures speak a thousand words so I am going to publish some pictures here. Some ideas might have to change but here goes...

The doors

White, flat and shiny (?). had thought eggshell (?) but maybe gloss. There are no skirting boards here, I have read somewhere that walls are more easily damaged if u don't have them, so I think we will. However in tiled areas, I would use skirting tiles:

The door handles, something like this:

The Stairs

I think that glass up the sides and plain white plaster upstairs on the landing might be an option:

Hubby likes the open tread, but as our stairs are not going to be attached to a wall, I imagine we would need a "spine" to support them. That's what I'm not keen on, don't like too many bits! Decisions decisions...

Demolition Averted

While the merits of a complete demolition and a rebuild cannot be denied, there are one nor two issues with such an approach.

Issue 1: The house is mortgaged and I can't believe that our friends in the bank would be too happy with us knocking the house down. In fact, the terms and conditions pretty much state that we should not devalue the house at all. Would demolition temporarily devalue the house?

Issue 2: We really want to get started as soon as possible. We've been waiting far too long already. Demolition will introduce a major delay to the work whereas a straight extension/renovation can get underway on the 2nd August.

So the decision as to whether demolish or not was quite straightforward in the end - we're not doing it.

The Results Are In...

The builders quotes have been received and there has been a clear winner which is good news. Even better news is that we have met the builder and I believe we will be able to work with him. That may sound odd to some, but I was worried that he might be one of those cocky, winky, alright darlin' types that would upset me over time. He isn't like that at all which is brilliant news.

The only complication we have now, though, is a decision as to whether the house should be demolished and rebuilt which means VAT on the construction will be zero-rated. There are other benefits, of course:

• New house comes with a warranty
• New house will have modern materials and better insulation
• New house means no strange "joins" between the existing house and the extension

The downside is an extended construction period. Decisions, decisions. At least the builder can start pretty soon - 1st August. A 30 week construction period will take us through to the end of February (including a 2 week holiday for Christmas). Winter weather will probably mean that we don't get in to the house until Easter 2011. In other words, almost a whole year AFTER we had originally hoped for.

Even so... the excitement is building!

And we thought we'd be in....

When we decided to buy Carnhill, we believed (wrongly) that there was a chance of getting plans completed, builders selected and the job finished by the summer of 2010.

It's now June 2010, and we still don't have a builder selected. Thankfully, we are quite easy going and not ovely concerned but having said that, I don't believe we have been unnecessarily tardy in our approach to this project.

The fact still remains that it has taken a very long time to get to our current stage! And there is absolutely nothing that can be done to hurry this stage along. Builders should have received the working drawings from which we should receive quotes by 21st June - 3 weeks. It's quite exciting really - what will they come back with? £100K? £150K? £200K? More?

This will be the first time that we can properly compare our budget against a properly quantified quotation. Here's hoping that we have set aside enough funds for completion. And my recent re-assessment of completion dates may have to be re-assessed again. Have we a chance of getting in to the house before Christmas? Unlikely at our current rate!

We've opened a bottle of Bubbly!

I believe that as of today we are officially the owners of two properties!

So, we've had a bottle of bubbly with our chilli tonight - not a bit weird.

I can't help feeling that it is a bit of an anti-climax, probably because it has been going on for so long! Hopefully it will be more exciting when we get to the "moving in" stage.

It was strange to look at out bank accounts today and see a mortgage there. We've been used to not having one for 3 years. But it seems that money will be leaking out of our pores for the foreseeable future.

Almost There...

The property at Carnhill will finally pass into my hands on Tuesday!

It has been a long and arduous process made all too complicated by typos in wills, pernickety probate officers and long-winded insurance applications. But the purchasing process will be finalised on Tuesday. Funds are already buzzing around in the ether, contracts have been signed and invoices have been submitted.

It has been a good week for invoices. Not for me, of course. I've just sent through the funds for the deposit on the house. I've written a cheque for the Stamp Duty. I've been presented with the solicitor's bill. I've just received an invoice from the architect for Stage 2 of the design process. I have to send a cheque to the Council to cover the building control application process and I will soon receive an invoice for the building inspections.

If we remember how things were before Christmas, there was quite an expenditure on the house clearances covering labour and skip hire.

In short - it seems that many thousands of pounds have been spent and no builder has set foot on the property yet. Funding the remainder of the process will rely on borrowing and cashing-in investments and ISAs! Thankfully, money grows on trees, doesn't it?

To ease the pain of seeing these invoices, we've spent some time looking at more fireplaces, bathrooms and doors. Doorways, Northumberland Street, seemed to have a great range of doors which looked very appealing. Unfortunately, the doors I was drawn to seemed to retail between £150 and £200. With 16 internal doors required, we may have to revise our budget up to ~ £3,000. My penchant for walnut doors may require revisiting!

And finally.... I'm quite sure that I have spent the last 10 years writing maybe 2 cheque a year on average. In the last 6 months, I've exhausted one chequebook and am making serious inroads into the current one. And they say the chequebook is almost obsolete!

It Feels Like Traction!

It seems like the planning process for the redevelopment of our house has taken a long time (which it has) but finally we are starting to get some movement.

The working drawings are now underway and should be complete by the end of next week at which stage we can get finally get a builder involved.

The first meeting with the architect to discuss the finer details of our requirements seemed to go quite well. We are aiming high and are hopeful of being able to achieve everything that we want within our budget. So far, we have:

• Lowered suspended ceiling in the sitting room with feature lighting above
• Wood burning stove in the sitting room with air ducts to heat the hall & landing
• Eye-height inserts in the dining room (lit from above) for display purposes
• Concertina doors in the sitting room opening up into the garden
• A smaller larder (but consequently, a larger utility room)
• A gas fire in the lounge
• Underfloor heating for the hall and the kitchen/sitting room/dining room

Velux windows in the roof of the hall

The beam vacuum system that we wanted looks like a non-runner just now!

Our biggest issue is the builder selection. The recommendations we've received so far aren't strong enough recommendations for our liking. They've either been 2nd hand (or even 3rd hand) recommendations or the builder has been quite rude once we met them. Rudeness won't win this particular contract!

Of course, we've had a number of letters from builders keen to win the contract on the back of seeing the planning approval process. Everyone's advice seems to be to avoid builders who tout for work this way so those letters have been filed appropriately (with a special file for those with typos, spelling mistakes and basic grammar issues).

Cable Television & Telephone

Cabling for cable television and telephone should be easy. We have just one open question!

The Virgin Media cable comes into the house at the corner of the lounge and the front extension where it is "split".

Set top boxes for the television would be located in the lounge and the sitting room (with the open question around whether a cable should be put into the Master Bedroom for future use!)

The telephone cabling would route in the same direction. There is no requirement for a phone to be available in the study as all phone calls in there take place over Skype!

My guess is that my daughters will do the mobile phone thing in the near future and won't have a need for a landline in their bedrooms.

Freeview

I'm not a video expert, but my understanding of the current RF flow through the existing house is that there is an aerial, a booster in the roofspace and four cables routing to the booster. However, every room in the house currently has an RF patch point for television viewing.

This is achieved by chaining patch points from one room to another.

Maybe someone can put me right on that one?

Anyway - the diagram on the right shows how we can route the cabling from one room to another and up to the booster in the roofspace (and on out to the aerial).

There has traditionally been a problem getting signals from Divis at this location but the Divis signal is crucial for Freeview, for now.

Next up - Virgin Media television and telephone services!

Ethernet Wiring

A modern house should be wired for ethernet, right?

CAT6 cabling around the house would be an incredibly useful thing to have especially for someone who works at home a lot in the IT industry and needs superfast, reliable connections to the internet.

My plan is to bring the Virgin Media cable into the house at the corner of the Lounge and front extension. This cable will need to be split multiple ways (and put in place prior to Virgin Media turning up with their outside box).

One of the "splits" will lead into the Cable Modem (in the Lounge) which will have an ethernet cable out the back of it into a router/switch.

From here, cables will run to each room in the house that requires an ethernet patch in the wall - the bedrooms, back sitting room and study (which will get TWO wires).

Unfortunately, the wiring must all be routed back to a central location. It's not like electrical wiring which affords us the opportunity to create a "loop" around the house.

Anyway, the diagram shows the Virgin Media cable coming in, and the 7 cables leading to the various rooms around the house.

Next up - the video cabling system!