Spangly Spindles
The final piece of outsourced work for the loft was to install new banisters from top to bottom of the house. On Tuesday night we had the pleasure of removing the ugliest piece of the conversion work that was done to make the house 2 flats - the partition wall running up the side of the staircase. (Please note that no pregnant ladies were harmed in the taking of this photograph).
The carpenter managed to salvage what was left of the bottommost newel post and very neatly cut and joined one of our replicated posts on top of it. We're really pleased with the finished result. Our loftman thought the square spindles were pretty controversial, but we think they are suitably period (and considerably cheaper to produce non standard lengths…)
We have given ourselves three weekends to finish all the painting, skirting, door frames and radiator plumbing - after which point the new carpet arrives. Nothing like a deadline to increase the work rate! The walls are done after a weekend of activity, you can pick out the door frames coming on nicely in the photo as well. It is refreshing to post a picture that isn't predominantly beige for once! (Wonder if living in an all magnolia and plaster coloured house has influenced our choice of colour for the first room we painted). Mind you, I did have a certain fondness for my beige Rover and beige shoes, will have to contain it...
On Thursday the scaffolding was taken away so we can see our house again. It's nice to be able to walk out of the front door without ducking your head any more. Picture of the back of the house to follow when we remember to take one in daylight hours.
On Monday we finally received our permission from the Highways Agency to lower the kerb in front of the house. This will involve installation of traffic lights for 2 days which will no doubt make us very popular with the local motorists! Almost as popular as when one of the builders got his BMW stuck in the snow across the road right outside our house probably...
We also have a scheme to get the kitchen glass doors and roof windows moving at long last. It involves a large steel beam and should deliver a kitchen wall that is mostly glass. Work starts on Monday which will keep us on our toes.
Totally Plastered
This entry is 2 weekends merged into one, but hopefully it makes some sort of vague sense...
After 2 weekends of hard graft by our plasterer Alan and his ~10 year old son/assistant Dale we have plaster everywhere. He works for our loft man at the weekend, for himself in the evenings and for a building company during the week! Here is Alison painting the final result...
As the plasters started work I was quickly running the remainder of the heating & water pipes up to the loft so we could get the walls and floor finished off in the nursery. I have learned that coils of plastic plumbing pipe are harder to wrestle with than a boa constrictor.
We now also have a new boiler, the installation was finished off on the weekend before last by our very accomodating boilerman. It is distinctly warmer in our upstairs accomodation now. The central heating is 'future-proofed' so we can connect up nice and quickly to the loft and downstairs radiators when the time comes (that's the theory anyway).
My Dad was on hand recently and was a great help getting the place back to normal after the disruption of ripping the old boiler out in the upstairs kitchen. He was also dispatched up the scaffolding for lots of guttering and brickwork maintenance related tasks. He got us so far ahead we were able to go pram (sorry, 'travel system') shopping:
At least it goes some way to making up for only having one car now! Whilst surfing for this picture I discovered a picture of the carry cot that is part of the 'travel system'. It looks like mountain rescue gear for a 1 week old baby. You could probably load it onto the side of a helicopter like in M*A*S*H, or maybe stick it on a sledge and tow it behind a skiddoo like on a ski holiday.
This weekend just gone was our first intensive ante natal class. 6 hours on a Saturday, right after a long standing boys night out for the father to be. I told Alison that 2.5 hours sleep before the class was good practise for the real thing! Luckily I had recovered enough on Sunday to build a door for our loft hole, phew.
Tin Foil Hat
No, we're not afraid of alien mind control - but if they are attempting it in the Chelmsford area we should be safe in our silver lined loft room! There's a serious amount of insulation going into every crevice which should keep us nice and warm.
Before all that happened we needed to do the first fix wiring at high speed over the weekend. This involved taking up the bathroom floor (again) to run the cables. It's quite difficult to wire a shaver socket into an imaginary wall, but we got there in the end. The plumbing also started with the bedroom radiator pipes going in.
Alison is progressing well with her mood board for the bedroom. She's obviously been to visit the in-laws too often as she is proposing interesting old maps to be included in the wall decorations. (My Dad has an extensive collection of Derbyshire maps on display at home).
The plasterer is due to be here at the weekend after which we are just waiting on our banisters and some finishing touches to the outside.
The loft is a really handy size - we have change the location of our wardrobes now we have seen the space in real life. End destination pictured here, they will need to be a bespoke item...
Stairway to Heaven
Week 3 of the loft build brings exciting things such as windows, internal walls and a staircase into the house. Our plans for a well integrated staircase required relocation of the bathroom wall, which let to a slight lack of privacy for 2 nights!
We're really pleased with how well the copied newel posts have turned out, the banisters will match the original well when finished. Apologies for dodgy photo, but had to snap a new post next to the original quickly before it was fitted.
In order to have a relaxing bedroom and nursery haven on the top floor ready in time for the arrival of Little Monkey we've decided to get the insulation, plasterboarding and plastering all done for us. Lack of time involves spending money! Speaking of plastering, here is photographic evidence of my first wall completed in the house. I'm pleased with the finish, though it did interupt my TopGear watching on Sunday!
After much technical debate and benchmarking the boiler man comes next week to install the new boiler solution. Things are moving ahead at pace now. We're suddenly faced with the prospect of choosing colours, carpets and furniture at high speed. Seems to have been such a long way off that it's a shock to the system to choose something final. Hence we're totally unprepared...
We now have windows, it's starting to be a struggle to write the blog at anywhere near the speed that the builders are operating at. They will be finished after just 4 weeks - quite an achievement. The above picture was the view from the shower a few days ago. Thankfully we have a bathroom wall again. Pics to follow next time.
