Our First Flat

Retaining walls built in one afternoon

Henry was at home today, due to an emergency doctors appointment to find out what is wrong with his skin. Turns out he has a skin infection which is why he is covered in blisters on his hands, legs and feet. I think we've caught it in time before it spreads elsewhere. Therefore there aren't that many pictures as I had no excuse to take them (normally I say I'm emailling Henry about it!)

Today the builders were here, there and everywhere - measuring up, delivering materials, putting RSJs up somewhere else. Eventually Tom came back and built up our walls, in what I thought was a short amount of time, but he said it could be done quicker.

Day 3 of the dramatic changes

Today was exciting as I managed to choose some slabs to go on top of the concrete. I chose some grey/green slabs in a riven pattern. They look bright in the dry and dark in the wet. Perfect. We're not allowed to walk on them until Sunday though. The guys are leaving for the weekend now and will be back for more punishment on Monday when the retaining walls will be built and the door will be put in. Nearly there now. Tom even suggested the same thing for the bathroom as we were going to do, with no prompting I might add!

Day two of the building work and there's more digging to be done.

Tom and Shaun have done a great job in terms of digging a hole. But there was still more to be dug, including this lump of concrete! Tom got his breaker and starter annoying the neighbours at 8am. He was pleased though to find that it was only about 20cm deep and about 50cm wide. So that was good. He then carried on digging for England and we now have 12 steps up into the garden. They end by the wall but relatively level with the end of the extension. That was done by lunch!

After lunch the fun started. But Shaun was called away, so Tom got on with the concrete by himself. We've got a splattered wall and window at the moment, but that will change because its all coming out next week. We must keep remembering that. Its still very difficult to imagine what it will look like when its all finished and not be the irritating woman who keeps changing her mind or going for the most expensive option :)

Damp-proof once and for all.

We weren't initially expecting to add an entry today - the next big day on the agenda was supposed to be this weekend when Mark Nicholls comes down to help out. However, on Wednesday we received a call from "Property Preservations" saying that the men who were coming to do our damp-proofing and plastering next thursday could actually fit us in a week early. So, not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth we snapped them up and Henry arranged to work from home for the day.

The bulk of the labouring was obviously done by the builders, so Sara went to school as normal and Henry holed himself up in the spare room to do some work - only interupted minorly when the builder cut through the phone cable, so Henry had to go down and fit a new one. Plus the occassional coffee-making session obviously (Builders must have bladders like balloons!). We opted to have them do half of the work now (living room, hallway and bedroom 1) and half another time (bedroom 2 and kitchen) - partly because of the cost, but also because Henry couldn't be bothered to move all the bookshelves in the spare room.

By the end of Day 13, all the "hacking", "injecting" and "plastering" is complete. The main builder bloke is coming back tomorrow to render the walls, and then we're done for the time being - with big jobs anyway. We can't paint on the newly plastered walls for 6 weeks, and Henry's cack-handedness when removing the radiator means we can't reattach that either until we've got some new plumbing supplies! But at least we can sleep safe in the knowledge that we won't wake up with dry-rot.

Another positive is that we are both learning lots about property renovation. Henry can now wire up telephone cables, electrical cables and knows a fair amount about central heating and pluming too. He shalln't be giving up the day job quite yet though!!

P.S. According to the builders, Henry's hammer is a bit "girly" - not enough use apparently! When he got it for them from the garage the witty men quipped "Do we need silk gloves to hold it with?". Mental note: Use hammer more.