No news is good news

We're getting the odd email that we haven't posted anything on here for an age. Well, the reason being is that we've finished the building work and we now just have about 20 years of finishing off, decorating, etc. Half of the first floor (two bedrooms with ensuites and our dressing room) are bare plaster walls and floorboards and will take a while to be completed. Anyway, if you become a follower or subscribe, you'll no doubt get some alert or email when we do eventually get to putting something else on here!

New year, new kitchen, new shower-room

Well, to be absolutely honest, it was thankfully all installed before xmas, just, and we've just loved having both a new kitchen and the fab space it brings to the house over teh holiday period.

Still a bit to do - splashbacks etc, and like most of the house, we now just have to get round to decorating it!

The downstairs shower-room was also finished just in time for Elsie's (Liz's Mum) arrival for three weeks. This was a dummy run of her groundfloor bedroom and shower-room ahead of her moving in with us in February. And she's got on with thigns brilliantly. Just a few tweaks - like moving the drain in the floor so the rooms drains properly!


The corridor from the kitchen to the living room with the sliding door to the shower-room on the left, and just visible, door to Elsie's bedroom on the right.

Xmas and colds stopped play over the holidays. It was nice to have a rest, and with both of us falling to the xmas lurgy we wouldn't have managed much anyway!

No smoke without fire

Or, in our case, very little smoke with fire.

Its gotten cold so we've started using our fab new Nestor Martin (model IT33) woodburning stove.

Have stove, need fuel! Since we don't have our own sustainable wood source (i.e. a forest) on our doorstep (yeh, this is the fens, all the trees died off years ago to form the very land we live on!) we needed to buy in some seasoned wood. Many suppliers only do local deliveries or collection, but several do nationwide delivery. But it aint cheap. Some wanted almost the price of the wood again just for delivery!

Whilst searching for both a supplier and a good price, I came across various other fuels for stoves. So, we ordered a trail pack of Agrol Heat Logs and they are fab! They are small, dense blocks made from 100% sawmill waste. No resin or glues or anything to bind them, just pressed into dense blocks which burn slow and hot, with greater heat output than wood and much less ash waste. So, we've just had a pallet delivered (and it took me an hour to unpack it and stack all the packs in the garage). Costwise, it should work out cheaper as we get more burning time and more heat per cubic meter than we would from wood. Lets see how it does over the winter!

Just for Sylvia!

We have a follower! Welcome to our dear friend Sylvia. This post is dedicated to you.
Sylvia was the first to start following us online, the first to post a comment (and always happy to point out my carp spelling - get it!) and now the first to sign up as an official follower (whatever that is!)! Thank you Sylvia.

And just for you Sylvia, here's a couple of photos of the much talked about boot room! Sorry they ain't anything special, but it is a small room and getting a decent photo ain't easy!

I think if you click on the images they get bigger.

Top is the door from the kitchen in to the boot room and the back door (which will be our main entrance, hence the reason for the boot room in the first place).

Middle, again looking from the kitchen doorway to the outside window. Boilers aren't the most photogenic of things are they. Excuse the pile of sheepswool in the corner (and no, I'm not from Yorkshire or Wales).

Bottom is looking through the outside window.

So Sylvia, not much to show you of a room measuring little more than 1.5m x 2m. But its looking like it will be a great space for us to mess up to save messing up the kitchen and the rest of the house!

Week 20

Work continues but we are nearing the end! This week saw lots of small jobs being fettled - skirting, door handles, bathroom vents. Matt and Ging tiled the downstairs shower-room and, the kitchen was started at long last. Matt put the sassy brown floor tiles down and the kitchen units are going in . . . slowly. The kitchen supplier hasn't supplied everything so this is as far as we have got by the end of the week. Thankfully our new Siemens appliances arrived in time.

Above, the kitchen is in what was the old kitchen and ground floor extension of no. 3. The door goes into the second reception (sitting room - Steve's old office) and the corridor leads to what was no.4 with doors off for what will be Elsie's (Liz's Mum) bedroom, shower-room and through to our main living room.

Below you can see the kitchen units running down into what was the old extension, now with new vaulted, windowed ceiling and the folding/sliding doorset.

Meanwhile, outside, Jon was busy making our new front door canopy. Its loosely modelled on what would have been here when the cottage was built in early 1900s.

Below, with the last of the muck pile taken away, 16+ tonnes of gravel has gone down on to the drive. Oh what a difference it makes!

And some views of how the house is looking from the great outdoors.

The main build is over, and this is the last we saw of the four guys together. We have a week of Phil the plumber and Danny the sparks while the boys move on to another job, then Jon will be back to finish off the kitchen and do some general fettling. And we'll begin decorating! We havent even finished what was no.4! Still, we have the downstairs to fo over the next 5 weeks ahead of Elsie arriving for her xmas hols with us.

So, its fitting we say thanks guys, you've done a brilliant job turning what looked like a lost cause into a fanstic pad for us.

And to Ging and Sean - have a great time in Les Arcs. Enjoy the skiing ;-))

A shot of the motly crew that is, Jon Avory & Sons. From left to right:
Sean (Porn Boy) Avory (or is it a Bee Gee?), Jon (its all good) Avory, Ging (the Ginger Lover) Wilson and Matt (Yo! Westwood) Avory.

And dont worry, there'll be more updates until we are pretty much done! Hey, you'll want to see the finished kitchen and Sylvia has already put in a special request for photos of the boot room. Its always been full of rubbish and its a wee bit small for getting a photo of, but Sylvia, we'll try. Just for you!

Week 19

Well, our original 18 week schedule came to an end last Friday, but, as you can see from these photos, things arent quite finished!

To be fair to Jon and the guys they would have been off site last week had we not ended up with additional unforeseens and extra jobs we undertook whilst we had the house back to bare walls and floors. To be honest, we're amazed that we are only over-running by a week when we must have added 3-4 weeks additional work on to the job!

Internally the whole of no.3 is now plastered out (no more photos - there's only so much excitement a photo of a newly plastered wall!), but the last week has mainly been about windows and patios.

Below, the additional first floor windows (x3) and the ground floor boot room window went in last week.

Once these were in, and the frame for the folding sliding doors installed, Dain returned to finished the ground floor rendering. Rendering done, Jon jumped on the folding sliding doors this week and bingo! What a difference!

And this is what they do.

And from the inside, all closed up . . .

. . . a little bit of fresh air . . .


. . . and bringing the outdoors inside.


Outside Ging and Sean have done a superb job with the second of the patio areas, this one outside the new kitchen, complete with shallow ramp down to the lower patio level behind no.4. We're really pleased that we've managed to pave the entire area with slabs we already had - a great bit of recycling!


Here you can see the rear of the property from the kitchen folding sliding doors (old no.3) across the back of old no.4.

And the obligatory shot from my favourite viewpoint!

All the windows have been dressed with Aluuwood (alluminium with fine wood veneer) blinds. here are the blinds in the ground floor gable end windows of the new open plan living room.

With the kitchen and shower-room floors going down this week, all internal doors hung, its down to all those fiddly jobs. Oh, and the fitting the new kitchen!

Watch this space as Fri 7 Nov approaches. Will the guys be off site?

Deja Vous!

Now enjoying life in a renovated no.4 (the first time we have physcially 'lived' in this cottage since we bought it in 2006), the memory of the muck and hassles of ripping out seemed a dim and distant memory. But they're back!

One of the shocks (and major add-on expense) of ripping out no.4 was having to put a new ground floor through the whole property. And, guess what? When we started to take up the kitchen and extension floor in no.3 we got a similar shock. Apart from having a drop of over 40mm from one end to the other, once the top screed was removed, we found nothing but brick and rubble below. Oh hum.

So, Sean and Ging got to it and with one of those very noisy pneumatic drills (you know, two noise levels [1] bloody noisy and [2] off) they soon had the floor up.

With the floor up, one of those big mixer lorries turned up and the guys barrowed the mix round the back and in. The driver even had the audacity to say to Jon that he would charge waiting time if they ran over 20 mins. You can only guess what Jon made of that suggestion!


One of the big differences between Jon and the guys and the 'bastards' we had before, although whilst it was an additional cost, the guys got it done and dusted in no time and it just wasn't stressfull at all compared to what the 'bastards' put us thorugh in no.4. Thanks guys!

Elsewhere, doorways got new lintels . . .

. . . Sean (I'm just too good looking) built us a nice brick pier to support the steel holding up the new dormer (the very steel that only needed to be the width of the kitche, but the pillocks who put it in (see 'bastards') put it in the whole length of the two cottages! When we revealed just how tight they had got this end, only an inch on to the end brick wall (hence needing extra suppoer with the pier), Jon commented 'the bastards only just managed to get it on this end, but had 9m too much the other side!' . . .

. . . and then some walls got boarded, some got stripped and UPVA treated, and . . .

. . . then the plasterers got cracking!


And to say its been a busy week would be a major understatement! As well as Jon, Matt, Sean (I'm gorgeous) and Ging making their noise, Phil the plumber and Danny the sparky (with new sidekick Jamie) were in as well leaving their mark. Here is part of the kitchen ceiling with water pipes and leccy cables heading in all directions!

Roll on week 17!

Week 15 - so it must be make over part 2!

Well, things just dont stand still here! No sooner have we vacated no.3 and are still unpacking in no.4, the guys begin ripping out no.3! First off the kitchen, bathroom and utility room are knocked into one and the back opened up for the folding, sliding doors.

This is what the back looked like a month ago . . .

. . . and by the end of Monday it look like this!

And from the inside . . .

Above you get first sight of the change in ceiling height in the new kitchen and the three velux roof windows.

With ripping out complete, downstairs Sean and Ging start knocking out new doorways, inserting lintels and making good the door surrounds.

Below, the upstairs (Matt and Kev) is cracking on at pace too with walls ripped out, doorways crated and stud walls already going up. Oh, and the sparkies have already begun first fix! Bloody hell!

Below, the third skip of the week is soon filling up with bricks and rubble and the pile of timber and other waste awaits the next skip.

Recycling is high on our list, so the guys are allowed to salvage what they want - copper piping, cabling etc, and Danny the sparky took our old back door away with him for his own house.

Rooms with a view

Sat at my new office desk today, on the phone, I spied a Merlin chasing a Meadow Pipit. Wow! Merlin is already on the house lise, but having the vista to watch a Merlin chase a pipit across the fen was something else. Even when the birds had gone from view I sat and for the first time I really appreciated just how great some of our 'new' views are.

Above and below, Steve's new office window views - one across the fen, the other across the front garden and to the fen beyond.

Below, Liz's desk view is also across the front garden and fen.

Below, the new lounge window view across the fen.

The bedroom and bathroom look east over the back garden and fen. A view which will be much improved when we get rid of the 'village' of sheds we inherited when we bought no.4.

Ready for the big push!

Whilst Steve sunned himself in Lesvos for a week, Liz was left at home to start packing up for the move and to oversee the last elements of no.4 ahead of the move.

The major and long-awaited event was Jon fitting the bespoke staircase he has made us. Hand crafted to our spec in maple, beech and oak, it is a work of art!

Once the stairs had gone in the carpets could go down. Jon also fitted the oak window sills throughout.One of three zebrano Jaga Knockonwood radiators in the living room.

For the next month or so we have a temporary kitchen installed in the living room.

And Steve arrived back on Thursday evening and from Friday (26 Sept) we spent three days switching from no.3 to no.4! We're knackered!! Once we have things resembling some order we can resume the decorating. Only the office got completed before the move. Here's a few photos of sorting to be done.

Above, Liz's end of the office; below, Steve's end of the office.

Meet the builders #2 = Sean (Mr Good Looking)

Known as: good looking, gorgeous, any any other complimentary remark about his sheer good looks

Age: c.21

Job: general builder - chippy, bricky, etc (see Ging), and being simply too good looking to be real

Marital status: hooked up but talks a good single bloke's talk - well you do when you're so good looking

Likes: just being good looking, beer, women, mirrors - oh, and bike racing (presumably for good looking blokes only) and Ging

Dislikes: presumably dirty mirrors, bad hair days - he's a chippy bloke really and hasnt really expressed any major dislikes!

Heard to say: 'well, when you're as good looking as me Steve . . . '; 'its all brand new'; and my favourite banter moment with the good looking one -

Sean: you ever been to America Steve?

Steve: no

Sean: what never?! (he clearly thought I should have been being so well travelled and good looking myself)

Steve: no

Sean: I'd love to go

Steve: why?

Sean: (pause) . . . to 'do' all the women!

Steve: what all of them?

Sean: well, I'll have a good go!

Oh, and did I mention he is good looking? Not sure about the face furniture though.

Sean is so good looking I thought he deserved a second photo.

Slap and tickle

There is no such thing as a quiet week here and this week was no exception. The noise levels were ramped up when Sean and Ging returned to join and Matt and Kev on site, whilst Jon began a marathon stint in the workshop crafting our oak window sills, some cupboard doors and . . . our hand-built wood staircase! We cant wait to see all this wood added to the interior.

On site, more major steps forward. Below, Mat and Kev fitted the downstairs bathroom window and once in, we welcomed Dain to site to slap on some render the first section of the back back. And what a huge difference it has made unifying the back and hiding the mish-mash of brick and block work. The rest will get done in phase 2 and the new kitchen and bootroom have been done. We've ot decided on the colour yet, butthat can wait until the end of phase 2.
Once the render was done, Sean and Ging laid the slabs along the back, Ging on slab slicing and Sean on tickle duty. And don't they look nice. OK. We know. They are bog standard concrete slabs. But they were free. With our environmental ethos we are reusing as many of the slabs we already had around the house (four different sorts!). They looked a mess before we started work, but re-laid, they look great. It makes a big difference when even masic slabs are laid well.

Below, Ging (left) and Sean hard at it. Note the lack of builder's bum here. More a case of builer's boxers. . Not an ideal day to hang out your smalls with all that dust flying around!

Inside, we've been slogging away ourselves with the never-ending decorating. We got all the base coats slapped on and we began to slap on the top coats.

And here is what we are using - ECOS organic paint. Organic paint! Great stuff. And it don't cost the earth either, around 5% more than top end Dulux/Crown stuff and cheaper than your fancy dan Fired Earth or Farrow & Ball slap. We found them whilst searching fthe web or eco-paint and then found that they are also rated by my beloced Which? Top stuff! Below, Liz slaps on the 'citrica' in the bathroom which ties in with the orange in the border tiles. Wait til you see the other colours we've bought!

Like our new oak floor? Niiiiiiiice!

Week 11 - shine on!

Its been another one of those bits and pieces weeks. Matt and Kev have been chipping away at finshing jobs on no.4 such as sealing the the new windows, a bit more guttering, removing the old bathroom window (but didn't quite get to fitting the new shower room window which replaces it), etc.

Liz and I have been plugging away at the decorating. We still can't get over just how much prep is involved when doing what is effectively a new house. We've got as far as getting the first of the top coats on with Liz glossing the skirts and doorways upstairs. We're just about managing to keep up by putting in the hours - I was in there at 05.30 on Friday, and we both put in 10+ hours on both Sat and Sun - we're knackered!

Three major items did get done though, the first being work on the ground floor shower room (part of no.3 but being started from this side now), the new back door was installed and we got second fix electrics!

Above, the smart new back door at the end of the covered approach. It will open into the new bot room which leads in to the new kitchen (both phase 2).

And below, second fix electrics meant leccy throughout the house inc. here in the office. Note the view through a rain-spattered window - it hasn't stoppped raining all week. but at least we aren't flooded like other parts of the country.

Week 10 - busy, busy, busy

The team were down to Matt and Kev, as Jon went to work on another job with Ging as cover for Sean who was swanning about in Egypt. But its been no less busy, in fact, its still been relentless. And its been a week of bits - finishing slating the new kithen roof, guttering, tiling the bathroom, pointing bits of brickwork etc. But the weekend ended with a biggy - the installation of the French doors at the back of the house.

The back just gets better and better. The French doors complete the windows to be installed in no.4 (the white window on the right is at the back of no.3 and will be replaced next week). Above you can also see the canopy, completely slated in Welsh slate (from the old rear roof we took off for the domer extension - the new dormer extension roof is barely visible from the ground so we've used new slate for economy). Also, the oak posts, the left hand one sporting new downpipe!

Kev and Matt completed slating (again with slate from our old roof) what is currently the new roof over our utilty and bathroom, but which will be the new bootroom (new bit on left) and kitchen/diner. The Velux windows will greatly improve the lightas this is northfacing. In phase 2 (from late Sept) the existing back door and window will be removed and replaced with folding sliding doors. The opening on the left is for a non-opening window in the bootroom.

Above, the new bathroom window, with floating mullions, with a great view across the fen. The new (ungrouted) tiles also on view.

Below, we've been busy too - decorating! The last two weekends and every weekday night for the last two weeks we've been slogging our own dear little backsides. And boy, there's a lot of prep to do when you are doing a house from scratch. Upstairs is ready for final coats and downstairs base coats are going on.

This is still my favourite view! And even better now the Fench doors are in.

Week 9 - and let there be light!

Wow! We are only at the end of week 9! Much has happened in the couple of weeks we have been back from the high Arctic. And much of it has been to do with light - the long-awaited installation of our windows and the completion of our sunpipe.

We took delivery of our windows from Dendura in February and they have been in store ever since! We've dreamed of the day they would be installed, and that day came this week.

Matt (left), Kev (centre) and Jon install the first of the gable end windows. Oh - it was a tight fit. Needed persuasion, as they say in the trade!

Above, both sets of gable end windows are in! Wow! And this is what it used to look like!

This is what things look like from the inside -

Above, the lounge. Below, the office, showing well the view over the adjacent open farmland. You'll notice that in the office skirts and architraves are in, Matt's been busy installing the new oak internal doors and we've even started painting!

Back outside, a great view of the gable end looking down the back and the first three of the six first floor rear windows have also been installed, and Josh has been busy with the paint brush on the weatherboarding.

Below, a view of the house from the field behind us. The boared windows behind no.3 will be installed in phase two during the autumn. This also gives a great view of the new rear roof - how flat does that look! You can just make out the roof window of the sunpipe to the right of the wee flue top at the left hand end. And . . . the new first floor extension has been weatherboarded! Don't it look fab!

Above, Kev has been busy slating the canopy and boot room/kitchen roof.

And below, Matt finished the installing the Velux sunpipe at the top of the stairs where there is no other natural night other than what ambient light comes up the stairwell from downstairs.

Back inside, another major event was the installation of the new woodburning stove in the lounge.

We said goodbye to Josh today who starts his a new teaching job in London. Good luck Josh and thanks.

Day 32 - plastered, pillared and plumbed

We went to the high Arctic on holiday on 24 July, leaving Jon and the guys to it. Returning yesterday, the progress the guys had made in just eight working days has been fantastic and no.4 looks little like we left it!

Above, the whole of no.4 has been plasterboarded and Matt, Kev and John are already plastering the ceilings. The nice pink plasterboard around the chimney breast is special fire retardant board which will house our new woodburning stove.

Outside things have moved on at pace as well. The new canopy runs from the parking area the length of the back of the house to the back door in to the boot room. The canopy is supported by three whacking great hunks of oak - they still smell nice, and they certainly look gorgeous! They will eventually blend well with the oak French doors which will sit behind them.

Above, the view looking from the boot room door out to the garage. The canopy will provide a great dry walking area between the cars and the house. The oak pillars will eventually get wee brick plinths.

The reverse view from the parking area to the boot room door. The two sets of French doors from the rear of the living room will open out under the canopy.

Above and below, the new canopy joins the boot room and Jon has built the boot room/kitchen roof, complete with four Velux roof windows (one over the boot room, three over the new kitchen). The canopy and boot room/kitchen roof are now ready for slating (but Matt and Kev are busy elsewhere on the house!).

Phil the plumber has been in and done first fix and Jon has started preparing the weatherboarding (below) for the first floor extension.

So, blink and you'll miss these guys! Go away for 12 days and the place changes beyond recognition. It's great! See here for our last post and what we left behind.

Interlude - for us but not the builders!

Female Polar Bear cub nr Binnebukta, Wilhelmøya, Svalbard, 30 July 08

Whilst the builders continued with the house we went on a long-awaited, once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Arctic. Steve will get a trip report with photos (like this of his above) on his Toadsnatcher blog asap.

By the way, the above Polar Bear cub was seen with its mum and brother at 'Binnebukta' which in Norwegian translates as Bay of the Mother Bear (bukta = bay, binne = mother bear).

We'll stick an update of how Jon and the lads have progressed during our absence on here asap. What an amazing difference in just eight working days! Come back soon for the update.

Blocks, wool, oak, slate . . . and light

Sunpipe The Velux suntunnel took another step forward when Ging cut out the rafters to accommodate the mirrored tunnel.

Thermafleece!
We're using Thermafleece (made from British sheep!) to insulate all the external walls in no.4, the new bootroom and all the roof spaces, etc. Thermafleece is as green as you get when it comes to insulation - its renewable (sheep grow their wool back for more clipping for more Thermafleece); its zero GWP (global warming potential); zero ozone depletion; safer to use (unlike many man-made fibre insulations); its long lasting (it will last as long as the house stands); it will keep us lovely and warm whilst helping to reduce our carbon footprint; it breathes. Unfortunately I couldn't catch Ging in his funky space suit he wears to fit this stuff. It might be nicer than fibreglass etc, but its still dusty old sheeps wool!

Bootroom progress Jon (upper) and Josh (lower) crack on with the gables of the bootroom. Its a dusty old job cutting up them blocks!

Jon's handywork at the end of the day. Very neat!

Oak postsThe three oak posts for our rear canopy (a covered walkway running the length of the back of the house from the garage end to the back door) arrived today. You could smell them from miles away, a lovely sweet, fresh cut smell. And they each weigh a ton!

One nice new roof

Matt and Kev finished the main new roof section - don't it look just sweet! Just a wee bit of work on the gable edge before they move on to . . . roofing the bootroom and the canopy!

This is what the site is looking like at present.

Meet the builders #1 - Ging

Name: released only on a need-to-know basis (police, Inland Revenue, etc)
Known as: Ging (the Ginger Lover); the Lover
Job: general builder - chippy, bricky, etc - you name it, Ging'll have a go!
Marital status: available
Likes: beer, women, adventure weekends involving cliffs, Red Tube (and he seems to like hard work too!)
Dislikes: thems that walk slow or stop right in front of him in town; thems with push-chairs bateering there way through shops; fibreglass insulation (apparantly); not having his build buddy Sean with him (aagghh - Sean is currently invalided out and off-site after a fall of his bike)
Once heard to say: I like Mock the Week. I even get some of the jokes.

Four weeks in

Rome wasn't built in a day. Or four weeks. Well, neither was our house going to be! Here we are though, end of week four (out of scheduled 18) of our renovation (week 1 reset with the new builders - we think very little of BJAS - Before Jon Avory & Sons).

Much of what the guys have done over the last four weeks has been documented already, and week four was more of the same but also included some important milestones.

More stud wallsGing and Kev cracked on with battening all of the inside of all the external walls to no.4. These will be packed with Thermafleece before plasterboarding over. This should reduce our heat loss through the brick walls to virtually zero.

Boot room mk. 2! The frame and brick piers left by the cowboys got ripped up. A nice new concrete (sorry, we had to use some somewhere!) floor poured in, a new timber inner frame and a nice course of blockwork (which will later be rendered). Jon's been a busy boy here! And Josh just kept on mixing those mixes and clearing up others' mess! Note the outside brew station on the block.

Sunpipe!

A major event for us Matt starting to fit the Velux suntunnel. The above two photos show the sited external roof window (nice flat fit and finish - none of those hideous little crystal domes other manufacturers use) from above in the slate roof, and from inside looking up form the landing through the rafters. A mirrored rigid tube will be connected to the external window to transfer the light down through the attic and through a diffuser above the landing at the top of the stairs meaning natural light during daylight. All the latter has to wait until everything is plastered up before we can see it in action. The guys did comment just how much light this little window let through when they cut the hole in the roof to accommodate it.

Sparks
And another milestone was seeing the term 'first fix' in practice! The term was consigned to memory banks long ago, and to finally see first fix electrics going in was brill. Danny (Hereward Elecrtical) and Andy came in over the weekend to first fix the inside whilst they had free run of an empty building.

Day 19 - only day 19!

It's hard to believe that we are still only in week 4! So much has happened and the guys pace is relentless.

Outside at the front, Jon sorted out the mess that was the doorway to no.4. It soon went from this . . .

. . . to this . . .
. . . to this!
Thankfully we had a large stock of recycled bricks from the various new window openings tha twe could use here. Once the mortar has dried and the bricks wiped then soon weather in. Interestingly, Alan Lamb, former occupant of nearby Crowtree Farm, told me which brick, Bundy (the stamp on the bricks) our house bricks came from! I can go and look at the flooded pit with new eyes now.

This is what the front currently looks like.

Round the back the concrete slab for the boot room floor was poured after Hunts Building Control had passed the base.
On the roof, Matt and Kev have been busy, in the wet, putting thr ridge back on over no.3. Just some more slates and the ridge to go on no.4 now. Just look at that roof - crackin'!

Here's detail of Matt's leadwork around the chimney.

Inside, Ging has been largely on his own (Sean bust his arm coming off his bike at the weekend - no sympathy from any of the lads!) and has cracked on big time getting the studwork up for the walls. Here's the studwork round the stairwell which will form the back wall of our new office space.

And here's the studwork for the new bathroom. Much more to go!

And what of Josh. Well, he's been a busy boy both here and elsewhere. He had his graduation this week (Jon swapping builder's atire to be suited and booted), was interviewed for and offered a teaching job in London, and here he's sweated his nuts off labouring for whoever needed it.

Oh, and Sean came on site today cos he was bored on his own at home! Lets see if he's fit to return to action on Monday.

One of the great feelings I have had this week is the sense of Jon and the guys now 'owning' the site. They've pretty much redone all the things the cowboys had screwed up (roof, floor, joists, boot room, etc) and the site no longer bears any resemblence to the mess the cowboys left us in. I can honestly say that it's a pleasure having Jon Avory & Sons here and it is now the renovation experience I had hoped we would enjoy. Thanks guys.

Day 15 - weathertight!

Well, for the first time in many, many months the house is again weathertight! The guys have finished creating all the new window and door openings - the two gable end window openings, two french door openings, and altered the first floor dormer windows which were too high - and once done, they could all be boarded up to keep out the elements!

Inside you can see the newly lowered window openings (the top strip was filled in later). They had been made 20cm too high! They look and feel right now and Liz can even see out of them! With the first floor dormer floor joists now finished, Sean and Ging layed the new floor.

On the roof, Matt and Kev cracked on through the crap weather (not a great week weather-wise for roofing) and got as far as they could until they ran out of slate. About 10% more to do next week.

This is what those living a little further down the drove from us see as they whizz past. Just wait until those gable end windows are in - its gonna look fab! This is what it used to look like -

Day 13 - wet, but spirits definately not dampened!

No photos of the exterior today cos it not stopped 'issing down! The guys have been great (again), simply donning waterpoofs (for them outside) and getting on with it despite the constant rain.

Rain just doesn't dampen spirits or slow down work (not that we can see any road!). Jon finished rebuilding the back wall complete with new opening for the two french door sets; Ging and Sean completed reinforcing the floor joists to the first floor extension (nice work guys!) and fixed the brickwork around them; Kev and Matt continued on the roof until they ran out of slate (just proves how much roof surface we now have in that the old roof had a pile of slate left over, the new roof they are about 10% short); Josh laboured all day clearing barrow loads of crap, mixing barrow loads of cement, etc - not fun on a wet day! And Jon, not one for resting on laurels, began knocking out the opening for the ground floor living room window. i'm telling you, these guys graft. Everyday sees visible progress - it's great!

The three photos below show you to some extent the new open plan living room, including the new french door opening and the new opening going in for the new 2.6m wide window.

Taken from the corner by one of the french door openings.

Looking back diagonally across to where I took the above photo.

The two french door openings from taken from the same spot. Our new living room is gonna be large, bright and airy - cant wait!

A builder's brew needs sugar!

Ahead of the guys starting work on 23 June, Liz and I stocked up the essential brew ingredients - tea, milk (at least for first few days) and sugar. Day 13 and the consumption of tea and milk is as expected, but sugar consumption is amazing - they've stirred 3 kilos of sugar in 12 days into their brews! Mind you, with not a belly between them, they clearly work it all off! Builders nationally must account for a significant percentage of annual sugar sales! At least we're giving them Fairtrade (an Fairtrade tea too).

Day 11 - exposed rear!

The beginning of week three sees two new hands on deck, Jon's two other sons Josh (fresh from getting his 2:1 at uni) and young Max who is on site as part of his schools 'go to work with a parent week'. So, we now have seven (!) on sites, Jon Avory, four sons Matt, Sean, Josh and Max, Kev and, of course, Ging the Ginger Lover in all his glory!

Day 11 sees the back wall of no.4 dismantled, brick by brick. So, by mid-afternoon we had a gaping great hole in the rear of the house!

Below, young Max spends most of his time chipping off the old lime morter so as they can be re-used when it comes to refacing part of the front (replacing the painted bricks revealed by removing the front porch).

By the end of the day the wooden frames mark where the french door openings go, and the first couple of courses of breeze blocks are in.