Two weeks in and still smiling!

Well, so far so good. Each day brings a broader smile as progress continues. The week started badly of course finding out just how many more thousands we had to spend to fix the roof, the non-existant foundation for our new pillar and the upgrading the first floor floor joists - and it hurt! Alas nothing we could decide not to do, so we have to bear and grin - but the cash flow is definately not too great.

The new first floor gable end window from the inside showing the new steel lintel.

The building inspector he say 'OK' to our hole ready for filling with concrete for the new foundation of the pillar in hte middle of the living room. Neat hole! Take a bow Sean Avory. I've told Sean if I ever see a neater hole I'll send him a photo!

The guys have started building some of the internal walls (above, the other side of the all is the downstairs shower room and the doorway leads in to the corridor to the kitchen) and making ne opening - below, this is the enlarged landing opening off which will be our new office, one bedroom and one bathroom. A neat bit of work by Ging the Ginger Lover as he is known by the guys!

The whole of the new roof came off and binned. The guys put in new rafters, nicely bolted top and bottom (you should have seen the few nails the cowboys used to secure their botched job), to provide the required degree slope for the slate roof (and better than the 4 degrees under the minimum slope for slate the cowboys achieved) .

Here's Kev (left) and Matt relaying the Isolair sarking boards - 95% recycled wood mill stuff (sawdust, pulp, etc) and 5% laytex. Great U value rating will help insulate this large roof. The roofspace will be insulated with Thermafleece. Below, by the end of the week re-slating had started! What a great week for roofing. Bar one major shower, it was blue skies and suntans all round.

Its a joy to watch real builders at work. They roll up at 8 each morning, most of them clutching a tin of Red Bull for their high energy needs for the morning! Its a great spirit on site a the guys wander around in the sun in shorts and no shirts topping up their ever-present builders tans. Roll on next week!