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!