The Ceilings are down!

The Ceilings are down!

After almost 3 weeks the ceilings are coming down... along with everything else except the walls. 

The children's old bedrooms are now knocked into one...

 and now the electrician has stripped out all the old wiring

The builders started on the kitchen floor yesterday. Now we know why it took so long to heat the kitchen. someone had layer the old travertine tiles over a cement insulation board that was stuck to the screed. (which contains the under floor heating pipes!) So the whole thickness had to be heated before we felt the benefit!

We found some interesting wall paper in the old kitchen behind the units.

The remains of the kitchen floor.

I don't think we'll be needing any wood to burn for the next few years...

The new sunny sitting room... the fireplace has gone but the chimney still stands (I think the builders forgot to take it down)

Today I came back to find the remains of the ceiling joists in the kitchen!

and in the hall way

So now we are almost there with the ceilgin demolition. Next it will be the walls.

Day 8 of the demolition...

Day 8 of the demolition...

The builders have worked well over the last week. The roof is now off and the rubbish loaded into skips...

this is all the tile storm the roof...

this was the children's playroom

First they took the woodwork out. This left a lot of wood as you can imagine. Some of it went to friends, some of it went into our fire wood pile and some has gone into a pile for later use - whatever that means!

the children had fun with the demolition...

and with climbing the roof...

all that remained of the roof...

at least there is some structure left...

just a mass of insulation and wood...

The builders (demolishers?) start...

The builders (demolishers?) start...

At last, with the scaffolding completed yesterday (13th July) the builders arrived on site today.

The house looks like a multi storey car park!

first job - stripping the roof!

We had talked to the builder about salvaging the roof tiles, but, based on the fact we'll only get £40* per 1000 we decided (the builder decided?) on turning them all into hardcore for a farmers track! *The builders would have to take each tile off, stack it, put it on a pallet and then sometime later the salvage people would collect the palletised tiles. The alternative was simply to pull them off and throw them into a skip. In one day they have cleared about half the roof.

 Tomorrow the process continues...

The Scaffold Build continues...

The Scaffold Build continues...

I know these things take time, but... this scaffold build has taken ages so far. However, at last it's coming together. 

 the girls think they've got a new climbing frame...

and Lucy thinks that now she's left school she can just sit on the roof... (don't tell her mum she was up there!)

The crane arrived today to help the scaffold guys lift the top frame in to place.

The scaffolders are coming back in tomorrow, saturday to finish off the tin roof.

 So next week we should (hopefully) see some building work start... watch this space for more news.

The House project has started!

The House project has started!

Yep, after about 3 years of planning the house building project has started. When we bought the house we knew it had potential for us. 

We lived in it for a year before starting our plans - why? Because we wanted to understand it - to experience a full year with the changing seasons.

The Project 

We worked with an architect to create the initial picture of what we wanted (actually we worked with two - the first one didn't understand our vision!) The vision was to create a space where we could live as a family, and could that could grow with us (We have two young children who will soon become teenagers). Tim, the second architect from Marshall Carley Ltd, got what we wanted and helped us refine our thoughts to create an image of our vision.

The existing house is a 1960s bungalow made from brick with concrete roof tiles. It is in need of updating and modernising.

As it is a bungalow we have a great opportunity to create space both upstairs for bedrooms and downstairs for living.

The Plans

We think we have created a house that gives us what we want. We decided not to demolish and rebuild due to our budget constraints (it is a large house already and we estimated that to give us an equivalent size was beyond our budget).

We plan to put 3 dormer style windows into the rear of the house with a master bedroom built into the increased gable height over the sitting room. 

The front of the house will be less imposing while allowing light into the whole of the house. 

It's now 1st July 2014 and we are about to start the build. We have moved into a caravan in the back garden and the house has been cleared to storage. The scaffolders are in the process of erecting a complete canopy over the main house structure - and boy does it look big!

Hopefully the builders will start next week!