Working Three Days in Wales

It's been many years since I've stayed away for work (this is the only other time I can think of), but mum had booked a workmate Richard (who everyone calls Dill) and me in to do some work on their cottage in Wales.

She had been trying to use local trades but kept getting let down time after time so decided if she got us into crash out the bulk of the work that might be the way to go.

Building A New Fireplace

Last week was another hard one, made worse by the fact I broke my toe! I just limped a bit - it was only my little one thankfully!

It was finally time to tackle the fireplace!

A little bit of me has always hated this old open fireplace. We used to hide it with an old bookcase I made my wife for Christmas years ago.

Trouble was it was built with the same iron hard bricks and mortar as the rest of the house - not easy to take down I can tell you!

Destroying the Dining Room

It's been a hard couple of day! 

After months of doing jobs leading up to it and lots of planning, I've finally made the big push and started to knock through to the extension downstairs!

It's been messy!

Destroying The Kitchen

My little man has started going to nursery for a few half days (well nine until two).

He's desperate to spend more time with other children, he's such a social animal! And this will give me a few valuable hours a week on my own that I can push on with the extension. 

All happy on his first day! He was so excited! Wouldn't even say goodbye! 

 So the first day I spent running some errands and painting the doors in the extension as well as setting myself up for day two - The ceiling!

I hate artex, but that's not the reason for this coming down. Unfortunately I need to remove it to run pipes and wires through to the extension so I can finish the bathroom before I knock through.

I'd sent some samples off to be tested and they came back clear for asbestos so I knew I could do it all myself.
I removed loads of stuff from the kitchen (and had a good sort out at the time) and then sheeted everything up.

I was against the clock from the start on this job. I knew I had to be finished and pick the kids up by two. I had a great plan of cutting between the joists and just pulling sections out with little mess.
Unfortunately when I started someone had already added another layer of plasterboard to the ceiling and glued it to the first.

 This meant things were going to to get messy! I just had to rip it down and get on with it and hope I could clean it up before the kids came home.

 By the time two o'clock came I was ready to pick up the kids, but only just! Two ceilings worth of rubbish and the previous trades men liked eating chocolate, leaving behind all their off cuts and not cleaning between the joists! There was a lot of rubbish up there and two washes to get it out of my hair!

I cooked tea in there last night and it wasn't too bad, I need to get the hoover up into the hard to reach places and give it another good cleaning. I also keep finding bits I've missed, it's amazing how far it travels!

Hopefully my electrician will come on Friday to get some lights upstairs in the extension.

What's the most messy job you've ever done in your house whilst still living there?

Extension Progress - Scaffold Down!

The house feels naked! 

The scaffold is finally down! 

Although it's a step that doesn't really move the house on or prevent work inside, I was still really excited when the scaffolders turned up this morning. 

When I left to go to play group this morning, with my youngest two, the scaffold was wrapping round the extension and some of the house, when I came back it was nude! 

It's always a real shock when the scaffold is down, it really changes how it looks.  I'm pleased with how the extension sits with the house and how it makes the overall place look, especially with the porch on the front as well. 

Now I've just got to push on inside, when (or if ) it dries up I want to get the last of the footings in for the retaining wall for the patio, then we can get outside sorted as well, I don't want another year where we struggle to eat easily outside!

What do you think?

Extension Progress - Floor In

After wasting a weekend being ill last week I managed to have a good go on the extension this weekend. 

I'd ripped up the temporary flooring a couple of weekends ago (some ply I'd bought cheap) and the upstairs was ready for having the chipboard put down. An easy enough job - but not very kind on your knees! I glue all the joints and I glue the boards down to the joist as well as using screws to hold them down, I hate hearing squeaking floorboards so I go with a full belt and braces approach. 

I've still left the hatch in the floor, which will be filled in as the upstairs gets finished, this means that I can now build the walls and get the whole bathroom ready before we knock through into the old bathroom. 

I also pulled in the chimney liner with the help of a friend. This is a bit of a mess around as I need to insulate it before the scaffold comes down. Trouble is I don't want to build out the fireplace yet (as it'll wreck our dinning room) so I can't terminate the flue where it is to finish. Instead I've wedged non flammable/combustible around the flue where I've broken out the chimney higher up. Then when I come to make the bottom section of the fire place I'll be able to insulate the last bit from inside. 

The down side to this was I didn't have enough insulation to finish insulating the flue, I was gutted, it's hard to work out what you'll need anyway as the dark depths of a chimney are unknown in size, I was about a bag short which I'll pick up in the week, just annoying not to finish the job I started!

Because the two counties where we live/the wife works have had different half terms, my wife is off next week doing all my jobs (school run etc) and I'll be working on the extension as well as a few little jobs for customers. 

This means I have a huge list of jobs to get through including, nogging out the floor and ceiling joist, finish the flue, install loft hatch, plasterboard the ceiling up upstairs, stud walls up for the bathroom/wardrobes/cupboards and plasterboard them one side. 

Should be a busy week hopefully! 

Extension Progress - Roof Tiled

This roof has been my nemesis lately. 

I've not managed to get out there and finish for a number of reasons, either the weather has been against me (to cold for the mortar to go off or too wet to not wash it down the roof), my wife and children have had different bouts of poorlyness or we've had things like birthdays to contend with.

So it's just sat there, in it's unfinished glory, taunting me every time I go to get in the car.

Yesterday I managed to get out there and even though it had forecast rain for the afternoon I'd thought I'd risk it. Luckily the rain never came and I managed to have a good run at it, I did think I was going to run out of tiles at one point but luckily I'd got just enough (about 30 or 40 left over I think).

Stepping back last night and look at it I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. All four of the hips I've had to do up there look really tidy and the lead work around the chimney does as well. A good, solid, waterproof roof, One that should last for many years. 

There's still lots for me to do up there (not today though as it's meant to rain all day). I've got to fit the gutters and line and insulate the chimney. The chimney is cause me a particular problem as I can't insulate it properly until I block the bottom off, and I can't do that until I know it through into the extension and we're a long way from doing that. I have got a plan though so we'll see how I get on! 

Also I've taken the my last two posts down. I've enjoyed your all your comments and they've been both popular posts, but I've decided that I'd rather talk to this woman face to face next time something like this happens. Rather than her reading it in a few months time if someone at school mentioned my blog (the dangers of using my real name). I've saved both posts and all the comments though so please don't think they were wasted. Thanks again for all your input.

Extension Progress - Roof On

Sorry it's been a quite week on the blog - I've been really busy! 

Managed to get the roof on the extension!

It's now felted and battened meaning that it's waterproof from the top and ready to tile! 

I still have a few things to do inside the roof (which I'll do tomorrow - Sunday). 

Here's some pictures of some of the frame work - 

Cuts on the jack rafters

Hip and jack rafters either side

Beams as ceiling binders but also to form a truss to support the purlins in the roof

Feels good to put a lid on the place and to be honest it's been one of the hardest little roofs I've done just because of how it cuts intot he old one and that it has purlins, I don't think I could have gone for a truss one just because of how complicated it is. 

I've also had a bit of help over the last week or so, so big thanks to Andy, Dill, Nick and Dave who've all come at different times to lend a hand, the days on my own always seem very slow by comparison! 

If I finish off a few structural things in the roof tomorrow I'll be pleased with how half term gone! Just the job of tiling to go on the roof then (as well as fitting gutters, etc) but that's not straight forward either! 

Extension Progress - Slab Poured!

My dad and I have had a few busy weekends wince the last time I wrote about the extension! 

Easiest to go through it in pictures:

The cavity under the ground level has been filled with a light concrete mix

Drainage has been added, pea gravel around all pipes.
I also built a man hole from scratch.

Drainage in the house surrounded by peas gravel and hardcore added to the slab

Wackered base

Sand blinding added so the plastic won't get damaged

Plastic added - this made a huge play pen for the youngest! 

6 inches of insualtion added to be under the concrete floor

Plastic to go between the insualtion and plastic as well! (build regs requirement) 

Wet concrete being laid - the grid pattern is the reinforcing in the concerete slab

Tamping the concrete roughly level - to lay the concrete we also had the help of one of dads workers Andy!
Got it mixed and laid in an afternoon.

Floating up the concrete late at night

A nice finish on the concrete - this will be the tiled floor of the kitchen eventually! 

It's certainly been busy around here! 

Yesterday and today are being spent getting ready for Dill the brick layer who is coming tomorrow. I've load the slab out with blocks, got all the starter bars in the walls, moved bricks so they're nice and close and made sure he's got plenty of sand and cement. Anything to keep him efficient and save me money! 

Exciting times now - can't wait to see this going up! 

Extension Progress - Brickwork Up To Damp

So we managed to get a little bit further with the extension this week. Dill, my bricklayer, came for a few days and managed to get the brickwork up to Damp course and start laying some slabs on our patio.

Dill - the bricklayer

 The first day we spent a few hours making sure we'd accurately set it out. To help keep costs low I made sure that all the materials he needed were close to hand and I'd already made the "goal posts" that bricklayers use for setting out buildings. 

Goal posts for setting out the footings and blocks close by

Brickwork up

Now I've got the task of getting the drainage in place before filling the internal with the right layers of stone, insulation and then concrete. That means lots of work before he comes back! 

Patio Progress - Stone Down

Stone down, pipes hidden! 

This feels like a major milestone for the patio, it's looked a mess for a long time so it's nice to have moved forward with it. Dad's helped me every step of the way with this, he's my expert digger driver and he's always pushing me to get more done in a day, he'll think nothing of starting to concrete something at nine at night!

Here's what's gone on in the last week or so with the patio, most of it over last weekend ( I also had my brother help me one night to get the stone down, I'd be lost without my family on jobs like this!)

Before picture - it's looked like this since November last year! 

Pipe work and ducting to the boiler

Drainage pipe in to pick up from the extension

Levelling the ground before adding the top layer of stone

Grading off

Adding some concrete against the retaining wall for extra strenght

Concrete added to the edges 

Weed membrane down then stone added to the top 

As usual we had a little bit of digger trouble! Track tensioner broke, not a difficult fix luckily!  

Stone then scalpings added and wackered down  to give us a firm base to lay the slabs on

Another view of how far we've got with the patio

We can only get half of the patio in at the moment as the extension needs to go in before we can do the other half, but at least this way we can get somewhere to eat outside again, we've really missed out outside meal times! 

What do you think to our progress so far? What type of slabs or finish would you go for up on our patio?