Building a new house

We have seen quite a lot of activity at the house in the latter part of this week. The garage/workshop concrete floor has been laid as Pat is keen to be able to use the space as his store for the next stage of the fitting out. Sion has been finishing his first-fix plumbing, and Rob his first-fix electrics. And news came mid-week that the windows would start to go in on Friday, though four of them are still to arrive at at Horizon Windows in Ruthin. We obviously had to pay a brief visit on Friday to see the first stages of the window fitting. We were on our way to an overnight stay in Whalley, near Clitheroe, and knew that the predicted winter storm named Arwen would affect us there and at home. In the event we had a hotel night disturbed by the noise of wind and rain, not to mention concern about the northerly wind ripping through the unprotected north elevation of the house. It was no relief to see the early morning social media postings from home with roofs ripped off outbuildings an...

..... but don't get too excited. The truth is that our windows supplier has received the first batch of our windows - the six which have no opening mechanism. Having heard weeks ago that after glass shortages and aluminium shortages, the industry was suffering from handles shortages, it now seems that it's the opening/shutting/locking mechanisms which are unavailable. No one seems to know how long the supply delay will be, so we just have to try to be patient. In the meantime, there are indications that Sean has been steadily working his way through the plumbing jobs, and, excitingly, there are marks on the road indicating that Dwr Cymru may be thinking of coming to connect our water supply. two of the shower trays have been sealed into place, here in bedroom 1's ensuite .... .... with a very tidy exit route below in the hall for the trap and waste pipe .... ..... and here in bedroom 2's ensuite .... ... with the breather pipe from the waste system now exiting through t...

Well, we are still waiting for our windows, and haven't heard from Pat what sort of delay we are facing this time. The last ten days have been pretty quiet at the house, with just a day's work by Sean yesterday preparing to install shower trays, and the garage and walkway roofs being felted and battened today. When the windows do come, the transformation will be immense, but at present you have to look closely to see what's changing. a few days ago, this shows the finished joinery on the garage/workshop roof we are looking forward to enjoying the view from the dining area when the fence/hedge is tidied and the scaffolding disappears today, the felted and battened roof of the garage/workshop creates a visual link between the roof of our neighbours' outbuilding and our main roof on the other side ..... ..... and from bedroom 4 (I'm assuming the handtools left on the battens mean work will resume soon) the walkway roof links to the garage/workshop past the bay window o...

We visited the house yesterday to take some photographs with the place to ourselves. We were interested to see the final preparations for the slating of the garage and walkway, which is due this coming week, and to see the small area of limestone walling which was in progress on Friday. We are hoping that the fact that Pat has arranged for this to happen is a sign that the external rendering will be going on soon. the subtle differences in the view of the front are ..... ...... the completion of the blockwork on the garage gable - so will we see Dave and his apprentice again? ...... ..... and the completed feature stonework by the porch - using stone I removed from our neighbour's wall (as documented in the early days of this blog) all left tidy in the kitchen ... ... and in the dining area cabling hanging in anticipation the walkway waiting for the ground level to be raised no shortage of insulation (this will go in the loft) one day the bedroom view will lose the scaffolding and ...

Almost inevitably, we had news yesterday that our windows will not be installed next week. This latest delay is being put down to production delays, rather than materials unavailability, so perhaps we should be relieved.  Let's just hope the 'another week' message is not going to be repeated, as the six weeks for plastering to follow on from the windows will already stretch into the 2022. More positively, work in other areas has continued each day. This has mainly involved joinery, with last preparations being made for the remaining roof covering to go on next week, but today a stonemason was on site to build the small section of limestone wall alongside the front porch. door linings in for the kitchen and .... ..... sitting room door linings upstairs looking to the front of the house .... .... and to the rear beyond the garage/workshop, the covered walkway is being constructed .... .... under a supervisory eye Ian the joiner's site saw is a little larger than mine fasc...

Well there is a less romantic side to a house, and that's the sewage system. Readers of very early posts in this blog will know the difficulties we have had (and may indeed have in the future) with the business of connecting to the public sewer. For now that is on hold but yesterday, impressively, on a Sunday, our plumber was hard at work fitting the soil pipes inside the bathrooms and ensuites ready for the sanitaryware to be connected after the plastering is done and the false low walls are built to hide all the pipes.   It's much clearer now how each job has to fit with, or modify, others, so some parts of the floor have to be carefully cut away (beware underfloor heating pipes!) and some cables need to be moved aside. The coils of cable from the photovoltaic panels on the roof which languished for weeks in an upstairs room now been neatly routed to the utility room, but we need to chase our broadband provider who has not yet arranged for our electrician to re-route the nec...