April 2016 – St Anne's Build

Week 4

Posted on April 26, 2016 by admin

Friday

On site, the guys have been waiting for the steel reinforcements before digging. So they’ve tidied and sorted things like the water and electricity supply, the shrubbery, and making cozy the tea-hut/garage in the meantime.

The well is pretty close to the foundations

I’m leaving out all the paperworky-type drama like negotiating with the contractor to get into a contract, dealing with the warranty company (Dave is just about still smiling), making regular minor structural engineering amendments, hiring additional engineers surrounding the oak and the roof, and choosing a kitchen supplier. I haven’t even chosen the fun stuff yet! And I have no idea what the letting schedule is going to be like and where we’re going to put all the “stuff” onsite. It really is a full time job, and we’re grateful to Ben to coordinating it all. The whole team is working together to make this house happen, and Tim assures us the Christmas lights will be on this year. But while it seems all sweetness and unicorns now, our first valuation is due to happen next week…..

Wednesday

Met Lee today, he’s the main ground work guy. Lovely chap and very patient! He said there is quite often a lag when trades handover.

baby digger and what Gareth calls a skip on wheels

We’re waiting around for the steel reinforcements for the foundations. It makes little sense to dig out the foundations only to have it rain and them to cave in over the bank holiday weekend. This wait is putting the plan back a week. The demo guys took a little longer than expected and the guys in the office won’t be happy to hear that nothing is happening this week except for some burning of the shrubbery.

Tuesday

We can see where the house is going to live! Very exciting.

Today was all about theodolites, stake and paint. The guys marked out Dave’s grid on the fences and from stakes set into the ground. The walls are outlined in blue paint. It’s fantastic to wander around with the ground floor GA drawings and look at the markers to figure out where you are. Just like Battleship.

IMG_1300.JPG.jpg — the back of the “house”

Screen Shot 2016-04-26 at 22.27.40.png

standing at the front door looking through the two gable ends

the well is just outside the walls, and the cordyline is under the stairs

It looks a LONG way back from the road. We realised that the ditch gives a false sense of space, since we’ll have to restore it and leave just the two bridges.

Dave came to site yesterday and said that the tolerances of the layout are within 20mm. 20mm?!! That’s bonkers. GPS will locate within a metre or so, but apparently it only took an hour to set out the whole thing. Pretty dang impressive.

Monday

Didn’t take any photos today, but it’s the first day of our new site manager, Nic, so welcome aboard. They were due to set out the plot today which is exciting, but not much discernible change.

Week 3

Posted on April 19, 2016 by admin

Saturday

Gone.

IMG_1292.JPG.jpg — Taken from the south side of the contractor office/hut

IMG_1295.JPG.jpg — Taken from the corner of the garage

Friday

I couldn’t come down and take photos today, so the only thing recording was the time-lapse. It’s great that the whole thing carries on regardless!

Thanks very much, Alan and the team!

Thursday

We were due to go off to look at universities today, but we couldn’t leave before checking in with the guys. Alan and his team have done a really fine job with the demolition and he believes they’ll be offsite by Friday. All the material has been sorted, and today is mostly carting away. When I popped by this afternoon, they were taking out the drains. Lovely!

I won’t miss these drains. Should put my set of rods up for sale on eBay.

Wednesday

It’s hard to tell what’s happened during the day when we have a look in the evening. But I suspect that since the digger is riding rather lower that there have been a series of skips down the lane to take our house away.

The garden that I’ve dug, re-dug and tended for 16 years is completely trashed. I couldn’t even recognise where the well was today! (it’s under a fence by the shrub in the first photo below)

Photos are becoming a little less interesting as there is less and less to show.

standing in what will be the new living room

We expected there to be some digging out of foundations occurring this week, but Alan says there were absolutely none. The whole house was resting on earth. Bonkers. What an enormous relief that we didn’t engage on a restoration programme. We would have had to underpin the whole thing. One of the reasons we didn’t go down the renovation route was because we really didn’t want to find out the house’s inner secrets and be surprised. Surprises make good TV for Grand Designs, and not for our nice calm and organised job in Oxshott. I just hope they don’t find the bones of Alice Grey somewhere…. (more on her later).

they must be finishing–Alan’s taken his giant Transformer Claw away

Tuesday

They’ve left a little bit of the wall round the back of the kitchen that contains the water pipe. It saves the demolition guys putting in a stand pipe while they’re onsite. That will be a job for the main contractor.

I can’t believe how many bricks they’re keeping. Lots of them have spalled (are spalling?), and I thought they weren’t of any use to anyone. But they look much neater and tidier on the pallets than they ever did on the house!

All that’s left is clearing and grubbing out the foundations. Dulux says that they’ll start setting out next week.

Monday

FullSizeRender-1 (1).jpg

Week 2

Posted on April 11, 2016 by admin

Sunday

We took the day off house-gawping yesterday as we were all scattered to the winds doing fun things.

Today, the sun is bright, and I’m reminded of why we are doing this project. In having a look at the destruction, the birds around us were chirping, the lane was quiet, and the sun was warm. Gorgeous.

But it makes me kind of wistful looking at the old fireplace sitting there intact amongst the rubble. Doorways are the weirdest; I remember chasing children through the warren of rooms, and now there is nothing.

But there’s no looking back and I can’t wait for more progress and seeing the rest of it flattened this week!

Friday

The demolition team is working really hard to get through the house. It’s not so much the knocking down, it’s the sorting and finessing all the materials into different piles. The wood goes off somewhere, the bricks set into pallets, and the real junk (most!) goes off somewhere else. Alan says that it would take a blink of an eye to knock the thing down, but a further two weeks to sort through the materials. This way appears tedious, they’ll be done next week. Hooray!

In between skips. The previous one was filled with general rubbish, the next one will be filled with wood.

IMG_1183 (1).jpg — Hard to get a sense of scale: that’s my house in that truck, and car beside

Thursday

The entire front gable is gone, so bye-bye boys’ room. Chimney breasts don’t take very long either!

The back door in what’s left of the kitchen looks like a portal

IMG_1163.JPG.jpg — The Incredible Disappearing House

The camera got a little knocked when the garage was made watertight.

Wednesday

Gillian’s room is gone. Funny that when she saw it had disappeared, she said she didn’t feel much loss. She’s very keen to have a new room that doesn’t have mould that she can decorate and relax in. Sensible girl! We’ve now got the kids’ loo and the boys’ room on show.

The digger parks itself on the duff bricks and gradually gains height

seeing the neighbour’s trees behind the house, and a little posing in the front

they’ve left light fittings and the old plastic that was keeping the elements out of the loft

Tuesday

Work gets right in the way of watching the house come down! It will just be photos over the next few days, but I can see that the tower and stairs are completely gone, and Gemma’s room has disappeared. It’s funny to see how the tower-extension consisted of a simple plastering over the outside bricks.

check out the lovely plaster in what was the hallway

Now it has a really airy feeling. Except for the world’s biggest bin

Monday

Dulux felted the garage roof, and the interior is being made into a nice mess room for the guys on-site. The 18T digger arrived after a 1.5 hour holdup on the A3. After that, it was taking down section after section in the pouring rain. The demolition company had originally thought to take down the boys’ room corner first, but started with the tower instead so there will be more room for the enormous bins that arrive tomorrow. It’s amazing to walk up the lane, turn the corner and NOT see parts of the house. Bonkers!

We’re no longer allowed onsite for safety reasons. Steve reckons the house may fall, but only around its footprint. Any potential devastation is unlikely to venture past the garage or the front fence. Fingers crossed.

Week 1

Posted on April 7, 2016 by admin

Friday

The demolition team has begun in earnest. Their plan is to access the roof from inside (no ladders!) to remove the chimneys and edge tiles that are concreted in. They will remove the ridge, then the whole roof will unzip.

After the roof, they’ll remove the overhanging first floor extension by hand. It’s a safety concern because the building is so close to the neighbours at that corner. I’ve been looking forward to having that carbuncle removed from the house for years!

Our neighbour’s tree blew half-over in the storm last Monday, and the tree surgeons have been busy removing it today. I like the way they strung it up by the oak it landed in and slowly lowered it in the road, cutting section by section. It’s a busy day down the Lane!

Guys on the roof removing the boiler flue and chimney

Thursday

Steve the Site Manager and Dulux have been preparing the site for the demolition team. Their office hut arrived today and they’ve been setting up an additional store and mess area in the garage. They have to refelt the garage as most of the roof has blown off in recent storms. The rest of the prep involved tree protection and door-removal.

red paint denotes electrical cable underground (in the filled-in ditch)

Month: April 2016

Friday

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

Saturday

Friday

Thursday

Wednesday

Tuesday

Monday

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Wednesday

Tuesday

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Thursday