Week 82

My last post turned into a bit of a rant, so with this one I’ll do a complete 180 and focus on the really good changes in the build.

One of my pieces of advice for anyone starting a project like this is to plan the kitchen and the fireplace first. There are soooo many decisions that need to be made from soooo many trades that it’s best to coordinate a single plan before anyone arrives onsite with their spanners. The kitchen is a no-brainer for planning; with half a bijillion kitchen shops on the high street it’s one of Those Fun Things to do with a huge project like this.

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chimney plan

But the fireplace has just as many trades involved if not more. We made the decision early on to have the face sit flush with the wall and the chimney sit proud of the house.

And we decided that the fuel would be gas. Neither of these stuck, and we now have a false chimney breast with a wood burning stove. Marvellous. The design process has taken literally months, and I have managed to piss off my whole team, including my darling husband, so much with indecision and general questions that we removed it from the build and made it be a client direct package. Again, marvellous, but at least I’ve now got just me to please with no deadlines apart from those I set myself. The next deadline is Christmas, three months since moving in, and even that looks dicey.

We wanted a grand statement, more like a piece of art than just a hole-in-the-wall modern fire. Clinton has always liked CorTen steel, so Steve from Bradley Stoves ,who is doing the installation, recommended a guy called Toby to fabricate the steel cladding. Toby is doing another steel cladding job for Steve, and he runs Arc Fab Sussex in Lewes. Toby’s specialties lie in Big Things like narrow boats, railings, and bridges. He is also a trained artist so likes doing “little” jobs like ours. This “small” piece of steel will be 3 mm thick, 2.6 m high and 2.1 wide with cuts, curves, and supports to house the stove and the TV. Anyway, it was a pleasure meeting him and seeing the site, and now we’ve welcomed Clive the draughtsman on board to measure up so we can have it made.

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the goal
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part of Toby’s narrow boat project at the yard

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The stove has sat forlorn, half-installed by Steve’s gang for months while I got my act together coordinating the cladding. The family and I did some final measurements to make sure we were set on the dimensions before Steve’s crowd came up to build out the final interior of the chimney breast.

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think twice, cut once
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first bit of the metal carcass
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more carcass
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the carcass is filled with rock wool
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the whole thing is covered in 50 mm fireproof board

As well as building the skeleton for the chimney breast and cladding it in fibreboar, the guys also brought up the lovely piece of 30 mm thick Autumn Brown granite that we chose in the summer, now cut to size and all ready to fit. And because it’s St Anne’s and nothing ever goes quite to plan, they gingerly lifted it out of the van, and it broke into two pieces in their hands. Back in the van it went. Of course, the yard they got it from doesn’t have another piece big enough, so I spent a couple of harried days racing round Surrey finding a replacement match. Luckily, I found one in Hazelemere, and I’m waiting on confirmation of the final dims before committing to a size in the order.

Next up is drafting the final dimensions for the steel, fabricating it, weathering it, and installing. Clive is the draughtsman and does the drawings for Toby, so he drove up early one morning to Measure. This is no small undertaking as he takes on board all the risk if the beast arrives onsite and doesn’t fit (actually, if this happens we’ll probably end up rebuilding the innards). He’s a lovely chap who used to be a blacksmith in nearby Bookham. He’s got more involved in the drawing side of things recently but he still keeps his hand in the Making Process by silversmithing. Not so great for his wife who doesn’t wear jewellery he says, but fabulous for his daughter. Anyway, lasers at the ready, and he’s gone away to draw plans and liaise with Toby. If Steve can give us an install date by the time it’s built, the whole thing should be done by Christmas with any luck!

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can you find Clive’s laser line?

Other things brewing are fitting out the study with its desk and cupboards. We’ve got Barry onboard, and he’s been very patient with us while we work out the finances. We’ve got a simple idea, and it’s just a matter of pressing the go button.

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Barry’s plan for the study ..
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.. is an improvement on this!

Nisi installed the CCTV cameras a couple of weeks ago. After the wire-debacle, we’ve got some natty little grey cameras in three places all linked up to a DVR in the data cabinet.

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eye spy

They’re IR too, so we can track foxes scuttling around at night as well as any miscreants lurking in the shadows.

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I’m watching you, Wazowski

house2017.11.04 - 44The garden has totally taken over in the three years we’ve been out. All those lovely plants I tended for all those years, and all that awful lawn that turned to moss and we cursed over, are all no more. I have only ever once hired a professional to help out with any garden, during one spring when I was vastly pregnant with one kid or other and couldn’t get near the ground much less have any stamina to actually do anything horticulturally useful. But Nicola’s plan required the A-Team of landscape gardeners, so we’ve invited Mark and his gang on board to do the job. A few months back I put out a request for recommendations on Facebook, and almost everyone I know wholeheartedly recommended Mark. So we’re lucky to have him on board with Max, Duncan, Sam, and sometimes Wes & others, and they’re really cracking right on.

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clearing the front of the house including the cherry we planted in 2001
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pile of stuff and protecting the drive

After clearing the site, they brought in 60 tonnes of soil in stages. Robbie the driver got to know the lane really well.

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Duncan laying the soil
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ready for planting
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we’re going to have to watch the street-side for people doing some creative driving
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cleared and ready for setting out

It’s not quite accurate to call the front a “knot garden” as it’s more like a few squares with some defined borders. We’re using steel edges to delineate the beds from the path, and the path will be laid in National Trust-esque Breedon Stone. This is a self-binding aggregate that’s more like a path and less like pea single.

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the plan for the not-knot front garden

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the beds line up with the windows

We originally wanted a standard plant like a bay or a holly in each box, all lit up with fancy spots. But since Nicola has drawn this up, I’ve discovered Anthony Paul Landscapes on Max’s recommendation, and he does some lovely things including a hydrangea set in clipped box. So we’ve decided to blatantly copy that instead. Fewer lights = less cash required = fabulous.

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those rainwater sumps are still too high

One of the reasons we did the whole build in the first place was to re-site the garage in to a more normal part of the house, i.e. the front, and have the sunniest spot as a patio, i.e. the back. It is so lovely to finally see it come to fruition as a space where we can hang out rather than use as a parking space to bake a car or two in the summer sun.

Type 1 scalpings were next, and lovely new soil to the beds. The manhole covers were changed to ones that will have Breedon in them so they’ll disappear more.

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taking shape
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lighting cables under the Type 1
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incoming Breendon on the truck

 

 

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the plan for the back garden
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the geotextile membrane goes down first
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the side garden is broken up for fun planting

Max laid the paving so quick that I missed taking photos of it. The yellow Tracpipe is the gas for the fire-pit. Now that we know how long to cut it, we’ve got to get the plumbers back to do the gas work. I’ll try to book them in at the same time to cut the pipe install the whole fire pit thing all at once–saves two call-out charges.

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wooden edging in the back, rather than steel to save some cash
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one day this will be a fence
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building the step
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the side border along the drawing room windows
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a lawn!
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so lucky with the weather today–shorts in NOVEMBER

Pointing and bed prep will finish next week, then we can concentrate on planting. I’m due to go with Mark to choose a paperbark maple as a feature tree, and Nicola had Himalayan birch, coral bark maples and fruit trees in the mix too. There’s also a big hedge to plant. There will be a lot going on in the coming months, and this will happen in dribs and drabs when Mark’s got some time. We’re in no rush, especially since we’re not allowed to walk on the new turf until the Spring!

Week 56

The kitchen is in.

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There are a few teething problems, but I’m sure it’s nothing that won’t be overcome in time. The most imperative thing that needs a little attention is the presence of the hole that’s been drilled for the ducting. James had organised a massive 7″ core drill to be onsite for the job, but the work that was carried out didn’t use that tool, so we’ve got a preliminary hole for the moment. This will have a lovely grille over the front of it in a couple of weeks, and eventually it will be covered by hydrangea or otherwise. But for now, we don’t want any little beasties crawling in and making a home before we do.

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hole and bits

Terry and Josh have been working hard on the stairs. There is an incredible amount of chipping, gluing, measuring and fitting involved. And inherently, there is a lot of up and down, up and down, so it must be tiring. The bottom steps were set into place and they look ever so graceful. We can actually use the stairs now, but they’re still covered up with protection, and I think James will keep the ladder up as long as possible to prevent boots from risking accidental chamfering off of the square nosings. It’s interesting to see the scaffolding morph into different positions as required during a working day.

The fiddly CNC’d secondary newel posts arrived as well, and Mike and Clive have covered them in a lovely coat of their favourite, Osmo. They look a bit lonely off the stairs, but they look great in the pdf files–can’t wait to see them go in.

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tool bed
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secondary newels
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not-quite-fitted

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graceful first step

Some of the floor on the landing doesn’t quite meet up with the oak. It is extremely difficult to foresee these join details in planning the house, and lots of these things will emerge in the coming weeks as we race towards the finish line. So today’s decision was to choose a wood detail to act as a mini-skirting. We could have a full-height skirting just like the rest of the house. Or, we could fit a cut-down bit of architrave of the same profile as the rest of the house, or even a tiny bull-nose piece of oak that joins the floor and the beam. Since the structural oak remains the most substantial feature of the build, and the goal is to expose as much of it as possible, we’ve gone ahead and chosen the bull-nose, but as low as possible so we don’t have to chop the dowels, and as thin as possible so it doesn’t look silly.

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More site meetings, more baking. Ben’s been very patient with us over the time it takes to make these little decisions. Hopefully by the end of the project we’ll get the process dialled and each one won’t take so long. But for now, seeing bits and pieces in situ helps a lot, and sometimes this means climbing up ladders and holding bits of wood up to see how they look!

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keeping the troops going on cake at a time
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the things you do for clients, Ben

We finally bit the bullet and removed the oak collar on the clad sections in the master bedroom. Hands in the air, we fully admit to being over-enthusiastic with Neil when we designed the piece. Although the king-post and curved webs were awesomely built, and Terry, Josh and James spent a week installing it, we felt adding them was a decision made in haste so we asked them to take it down. I’m more than a little embarrassed about this decision, but it had to be done. Now it feels like we can breathe in the room.

The guys initially thought they’d have to take down a load of plasterboard and really fight with the screws that held the cladding to the oak. But in the end, they managed to cut the insulation and plasterboard in a nice straight line along some temporary battens put up temporarily alongside the cladding, and the oak was drilled out with a minimum of destruction. Very impressive. We now have to hang fire until Neil can manufacture the new cladding and get it to site. This stuff will be slightly thicker so it meets in the middle thereby covering up the central steel beam.

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… and we can finally breathe again

 

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makings of a really nice bird house from the old oak beams

The sun is swinging around towards the front of the house during the day, and it belts in through the front bay in the afternoons making all sorts of lovely shadows and lines.

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The bathrooms are getting tiled and painted, and the bedrooms are getting their dressing of trim in the skirting and wardrobes.

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Next week will see the groundworkers returning. They’ll start on the patio around the back, and they’ll swing up to the side of the house before they hit the front. Then it’s the all-important bridges. Tony the structural engineer is putting the finishing touches on the design before issuing instructions to Tim and his team. The goal at the moment is to devote resources to the interior as much as possible and leave the drive until last.

Tim had the club tiles moved up another rung this week. It’s a tiny little detail, and it took a lot of effort to move everything up just one course, but we’re very grateful and it looks great–thanks, Tim!

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front of the house
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back of the house in the sun

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We finished the week with a trip to Rye to visit Nick and see how the painting is coming on. He’s so accommodating and patient with our numpty questions, making us cups of tea, even talking about Gillian about her GCSE final piece and taking us for a tour of Rye Creative. It’s lovely to see the painting again and to have a little bit of input into the work. Gillian and Matt joined us, and after a lovely lunch at The Globe, we spent the afternoon wandering around Rye Harbour, dodging waves, looking for jellies and doing a spot of geocaching. The weather closed in near the end, and it was great to finally see Rye in a bit of sun for a while as in all the previous times I’ve been down there, I’ve been treated to a bit of horizontal rain and lashing gales.

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creating some new ideas
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tools of the trade
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big beach
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how do you work this thing again?

 

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Rye wall

Week 49

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hooray!
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rewind…

What started as excitement seeing the marble arrive quickly turned into frustration at seeing 50% of the slabs chipped around the edges. They’ve all gone back to base which is a shame.

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gas trench

Lots of work done outside this week now that the scaffold is down. The gas installation requires three separate services: one to connect to the street, our guys to dig the trench, the same installation guys to return and connect, and the last bunch is the guys from the supplier to install the meter.

After spending an hour on the phone with the supplier trying to untangle the previous contractor’s paperwork, I discovered that they still had our gas “on” as “live”. This is weird because it’s been capped off for two years with a suitable daily standing charge applied. Hello, refund?! Once they got past that little idea, the next job was to line up their team to come out and swap the meter. This is great because upgrading to a smart meter at no charge is awesome, except… there was no old meter to collect. The previous meter has gone walkies, and the only way to proceed with the swap was to declare the old one “stolen”. You might think there a difference between lost and stolen, but not to the gas board. Their drop-down list only had stolen as a sub-option to missing, so I sheepishly called the police to get a crime number so I could report back to the gas people to complete their form. The short story and a very depleted phone later, is that the connection is due for Friday next week.

We’re having the electrics upgraded from single to three phase which will provide enough for growth if we ever decide to launch rockets from the garden or at least have power to a shed or an electric car quick-charger on the drive. This connection requires coordination between the power network installers who will do the work in a morning and the supplier who will install the meter in the same afternoon. The hidden subtext to this is that this has to be coordinated because while the sparks guys are onsite, the electricity is turned off in the street…. FOR THE WHOLE ROAD. So we’ll be popular then. Hopefully this will happen during Easter break when loads of people are away.

The downpipe drains have been dug out too, and they all lead to the soakaway in the back and the ditch in the front.

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downpipe trench

Terry and Josh are working hard on the garage to get it done before the roofers arrive next week. They’ll also need to finish scalloping the lead in the upstairs windows which they can now reach without the scaffold in the way. And they’ll finally tile hang the front of the house.

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I’ll give you a little tour now that the plasterers are almost finished.

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kitchen pipework
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drawing room

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hallway downstairs
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Nick’s painting will live on the white wall in the family room as seen from the kitchen
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view from the front entrance
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hallway upstairs
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quirky ceiling and skilling lines meet in the master bedroom and hallway

Clive has been applying the mist (under-) coat, and James has been putting up the architrave and skirting.

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mist coat, skirting and architrave
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lovely manifold in the linen cupboard
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lots of oak offcuts to play with
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bedroom

The last panel of plaster in the single-skinned flank of the upstairs gallery has been approved by the warranty company, so it’s ready for its mist coat too.

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the panel that passed

This week was decision week: ironmongery, paint colours, stone for outside, stone for inside, fireplace, joinery. And I haven’t even started on the wardrobes yet. So, armed with an armful of colour charts, I went to buy some sample pots which Clive kindly offered to put up last thing on Friday. We quite like the Polish Pebble, even through it’s really Polished Pebble, but the guy at the shop mis-heard me so now it’s paint from the eastern bloc. I was picturing going to a decorator place, or B&Q at least, and choosing a nail-polish sized pot of paint to take home. But it doesn’t work like that. You need to choose a shop with a Dulux mixing machine where you tell them what colour you’re after, they type it into the machine, and it adds the exact amount of pigment to the base. I bit of a shake, and voila!, you’ve got your tester pot.

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list of samples

But the final colour can’t really be chosen without considering Nick’s painting. He’s the colour expert, and I’m very much not. The work isn’t not done yet, and won’t be for another month or so. So a quick visit down to rainy Rye to see him for a painting check-up, a cup of tea and a chat helped to narrow the field, and we’re pretty much there now on the ground floor. The pressure is on to make a good decision before we keep the decorators waiting and set the project back by dithering.

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I thought I’d take advantage of the journey that passed such amazing countryside, so I stopped at Leeds Castle to see if I could have a gawp and grab a sandwich on the return trip. I am so used to the National Trust that I just assumed I could grub and go easily. Maybe I’m just naive (well, definitely), but I was surprised to see that it cost just to go in. This clearly wasn’t the National Trust. Not even a coffee shop at the gate. I thought I’d treat myself and stump up for the entrance fee, but quickly put the brakes on when I could finally make out the charges on the board. What’s the maximum price you’d pay for just a peek at the castle where Henry VIII used as a residence for Catherine of Aragon before that all went south, a ham sandwich and a coffee? £5? £10? Well, the entrance fee is a whopping £24.50! Needless to say, my M&S wrap from the service station around the corner was smugly nice, and cheap.

Week 42

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Roof tiles arrived this week. Spencer and his team used the tile-escalator, or Bumpa, to haul 10,000 tiles up to the roof. That is TEN THOUSAND. A totally bonkers number.

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We’re very happy with the colour. Although we didn’t use a huge mix of colours in the end, having gone for mostly Heritage, Michelmersch, they still look really mottled when they’re on, and that’s the look we were going for. The colour changes a lot in the light, and it will darken over time.

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frozen tiles
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they frost up on the north side of the house

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Josh with saw, not enjoying puzzle-piecing the insulation

Josh, Terry and James are cutting up bits of insulation to fit in the rafters. Not a super fun task, but they’re getting on with it bravely. In fact, it’s their absolutely least favourite thing to do in the whole build because they’ve got to get all dolled up in their anti-dust gear complete with masks and as much full-length coverage as possible to avoid fibres sneaking into clothes and itching all to hell. And we’ve got tons of the stuff. Some of the long sections will have rolls of insulation, which gives a small respite, and these will be installed after the plasterboard ceilings are put up so they don’t drop down through the gaps.

Once the solid insulation is installed, they tack up large bits of fancy tin-foil to make it even cosier.

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tin foil ceiling in back bedroom….
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… now covered in plasterboard later in the week

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A small issue percolated to the surface with lining up the glazing bars on the west and north faces in the front landing first floor bay. We’re still discussing how to deal with it. But the rest of the windows are going in nicely.

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We’ve got another issue with the glazing bars in the back of the house too, and this is more of a design thing. They don’t line up either. But is it a problem at all? Architects would probably recoil in horror and shout “Of course!”, but this is a one off house, right? It’s the crack in the pot in the great grand scheme of things. Making them line up would require masses of redesign from the bricks to the subframes and on to replacing windows and frames. Tim reckons that once it’s decorated and furnished we won’t notice it so much. He’s probably right. My plan is to plant the heck out of the garden so you see through the windows (obvious but important here) into awesomeness.

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is it a problem?

The kitemarks were such a bugbear at the beginning of the build with the warranty company insisting that they were visible ON EVERY PANE. There are 98 panes. That was clearly not the option we wanted, and after many flurries of emails, we got them printed discretely just behind the glazing bars, just like the window company does on all their other jobs (that probably don’t use our warranty company).

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the hallowed kitemark

It’s still below freezing but at least it’s sunny and as warm as it can be for the guys working on the back of the house.

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The view straight through the house is still pretty special.

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back to front
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through to back

It’s still been freezing every morning, so here’s a gratuitous picture of the frosty Common.

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Before Christmas we had the pleasure of meeting Nick Archer, an artist in Rye who we’re going to commission to create a work for us on this wall. He’s done amazing large scale works with colour which is his speciality, and lots of his pieces are bought by corporations with large lobbies that can fit them. We’ve fallen in love with a particular piece of his below. We’ve even moved the electrics in this room so you see the painting from the kitchen instead of a black screen of tech. The painting will bring the whole downstairs together.

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future home for a Nick Archer painting …
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… and Nick’s “Stranded” which is similar

As a testament to the cracking-on vibe that is occurring onsite, the roofers and a window guy are onsite on Saturday. This doesn’t happen very often. Spencer and his team are enjoying a little winter sun and practicing their catching skills. I’m told they’ll even be around on Sunday to load more  tiles up to the roof–no cutting or noise to annoy the neighbours, just generally getting on.

There were 20 guys onsite on Wednesday, a world record for St Anne’s!, and around 15 for the rest of days in the week. Lots of juggling with cars, gear, deliveries and tea.

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action stations

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there’s an X on every fifth course to show where extra nails have gone for building control

Inside is looking very different day by day with the addition of each window. We can start to set our minds to decorating this beast, and thinking of things like curtain returns and furniture.

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Some of the windows died en-route to their final destination which is sad considering all the love that goes into each one. But it must go with the territory and there’s only one dead soldier so far.

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The pipework to bathrooms in the first floor has been installed on the ground floor ceilings throughout, and it pops through the floor when needs be.

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pipes, windows, & electrics
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waterworks in the study ceiling

One cool thing in the underfloor heating is the sensor setup. Tracks in the screed were avoided to install a sensor unit that fits between the pipes and connects to a programmable unit on the wall. This unit controls a zone, and there are units dotted around the house. Will be neat to use!

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shower room sensor spot

Another M&E thing we’ve got is a mechanical extract that runs from a central hub to each wet area and the coats closet with all the electrics in it. This unit will raise the circulation in the house so we don’t get condensation and then mould; part of building regs and calcs on the size of the building…. (?)

There was a debate early on about how to cross the vaulted area with the MEV pipes to the shower-room on the west side of the building. At the time we talked about possible fixes such as boxing it in around the apex of the master bedroom ceiling, or adding a second extractor fan for just that bathroom, and all sorts of complicated ideas–none of which were particularly enticing. But in the end James got the guys to run the pipework over the entire ceiling between one roofline and the other. Pretty impressive!

The photo with the silver MEV pipework shows the underside of the roof having been tiled, and the right side still to finish. You can see the lovely blue sky through the Tyvek  and battens on the unfinished side and more blue sky all along the ridgeline.

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silver MEV pipework

The front of the house upstairs is pretty dramatic. James and the guys continue to put up extra Tyvek and insulation whenever they can to protect it. These are the most precious windows ever! And it’s great to know that they think so too.

There is still a teensy bit of floor to left screed still because the team had brought just slightly too little gear with them last weekend. They come up from the south coast to do the work and they have to do it when the site is not overrun with subcontractors. They must have been horrified to find they’d come up short. They’ll come back soon, and it will be good to be finished to cover those delicate pipes.

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landing looking west
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landing looking south through the master bedroom

The lone windows guy installed the side lights to the front door today. At least it’s a little warmer this morning on the north side for him. And the forecast is good going forward, so here’s hoping for a good few weeks with lots of activity!

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