The final bills are rolling in, the site is gradually becoming clearer and clearer of rubbish each day, and we can just about make out the horizon. It’s still a long way off, but we passed another milestone this week and I actually got in touch with Andy again about sorting out dates for the final moving-in. It will be our fourth move, not counting the move into and out of storage
The drive groundsmen left site on Friday having cut blocks into slivers all week to fill gaps and fiddled with man-hole covers to set the patterns without interruption. They look great, but the neighbours weren’t enormously impressed with the noise and dust of the table saw.
main sewer manhole covercuts for groundlightsrainwater surroundgranite setts bordering garage doorporch mid-flowpre-pointed porchfreshly pointed porchback fence pre-slabs
The car-charging post is A Big Deal, mainly because it’s a bit esoteric and involves Neil to make the thing, the chippies, the grounds guys and the electricians none of whom had done this sort of thing before. We wanted to site it at the corner of the parking bay by the fence, so, in theory, if we ever had two electric cars, the chargers could share the single post. But although Pat had dug a lovely trench for it all along the line of setts, the conduit wasn’t long enough, so we ended up choosing a spot right in the centre for it.
where to put the post?hereback of the post
The three-phase conduit is running inside a large ribbed duct which houses the wires wrapped in armoured shielding. It needs two bends to get to the charing unit: one from underground to start running up the groove in the back of the post, and another to run through a hole from the back of the post to the charging unit in the front. The armoured sheath causes bends to happen at a really wide diameter which makes it sit proud of the groove. Not cool. So Steve had a brainwave to terminate the sheath inside a recessed box and run the wires through the post freely where’d they be safe anyway. The photo shows the conduit without the box, and you can see the box being chipped into the post in the time lapse.
Another piece of electrical good news was overcoming wiring up the lamppost. Steve was sure that the thing was set in concrete and that we’d have to dig up the whole thing to get a wire through. Luckily, a little scrabbling on hands and knees revealed a hole at the base of the lamp undergorund to run the cable through and up to the top. The sparkies quickly ran some rods up the post to check it was clear, and they wired it all up in half an hour.
coast is clear for wires
And just to ensure that a good test was given to the ditch before the guys finished, it hammered down.
a river runs through it
Deeks is getting a clear run at snagging this week, as I’m getting preoccupied with fireplace, steel cladding and landscape gardening. Alyson recommended I stay out of their hair for a bit in any case. The cleaners come on Wednesday as do the electricians and the Rako commissioning guy. Thursday must be for tidying up and doing outside work. Friday is Practical Completion which is amazing. Next Monday I walk round with Alyson, and next Tuesday is a day for settling final accounts with Tim.
I feel quite emotional about finishing. Gregory will be going off to uni before we move in, and the moving in itself, the budget and all the work it’s going to take to get the house sorted is daunting. We won’t have curtains despite Rachel’s excellent help in getting us there. No money. No wardrobe in our bedroom either. No money. No hanging lights, no furniture, no garage storage. It’s a little depressing because we had budgeted for all this at the outset. It wasn’t an enormous budget–nothing grand or gold-plated–but enough to sort these last few bits out. Instead, we’ve spent it on rent and management for 10 excruciating months. I know that I’ve bought a T-shirt and a book of tickets to my very own pity party, and that doesn’t feel right either. I think it’s more of setting myself a goal that isn’t turning out right. It’s the OCD part of me that is upset, not the Surrey-housewife part (that part is pretty small anyway). I’m not very good at changing gears. The most emotional part is that I’ve let the family down. But they’ve been awesome during this whole thing, and afterwards, I’ll be stronger and they’ll just keep on being awesome. Clinton is already planning the next build. (omg)
The loss adjuster is proving painstaking about invoices and their wording too. I know it’s his job to be responsible for extracting cash out of the insurers, but he’s rejected my invoices from architects and contract management because they don’t refer directly to Water Damage. I would have thought that everything happening after the original PC of 20 June was a result of Water Damage otherwise we wouldn’t have had to do it. But no, I’ve got to get the extra info onto the paperwork, and it will be difficult to get it from Ben whom we haven’t heard from in a fortnight.
So, we’re almost there. Fingers crossed for no big issues at the end. Again.
I had a minor surgical procedure a good few years ago which went all a bit pear-shaped in recovery. On speaking to the surgeon, who was a really nice chap despite my setback, it turned out that this particular complication was a one in a bijillion type of thing to happen. Really rare, definitely unexpected. He said then that in all his work, this sort of thing happened less than 1% of the time. But he also understood that despite the odds, it was still 100% of my experience. That’s a lot of responsibility to carry around as a person and a doctor. To his credit, he saw the whole thing through really well, all the while being proactive and keeping positive in analysing the problem, firmly believing that a good solution would gradually emerge. His attitude turned out to be pretty infectious (no pun intended) and a good learning experience in retrospect.
So, here we are in the midst of another less-than-1% experience. At least, I hope for the building industry it is! No one is happy about it, but onward we go, getting past the worst part which is seeing the nest we’ve built our family upended once again. Demolition was bad enough. I’m upset, but curiously not devastated at the damage done by the flood. It’s not seeing the tangible building wrecked that is gutting, it can and will be mended, it will just take about four more months. It’s more the emotional side that’s galling and the general disappointment that can’t be repaired in any speed but has to be ignored now and eventually left to percolate and dissipate over time.
We started this project with the family in mind, and the goal was to get this house to work effectively for all of us. Rather than have the nice shiny efficient home we’ve worked so hard for, the family is now shoe-horned into our third rental that the kids don’t feel a part of. It’s just like camping, kids, just with better plumbing!, says their ditzy mum. It must be very unnerving as a teenager to have your space dismantled and your parents all distracted 24/7. It seems like this project has taken ages to me (it has by anybody’s standards), but for a bit of perspective, we’ve been at this for a sixth of my youngest’s life, so it must seem horribly normal to her, and that’s not right. I suppose it will make them resilient in the end, but inwardly, I look to my surgeon from before for inspiration and try to be proactive and positive for the kids.
Keeping a smile on is taxing, but we’re quite upfront with the kids about what’s going on–there are no secrets or glossing-over of facts. We’re probably a little too free and easy with opinions around the dinner table, but as this project has eclipsed most of our social life, the build is kind of all we talk about now. It’s easy to be glib and remind them to appreciate that we’re fortunate to have the capacity to put a roof over our heads and food on the table. But this level of subsistence isn’t what we signed up for, in fact what we signed up for is completely the opposite. We tried to ensure that by having loads of tiers of management in place and work cross-checked by a host of professionals, that this sort of disaster would be avoided. In years to come, will I appreciate the house more because the journey has been more arduous? Will we chuckle ruefully as we look back on today’s drama? Or we will feel like just another couple of middle class ya-hoos getting too big for their boots and wading into seas where they shouldn’t be swimming in the first place? Whatever it is, there is no point having a moan, but it’s bloody hard to look at the lovely ruined walls and ceilings and not feel a little robbed that we were so close to living in it.
As a rule, I haven’t shouted anyone out in either a positive or negative way, just because I feel that this blog should be more a story where the House is the central character, and no one wants to read about my dirty laundry. But I feel compelled to give Andy Bald of Removals In Action five virtual stars for being completely awesome. Kevin, Kesta, Shaun, Simon and everyone on his team were total gentlemen and will have moved us five times when all this is said and done. This week the gang worked solidly for days moving us back and forth from rental to storage to another rental with stops to our friend’s house and to the new house to leave some logs in the garden. They’ve put up with me being emotional, 35° temperatures, and a constantly changing gameplan. Thanks, guys…. you’re incredible.
Equally as steady is Warren the Milky 07889 141395. Having milk delivered is a special treat and a cultural phenomenon that I’ve had the pleasure of supporting since I moved to the UK in ’91. Despite our recent vagabond existence, Warren has worked hard to keep the supply consistent for no benefit to himself. When we moved outside his patch into the first rental he found a colleague to continue our delivery seamlessly. It was a pleasure to move back near the house in the second rental and have him resume the service himself. Now, with this short term rental, he’s not only gone and found another colleague to deliver, but he’s given us his good wishes and looks forward to seeing us back in our old neighbourhood soon. Seems a completely unrelated thing to the house-build this whole milk thing, but he’s been delivering to the house for over 15 years plus the two we’ve been out, so it’s kind of a long-term relationship, and one that’s slightly odd because it’s all so ninja–I hardly ever see him! Thanks, Warren.
I apologise for leaving last week off the blog; in the midst of finding new digs and moving into them and it all feeling a bit chaotic. This week is better and we’ve found a path to tread again. The insurers have taken over the Drying Out Process which they say could take anywhere from 0 to 28 days. There are damp reports, forensic assessments, dehumidifiers, environmental teams and all sorts of experts introduced to this project and taking a look this week. Some damage is making itself evident a couple of weeks post-deluge as the underlying structure starts to dry, and even I can see these bits.
To catalogue a few of the areas as they’ve changed in the past fortnight….
kitchen nibs are looking damp and the coving is ropey and split but the units are probably ok
ground floor ceiling looking damaged–how much of the staircase was affected?bowed skirting was removed in placesbowing before removing in the family room; is there water under the marble?skirting lights will need replacing tootenting and dehumidifying sodden areas
But work continues, and although we were planning on moving in, I can’t really say that it was to a complete house anyway. We’d agreed with Tim that work would continue once we were in, and some important bits remained outstanding. Like the 1.25″ diameter water supply which was installed this week. The old pipes were lead, and the water company has a scheme for replacement (which is a little known fact), and they came to replace the house’s supply for free–hooray!
water company searching for pipes in the road
It turns out the supply runs alongside the road between it and the ditch, so there was no kango-ing of tarmac and far less fuss than expected. Phew
The Swedish-sauna oak soffits on the first-floor overhang went in all along the front and west side of the building. It’s all bright and sparkly now with Clive’s double coats of Osmo oil, which looks a little jarring next to the structural oak that’s been there for months, but it should grey out like the rest of building in time. Spencer will be back to install a lead strip around the west overhang so it’s completely watertight.
pretty porchalong the underside of the overhang
boys’ shower room is looking smartmirrors have gone up
Shower screens went in and niche lighting is on. We’ve had a little trouble with the screen for the girls’ bathroom–it’s got a dippy kink in the wall which prevents fitting the screen flush with the edge of the tray, and it’s just plain too long leaving a slim 560 mm gap to get into the shower. We can’t do anything about the placement of the glass, but we can adjust it’s length. The catch is that the screen is made of special safety glass so it can’t simply be trimmed onsite. These things are jolly expensive, so it takes some nerve to say it’s not right. We’ve asked for a price on replacing it at this stage, and we’ll make a decision whether to change it or not depending on how astronomical it is.
girls’ shower is narrowutility room lighting and tiling fits perfectlythe view out of the building is still beautiful …… and so is the back against the shiny tiles.the guys have done a huge clear-up in the front garden
Lots has happened on the outside of the house in the past few weeks.
the protective aprons on the brick plinths have come off, and the brick panels are almost completetwo vents for the fireplace, top is for cavity venting and bottom is for convectionrainwater pipework at ground level, although it looks a bit high compared to next door’s fence
The electricians will re-attend after the driveway is complete. There’s a day or so of work to put the car charging point in, wire up the coach light and run all the garden spots out to their respective beds. But for now, the wires will be left all coiled up on the side of the garage. Some will be on timers in the garage and others will be switched from the front door which is exactly like we had it in the old house.
cabling for the coach light, garden spots and porch down lighters all coiled up and ready to go
The oak support for the garage overhang was mortared in with the rest of paving slabs. This post replaced the very large brick pier that was built first and then demolished when we discovered it left no room to move around it. The edges of the post are really square, and we’ve got to decide whether to chamfer off the corners–what do you think?
oak postJamie tilled the back garden on first passground lights will fit in the cuts to paving slabs in the giant back door step
This kind of finishing work would have carried on regardless of the flood, and would have been happening even if we had moved in. The builders have been part of our lives for 65 weeks, and the house is pretty dang big compared to what we’ve been living in the past two years, so I’m sure we could have fit in the odd chippie or electrician during the move. But fortunately for them, they’ve had a chance to work unencumbered, and they’ll soon be clearing off to hand over to the environmental guys as part of the insurer’s package until it’s dry.
Pain is a funny thing. It gradually fades, and the weird bit is that you don’t notice it’s gone. I hardly think about my surgeon any more, but all sorts of thoughts have come to the fore recently. One day, this trauma won’t burn so bright, the technicolour will dim, and things will calm down. Looking forward to it.
Welcome to Week 62 in our 36 Week project…. It’s all about finishing now.
bathroom niches have their lightstiled flooring is down in the bathrooms, but no shower screens yetfiddly short tiles cut to finish the floor, but no mirrormaster vanity unit has been moved, but no lightsRich tiled the utility splashback .... and started the tiling in the kitchen
looks much more kitchen-like; requests for moral support go unheeded…
Lots of pressure to Buy Things like… doorbells. Have you ever given much thought to them? The button bit can be a nice design piece, and there are many many different types to choose from. But the ringer, chime, sounder, whatever you call it, has three flavours: school bell, electric programmable with a bijillion different “songs”, or an antique from eBay. We went for a chrome schoolbell in the end. Boring, but necessary.
doorbell: brick mounted or doorframe mounted?garden getting cleared graduallytiling and water buttthinking herb garden thoughtsmore herbs: got a recommendation or favourite to share in comments below?horrible scary crack filledsecurity lights installedoak beam in lieu of bricks to support garage installed
There was an area on the back porch where the supports under the structural oak were slightly shy of the windows leaving a 20 mm gap. There was 10 mm tolerance generally for windows abutting to structure in the specification, and the guys managed to put it all on one side, making the 20 mm of air. The windows were installed just after Christmas, and this gap had been glaring at us ever since. One transgression for the Quirky House Police, but it’s filled now and looks much better.
Paul filled the gap with surgical precisionplinth splits for guttering downpipes restored
The bricklayers elevate their work to an artform. I hope that they’ve enjoyed working on this place, because they’ve had a lot to think about. Mind you, this week’s daily quizzes were mostly about war films which really tested my memory of dates, battles and geography. Oh yeah, ….. and what is the only airport in the States with an actual airplane in it? And whom is it named after? But check out the symmetry around every wall and detail as you look at any photo with bricks in. Genius.
study is finished with flooring and electricsmassive patch panel in the utility room to centralise all the data pointsfireplace with temporary buildout, but the room looks miles better with a coat of paintcolours look alright in the kitchen into family room — Dulux Trade is A-OKmaster bedroom detailwardrobe rails inelectrics are getting there one socket at a time, but not sure about the labelling…
We’re moving in on the Thursday of week 63. In theory. Kitchen commissioning on Monday morning, air permeability test in the afternoon. Tuesday is the contractor’s last formal day on the interior. Wednesday is cleaning, and Thursday we’re in.
When we first started this project I had visions of the finished product being presented in a more defined way. I kinda expected a ta-da! moment. I thought we’d have some time to think about the job, to go around with the contractor in a logical way to see if anything was overlooked, to snag it, to rectify the snags, and to move in with a huge smile. As it is, it’s rushed, the project manager is on holiday, the electricians are still (incredibly shockingly and disappointingly) not finished, snagging hasn’t started, the air-test is going on unsupervised and might fail our SAP calcs for us, and there is still a ton of work to do outside both within and outside the contract. Like, there is no drive and no lawn, but these will be done by others. There are no curtains, yet. And, strangely, there is no TV aerial which somehow counts as AV equipment which was conveniently client-specified but not highlighted until now.
There have been many parts of this project when we’ve seen our naive decisions come to fruition, and some have worked out just fab and the product is marvellous. But mostly, I really just haven’t wanted to look at bits and pieces in case we’d made a poor stab at something. I feel far more fear than excitement or pleasure at moving in just now. Maybe it’s just the fact we’re coming to the end of a period of exam hell with the kids and staffing challenges with the business all at once conveniently coordinated with the week we’re moving in. Maybe it’s because it’s the hottest week of the year. Maybe it’s that the budget is starting to burst at the seams. Maybe in five years’ time this feeling of unease and self-doubt will have morphed imperceptibly into something more comfortable, settled and positive. I hope my future self laughs heartily on reading today’s momentary dip in my attempt to retain a consistently high level of relentless positivity throughout this long journey. This future self will be enormously grateful and very happy in our family home that we’ve had built the way we wanted and was intended to provide the centre of gravity for the six of us at least for many many years to come.
Not long to go now. Three weeks until we move in. There hasn’t been a light bulb lit yet which is worrying, but they’re all getting wired in at least.
sorting narrow from wide beam
hooray for lights in the upstairs hallwayfamily room lights/James’ new digsWhere do these go, Jimbo?fancy floor lights under the stairscill lights in the kitchen
But the biggest thing this week was saying goodbye to the old garage. It put James out of a home and his new office is now sitting in pieces in the family room. He doesn’t really sit at his desk very much now that we’re coming up to the close–lots of managing lots of trades all the time. I’m sooooo glad to see the garage go. What a beast! Jamie says the beams were in excellent nick which is surprising given the decrepit state of the rest of the structure: cracks in the floor, leaky roof, cracks in the brickwork. It’s main problem was that it sat right on the sweet spot for the garden. When our future selves are sitting out on the new patio with a cold drink in hand, we’ll shake our heads and remember it fondly, I’m sure!
We had the happiest labourer ever onsite this week. John, I think he was called, and he was a luck-of-the-draw-from-an-agency bloke. I guess he was used to working in London where these guys are normally tasked with horrible jobs like moving supplies up and down 7 flights of stairs a gazillion times on a given day in the middle of summer, so this surely seemed a picnic in comparison. When James and Jamie allowed him to drive the dumper around and get involved in the garage demo, well, he was just over the moon! Like a total kid, smiling all day long, as if he were hiding in a candy store at Christmas, not doing a day’s work around on a building site with big machinery. It’s a pleasure to have him onsite and his enthusiasm was totally contagious.
roof’s off3 lorry loads to remove most of itTa-Da!
by the end of the week, even the concrete base was gone
Inside, some final pieces are coming together. In preparation for the fireplace installation next week, the electricians put the wires through the ceiling towards where the sockets will live for the hi-fi. These wires will get boxed in, and it’s lovely that they’re away from all the scary heat from the stove area. Dave’s done drawings, so everyone knows what the finished product will look like.
wires ready for boxing
Additional boxing will be put on the other side of the room to hide the gas pipe. We put this in to future proof any requirement for gas in the room. Like if we wanted to change our lovely wood-burner to gas if it was too hot for instance. Or if we just wanted a change. Originally this pipe wouldn’t have been in the way because we’d intended to cover this area with a low set of built-in units. But with (more than a few) changes in design, this pipe got a little orphaned. Boxing is not a great position to be in, it smacks of afterthought, but it’s the best solution we’ve got at the moment.
orphaned gas pipe
The plumbers are making their way round the bathrooms. The WC was transformed from Box to Room over the course of the week.
boxroom
Lots more to think about outside. Like clearing,….
earth – (and) – child
We’ve got to decide if we want to spend the extra cash on swapping the porch soffits from painted ply to oak tongue and groove. What do you think?
porch: ply or T&G?more soffit decisions
More work was done on the brick slips, and they’re all finished now–hooray! Thanks Clive. A bit of fancy mortar and we’re done.
front slips are instill getting large deliveries….
Work on the bridges is looming. We’ve got a design through from the engineers, and it looks like we’ll be able to drive the space shuttle across them they’re designed so robustly (is that a word?). I’m not sure we need something so bomb-proof. There’s is a ton of extra hardcore to get rid of, so we can use that to fill, and I’ve still got lots of 450 mm diameter corrugated plastic pipe to use too. I’m sure James and Jamie are sick to death of moving it around site anyway. It’s turned a little Where’s Wally with these dang pipes.
450 mm pipes
It was half term this week, and I must say a big thank you to the kids for being so great and leaving Mummy alone to get on with site visits, curtain choosing, counting pennies on spreadsheets, and generally being preoccupied. They should be getting on with GCSE and A-level revision anyway, right? We did manage to get out and about one day, the highlight being a great big Surrey snail round Ranmore Common (we’re very easy to please). Sadly the ice cream van had scarpered due to impending summer storms which we managed to dodge. I’m very grateful to the kids for being so self-sufficient. I definitely owe them some cakes when this is done!
I’ve put this one in here because Dad might like the digger-as-sundial on a weekend when there’s nothing going on onsite.
Without going into too much drama about tempers flaring, lines of communication being tested, inspections on the edge and deadlines looming, …, despite all this, it’s all mostly going to plan. This week’s post will be mostly pictorial as I’m struggling to write anything at all coherent in the rush to finish this project. Loose ends include all electricals as we haven’t seen a blub a-flickerin’ yet, the entire fireplace concept, some of the big wood pieces from Neil, the sanitaryware, tiling and the drive. On the positive side, the Moldovian chippies Adrian and Vadim are generally fantastic and are busy getting on with doorframe, skirting and ironmongery. Terry and Josh finished the stairs too–I don’t think they’ll be in a hurry to fit any more capping in the hand and floor rails, but Josh remains undeterred, even when faced with a chisel in his hand and a trip to Epsom hospital. Didn’t stop him smiling when he returned to site to finish the day’s work.
The cornice company arrived early in the week and transformed some of the rooms.
awesome coving, but, oops, poor decision on light placementdoes this work around the units?drawing room looking more formal
Finishing touches around the staircase are being decided with things like skirting beading, window/stair boards, and capping under the newels. James is great at making use of extra pieces to create some of the finishing touches. And it’s only when you see these things installed that you can get a feel for what the finished product looks like. Most things have been fantastic, and some require small tweaks, like the window board used on to top the plasterwork in the front bay. We’ve decided that the trim should have a profile more like the stairs, so this bit of boarding will be replaced, but it was excellent to have the flexibility and chance to check out the profile and have the option. This exercise prompted some deep thinking about what exactly we’re trying to do in the space.
is it a window board or a stair board?
Likewise with the trim between the structural oak and the floorboards. Initially, I wasn’t keen to have so many different kinds of oak hanging around, so I didn’t want the trim in at all when we started the finishes. And James’ advice was not to have too many different trims or the whole thing looks cluttered. But now I feel that if each piece does what it’s expected, then it follows the ethos of honest materials in the house, and it should be ok to have a little bit of trim that matches around the house, and it will blend in better in time. We opted for the little bead around the structural oak in the photo. The floors remain protected, and the windows will have a layer of dust on until the final sparkle-clean, so it’s hard to tell what the final finish will be anyway!
beading on the floorunder-newel
Vadim and Adrian have been boxing in pipework and building wardrobes around them. We’ve decided on a semi-complicated painting scheme with the interiors being darker shades of each room’s trim.
Gemma’s wardrobeGillian’s wardrobedouble checking the spec on ironmongery
Looking forward to snagging the kitchen next week. We’ll discuss a few trimming bits, and do a double check on things like the work-surface edge.
discussion piece: is this pencil or bevel?
The bathrooms are looking good, but we’re finding a few things that could have been better designed. Like,…. the door slamming into the unit when entering the bathroom. We’ll have to install a rubber baby buggy bumper on the back side of the door along with advice to tell the boys to be jolly careful without entering their bathroom with too much energy (shouldn’t be a problem, they’re a bit slow int he mornings). Much consultation with Allison in the States and friends in the UK to generate a survey of vanity unit heights in an attempt to get ours right. We’ve decided 900 to top of unit is a good height–a little higher than most, so it won’t be our family keeping the local chiropractors in business.
boys’ bathroom
In a dull moment, the guys found time to remove the plinth they’d lovingly installed before we changed our minds. Our MO seems to be build it, then remove it….
plinthless fire
…. just like the piers!
looks better now
Clinton never really liked the piers in the front; they were only put there to carry the rainwater downpipes into the ground in a clean swoop. So, taking advice from the architect and structural engineer who both said that they weren’t critical to the structure, we decided to take the bold (= expensive) move to remove them. This leaves an obvious problem for the bricklayers who now need to come back and make these areas pretty again. But the overhang looks much less fussy now, and we’re happy with it. At least we were until a giant gaping crack appeared around the first floor cavity trays.
omg
On further advice, we adopted a suck-it-and-see approach, and the whole thing looks pretty stable despite the crack. It hasn’t shifted since it first appeared, so should be ok. After all, there is an enormous great big steel holding up this side of the house, and the roof is all complete as one separate structure spread across the whole building. It SHOULD be ok. At least it is when I close my eyes. And a little mortar in the joint before we move in and all will be well. Right?
Lee, Jamie, Djokovich, and the groundwork gang were back to lay the paving for the patio. Their work was hampered by the water board inspector who deemed it fit to ask the guys to dig the main supply to the house a little deeper. This was an enormous pain which required un-building of the garage and some of the edging stones the guys had laid last week. The inspector didn’t stop there, took a deeper look at some of the work and started going off on other trench work depths, like the supply into the taps in the garden. He even had a go at some of the pipework internally, which never happens apparently. Usually the inspector has a cursory look around near where the water enters the building and leaves the M&E team to get on with things downstream. The groundwork guys have done hundreds of jobs like this without fuss, and the plumbing team was livid by the time the inspector finally passed it all, and all the trenchwork could be filled in. They’d none of them ever seen anything like it. Clearly this house has been jinxed from the start. The guy earned a few choice nicknames around site, and luckily for him some of the spare pieces of wood lying around didn’t get airborne.
high water table in the mains trenchon the positive side, slabs are looking good
We’re even venturing into town to look at furniture and light fittings. Mostly these experiences highlight that fact that neither of us like shopping very much, nor do we like going into town unless it’s work related. We’re much more country-bumpkins these days. Either we’re super boring (likely), or we just dread the time it takes to travel around aimlessly looking at one low-profile uncomfortable sofa after another. I think Clinton was definitely going to lose the plot entirely if he got close to one more Edison bulb singeing his retinas. The best way forward is to continue on our current course of clicking our way through doing most of the furnishings.
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.
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.
tool bedsecondary newelsnot-quite-fitted
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.
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!
keeping the troops going on cake at a timethe 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.
… and we can finally breathe again
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.
The bathrooms are getting tiled and painted, and the bedrooms are getting their dressing of trim in the skirting and wardrobes.
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!
front of the houseback of the house in the sun
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.
creating some new ideastools of the tradebig beachhow do you work this thing again?
Goodbye scaffolding! It took three days to get all the gear down, and now we can see the whole building.
scaffold neatly stacked and ready to depart
No scaffolding in the way means that Terry and Josh can get on with building the roof for the garage. This is a wiggly little beast that has had Terry brushing off his thinking cap to calculate the pitch of the flare. The flare determines the soffit width, and the soffit width determines the supporting post position, and all this is constrained by the location of the neighbour’s fence. And don’t forget the guttering…. Much hemming and hawing occurring this week, and even Dave was onsite to have a look and a ponder. In the end, we all reckoned the best way to build it was just to get on with it and see how it fell. So we all left Terry and Josh to it, and by the end of the week, they had a plan that matched the flare the same pitch as the rest of the house and he reckons the guttering will just kiss the border just like the old house used to.
the first truss on the garagebuilding the garagemore trusses from the back of the houseand even more from the front
Lee, Sean and the groundworks team have been back with their digger to make the rainwater drains meet up to the soak-away in the garden. There are six downpipes at the back of the house that all run to the inspection port. It was a little odd to see the this thing poking its head up above lawn-level, but the plan is to cut it down to as low as it can go, and if we ever need to rod the downpipes we’ll have to find it and dig it out to get access. This is ok with me. I regularly used Douglas’ old set of rods to sort the drains in the old house, so a bit of potential digging on the off-chance that these need sorting isn’t going kill anyone.
inspection portgroundworks returnnimble diggergarden massacre but the camellia is undeterred
Now that we’ve sorted the design on the fireplace and have signed off on the plans, it’s down to the guys to build it. But there are still a number of trades to coordinate: stone, joinery, fireplace, general building, electrics. There is a lot to this piece. I had my first foray into sourcing stone this week having gone to the stone yard to have a look at some off-cuts. I hope the inside does justice to the outside.
lots of stonechimney symmetry
It’s always a challenge to walk around site and to visualise what it will look like when finished. It’s hard to resist taking photos of general stuff going on, but equally hard to figure out where the best vantage will be for the “before” or “during” snap to compare to the finished “after” one.
during?
Nicola’s design is being finalised, but here is a quick working-drawing teaser.
The plasterers work hard when they’re onsite–we just need a final push to get it done and then the architrave and skirting can go up. In preparation for that day, Clive is staying out of their way and has got a great system set up in the master bedroom for the task of painting miles and miles of wood.
family room ceiling — tickkitchen with plasterers’ platformliving room with tray ceiling and bags of plasterground floor ceiling protrudes until the landing apron is installedOsmo-ed architraverelief grooves in the backs of the tall oak skirtingClive loves his Osmo
We’ve come up against a stumbling block with shower trays. The current ones we’ve chosen are expensive, and two don’t fit. One of the wells made for them to drop into is slightly too small and we’d like to see if we can grow it. This shouldn’t be too much of an issue, until you take into account the underfloor heating. Risking making a hole in the pipes set in concrete to chip out the necessary extra 100 mm would be catastrophic at this point. So we’re trying to figure out other alternatives, one of which might be a wet room type of thing. Tim can’t start tiling until the trays are down so we’ve got to get our skates on to sort this out or the whole programme will suffer and we’ll push everything back weeks. The jury is still out while we research other options, so in the mean time, here is a photo of the shower in the girls’ bathroom.
where’s the waste, Wally?
You would think that choosing colours would be the fun but, and it is. But agreeing on colours is another matter. And nudging the kids to make decisions about their rooms is proving a challenge too. Tim says to paint the whole thing white and wait with colour until the rectification period is over and the inevitable cracks are plastered over. This makes a LOT of sense, but it is so tempting to just paint it its final colours and get it done. With our usual speed of making decisions on this project, it may be after the warranty period before we finally decide, so Tim just might get his way after all. And by then, Tim will be sailing off into the sunset, drink in hand, remembering fondly the lovely job he did at St Anne’s and it being ancient history!
tableau of indecisionJosh needs a new pair of boots
The Leatherhead Cemex plant is back up and running
Concrete has been a real headache. Lee was anxious to get back on site today and make some real progress to finish the job. So close!…only one more trench to dig out. Having a silo onsite would have been the alternative, but the guys thought that since the concrete depot is only a couple miles down the road that it would be easy to have pours on a as-needed basis. But with the extra depth of trenches that the warranty company wanted alongside the vagaries of supply and plant operation, it’s been a hassle. As lovely and accommodating as Lee and his crew have been, Nic will be glad to see the us out of the ground.
They’ll leave the garage trenches for access until the brick layers are almost finished.
tight squeeze backing up down the lanethe lift works on a remote
There are two types of bricks in the groundworks: the concrete blocks and the reds. The blocks are laid first, then the reds are used to achieve the right levels. The level of the ground floor is the same as the street although it looks deceivingly high at the moment. The reds are used instead of the blocks because they’re easier to cut and don’t fall to bits. There is a pile of sand behind the bricks too.
stylish boots worn for the first time#DAB?!
Thursday
They found a second well! It’s about 2.5 metres deep and full of water! Can’t believe it. We’d never known of it until they were mucking away the big pile of earth and the digger took a huge chunk out of it. It must have been under the grass…. Bonkers!!
the second well!…. near the hut alongside the boundary fenceold house v new house:no second well
The concrete deliveries have dried up today, so Lee and his gang can go home and sit in the sun. This is not a good thing, and even Lee didn’t want to leave. But the deliveries are few and far between despite having been booked for weeks. Apparently the Leatherhead Cemex site is shut, and the last few loads have come from Crawley. We’re a relatively small job, so if every builder in the area needing concrete is using the Crawley depot, they’ll decide to deliver to the big jobs first, and we’re just tiny fish in this pond.
There are only a couple more deep trenches out the front to go.
quiet afternoon on sitefamily roomcouldn’t resistBen and Nic discussing the finer detail of concrete deliveries–or lack of themthe mortar has dried out and changed colour
The test panel is looking better in colour. It’s incredible how much the mortar colour has changed and lightened up. We’ve decided not to go with the current bucket handle joint profile and have recessed or raked instead. Not enormously interesting as a detail, but it will make the bricks stand out more which is nice because in using engineered bricks rather than reclaimed, we’re losing the variation.
testing sand colours
These two are West Ho and Bletchworth (I think!). We’re seeing if the mortar could be lighter (do we need to?), and if it could contain more aggregate. Here, it’s drying out in a high tech test environment so we can look at the colour properly.
Watch for an overambitious concrete delivery at about 0:23 below. The shuttering gave way and the guys had a heart attack. They managed to cut the pour and save the day before the whole thing went south. We’ve got a REALLY stable footing at the side of the family room!
Wednesday
Tuesday
Still digging.
deep trenches take a while
Sometimes when I come round the corner and see how lovely the lane is, or see the neighbour taking a picture of a bird’s nest in some random place, I’m reminded that we’re so incredibly lucky to be building this house in this spot. This morning it was simply the steam coming off the road in the early morning sun that caught my eye. Mind you, the guys had been there long enough to be eating their toast before kicking off at 8:00 on the dot, that they could have appreciated it too, but they’re focussed on getting the job done and getting on outta here rather than waxing lyrical about steamy roads.
finally.. although Nic’s hut is very nice and they’ve done wonderful things with the garage/canteen
The percolation test is carrying on: 1 hr 55 minutes to drop sufficiently. That’s a blindingly fast rate of 1mm every 50 seconds or so. The average speed of a snail (Cornu aspersum) is 1.3 mm/s, and this is 0.2, or 6.5 times slower. The literature suggests a time of 24 seconds. Ha! Looks like we gotta kick the bejeezus out of Option B.
fun with percolationOK, that’s probably enough of the percolation test
The guys have dug out masses from the deep trenches and have built up quite a Col de St Anne’s in the front. Rain is forecast, but I hope it’s not massively wet when the muckaway truck comes on Monday or they’ll need a few more trips to get rid of it. Not much more digging to go; just a couple of the garage walls.
deep footings around family room and back of garage
The timelapse camera got some water in, so I’m missing a few days. I’ve got footage, but they’re not worth posting. The videos start off ok first thing, but as the unit heats up in the day, the water steams up, it stays in the housing and obscures the lens with fog. Not the best, but going forward we’ll squish one of those little silica packs in between the camera and the housing and we’ll see if that de-mists the whole contraption.
Thursday
A two-droppper is NOT good when digging three metre deep foundations, and it really slung it last night. In fact, the guys dug out a deep section and shuttered it all up yesterday–all tickety-boo. But when they lifted the shuttering this morning to drop in the steels and pour concrete, the whole thing folded. Nic was unimpressed, and I can’t imagine Lee and his team were thrilled. After checking with Justin, the plan became digging at 45 degrees, shuttering, then backfilling.
a 45 degree trench before dropping the shuttering in
It’s a real juggling act of mucking away the spoil in time for the concrete lorry to arrive and wedge itself in close to the trench. Nic has had one muckaway truck come when the concrete guys were pouring, and the driver was not happy because he had to wait around. But apart from that one time, Nic’s got it dialled and the system runs like clockwork.
The other fun bit today was thinking about the soakaway. All the rainwater is to run to a central pit filled with rocks under the middle of the garden. Sometimes these are called French drains. It’s a very simple and effective way of getting water into the ground. But you might ask: how big should it be? Well, there is a calculation for that which takes the predicted rainfall over a given area (roof) multiplied by some constants which gives a rough idea of the soakaway’s required volume. A more advanced way of calculating the volume is to check the draining capacity of the soil. To do this test they dig a small pit, fill it with water, and time the fall millimetre by millimetre. This is a percolation test, and that’s what Nic and Justin are comparing notes about.
percolation test
If the percolation test warrants an unfeasibly large soakaway, we’ll consider running the rainwater out into the ditch. Next door does it, so it should be fine. But these decisions need to be made before the blockwork goes up which will limit access for diggers and machinery to the rear drive.
Sunday is supposed to be a big day for rain, but next week looks dry. The brickies arrive on Wednesday, so we’ll finally be going upwards!
The last thing to show you is the test panel of bricks.
Ben and bricksbrick closeup
We think we can improve the colour and texture of the mortar. It looks a little too dark and a little too smooth. This might be just a drying thing as it changes colour a lot as it sets. We’ll try the last 20 bricks next week with a mix of lighter sand and a little aggregate. I stole one of my bricks (how does THAT work?) and a chunk of mortar that Justin prized off the back of the panel, and I’ll have a wander to a couple of similar builds to compare the bricks and pointing. I hope I don’t get arrested wandering around Oxshott with a brick in my hand. One vaguely interesting thing is that we’re using engineered bricks, and the original specification was for reclaimed London Stock. These are about a pound a brick with about 30% wastage. No, thank you! And they’re olde worlde imperial measurements which don’t jive with our modern metric drawings. But a comparison would set my mind at ease to make sure we’re on the right track from a design point of view.
Things like contracts, structural oak design, roof design, procurement and budget calculations are all happening in the background, but I won’t go into detail here. This project is a Big Deal, but not a Grand Design in the Kevin McCloud sense–we’re into low drama and minimised risk…and sleeping at night!
Wednesday
Tuesday
More digging, more mucking away, more concrete. That’s about it. Nic has been sending photos during the day which is excellent — thanks Nic! These are the small footings; the garage footings on the east side are deeper because of next door’s conifers and also because the floor is cantilevered off the back foundations. The idea is that although these will take a while to dig and fill, the first blockwork course before the DPC can start on the west side sections.
much drier today. can’t even see the water tablea tiny little bit of water two metres down. incredible how variable it is around the sitecan’t count how many cement deliveriesnice shiny concrete footings laid around the front gable
At least it’s warmer now, and the guys can dig longer trenches without concern that they’ll cave in while they’re waiting for the cement to arrive.
One interesting thing is that the test bricks have arrived. These will be made into a panel for inspection. We’ll be checking that they look right, the pointing is good, and the mortar mix matches everything.
new “old” bricks
The old post that used to stand on top of the turret roof on the tower is now propped up against the loo. It’s made of wood with a lead sheath round it. I’ll ask them to keep it and we can put it in the garden somewhere.
post, loo, and barrow
Wednesday
Tuesday
Oh my word, did it sling it this morning or what? It’s been summer showers off and on all day. And I mean ON or nothing. So the place is looking more Somme-like this week. I’ll bet the pump has been in action. Tony the structural engineer and Tom of building control have both been down to site, and everything is going to plan.
Big events include filling the well with a “lean mix”, quotes are for us newbies: this is a mix of less concrete and more sand so it can be chipped out if needs be at any future point. But our paddling pool days are well and truly over; we now have no more well. I don’t feel extremely good about this–the well was one of the quirky features of the house that we made the best of and enjoyed. By getting rid of things like this, are we making this place more generic? I hope we are improving the site and keeping somewhat true to Alice Grey’s original plan by keeping the design functional and honest and by not going all KT22-glam. I can’t see that we’ll be housing the poor of Lambeth any time soon, but the house will at least keep the heat in. Maybe losing the well isn’t that big a compromise for a little modernity and thermal efficiency.
that there is a lot of concretebye bye well
The guys have dug, shuttered, braced and filled the rear bay too.
lining up the concreteis this as exciting for you as it is to me?Rear bay foundations. This will be an oak frame with a bunch of expensive windows in a few monthsthe tidy site and onlookerbits of well, and well, other bitsmurky evening walk backgetting to like this ritual
Monday
A little more shuttering and a little more concrete by the weekend.
A two-droppper is NOT good when digging three metre deep foundations, and it really slung it last night. In fact, the guys dug out a deep section and shuttered it all up yesterday–all tickety-boo. But when they lifted the shuttering this morning to drop in the steels and pour concrete, the whole thing folded. Nic was unimpressed, and I can’t imagine Lee and his team were thrilled. After checking with Justin, the plan became digging at 45 degrees, shuttering, then backfilling.
