The Robin Has Landed!

December 2010

We finally get it all together and move in. 101 jobs still to do but it's warm and dry and mostly working as it should. Below are a few pictures of the many changes since the last post in October. 

Before they fell the leaves turned wonderful colours ....  

and the cladding was finished - all but a bit around the balcony which needs revisiting.....and some leadworkwhere the sloped edge of the roof meets the cladding..... and some guttering.

 

The outside lights went up at the end of November along with the first snow.

A man came from BT to connect a phone line - but he found no telegraph pole close enough. "Shouldn't take long to get a new pole" he said and left.

The next week a new telegraph pole appeared opposite the house, the following week another one appeared up the road. You can just see the impressively big drill bit they use to bore the hole for it above the man's head.  Four weeks and two new poles later he was back and we were finally connected.

It seems there's a different "planning permission" system for telegraph poles. They planted the pole and attached a form saying if you have any objections to the pole write to BT and they'll consider your objection. Seems no-one did, fortunately for us.

Inside the house the pesky cork tiles finally lay flat, we had the kitchen and bathrrom tiled and I moved on to the laminate flooring that covers the ground floor.

 

 After a tricky start it got easier. The floors are far from flat and this made it difficult to interlock the planks. We left the skirtings off so I didn't need to worry about near edges agains the walls which speeded things up.

Then I plucked up courage to tackle the rather expensive oak floor for the sitting room.

I ran speaker wire where it can be concealed later. And shaped the planks to follow the uneven edge of the stone hearth.

After worrying about the variation in timber and spending ages sorting if for grain and  colour we think it looks great!  Dave couldn't wait to start filling the bookcase.  The sitting room started coming together. My desk was positioned to start sewing curtains and a month on there's still lots to sew.  



Elsewhere in the house I finally finished the wardrobe.... it looked really nice empty.

....I tiled the kitchen splashbacks and then gouged the grout back out and re-did it when I realised they looked much nicer with grey grout....

  ..and made a larder - here are the shelves, I'm not saying curves are better but they were more fun and I'm not great at straight lines. Des the carpenter had finally finished and all his wonderful tools left with him. And here's the larder insitu - not quite finished... it measures 1100 by 600mm and fits in a corner of the kitchen. There's a PIR light on the ceiling which switches on when you stick your head in for a look.

 

 

 

 

I put up the kitchen shelves... and we sorted out the cupboard handles after I took this photo... there's a mirror over the sink - it's intentionally directly opposite a window and gives a view up the garden.



   

..still plenty to do inside and out...

  I enjoy the way the light gives many shades of white across the kitchen ceiling, and the way the light changes with the weather and time of day.

The utility room, which shares the same high ceiling as the kitchen has seen some improvement with lots of the pipes and cylinders now hidden behind a curvy bamboo screen. Still plenty to do here too.

The washing dries well on an old fashioned Sheila Maid pulley up under the roof.

I've laid sisal carpet in our bedroom - landing and stairs still half done...



 

 ....Milly the cat is starting to feel at home relaxing on the window sill.

Dave finished (almost) his painting marathon and spent many, many hours cleaning and sorting everything and recycling lots of leftovers.  His work is vital but mostly unseen - apart from the paintwork of course.

Here he is bringing in some firewood, another great job. The garden is much improved by the dusting of snow.

We had a burst pipe - outside fortunately - the insulation had just fallen off - it was simple to repair and I've insulated it properly this time, I hope. With our thick walls there's no heat really emanating from the house to help keep it above freezing and bizarrely the only place to close it off is at the wrong end of the copper pipe - so it's always at risk.

Our man from Building control and Building Warranty man came round and both have signed the building off.  We had to replace a door to the store room with a fire door (fortunately it already had a fire-rated door frame - which implies a bit of confusion on my part) and we upgraded the intumescent strip in the fire door to the garage. Apart from that it seemed we'd done all the right things. It was a relief to get these passed, not least as our mortgage depends on it.

On the 13th December our removal men came and we finally moved in. Stuff everywhere! Too much of it says Dave.

 

Finally home and dry and warm and much still to do.



July to mid October - Inside the house

Meanwhile Inside The House

Dave's painting marathon is still ongoing. We're using a breathable plaster primer. and we've used a lot more than expected.  Dave's also painted the new book case in the sitting room and the overhang outside at the front and lots of places in between.

I've been floor-laying with varying degrees of success.

On the top floor I'm laying cork tiles. I like the look and feel of cork and I appreciate it's sound-dampening, impact-softening properties in children's rooms.

The first room went fine then tile-curl struck. After sealing with eco-varnish all the tiles curled up at the corners whilst the centres stayed very firmly stuck to the floor.

Much scraping (thanks Dave) and we were back to the same old boards we'd had since Christmas. Replacements came and so far remain stuck in place. But they all still need a top finish.
























After a bit of a crisis of confidence, and a fear it was all taking just too long, we brought in a tiler to do the ceramic floors in the lower shower rooms and kitchen. Job done,  with a few hiccups as the plumber hadn't set the wet room shower drain low enough.  

I moved on to laminate flooring on the ground floor. It's harder than you'd think when your floor isn't really level, but I'm getting there.

It's training for the sitting room which is expensive engineered Oak  It is also said to be "quick and simple" to fit as a floating floor. Fingers crossed.

Originally the handrail for the stairs was to be oak with painted spindles. For economy the oak rail was switched to home-stained and waxed pine.










It looked nice so we decided I'd stain and wax the spindles too.

Stair-spindle city -  the spindles for both flights were stained and waxed in the nice sunny kitchen - ready for Des to install...

...and here he is fitting the last of the spindles

After that I built more of the kitchen and it's now virtually finished - apart from the larder and some shelves, oh and tiling splash backs.   These are earlier pics from August and September.

I amused myself painting shutters for the top bathroom.













Light switches, light fittings (thanks Jonathan!) bathroom installation and the heat pump commissioned. 

Here's Tom checking the wiring.....

...  and I learnt (too late) if you want straight switches you have to have the boxes in the wall straight too. These are in the sittting room. 

The thermostats for the UFH suprised me by their size and complexity.  We should be able to control things to the nth degree with all this.  There's one in nearly every room.

Jon came from Stroma and did our airtightness test in early October.  To pass building regs. you need to have no more than 10 air changes (or some such unit) per hour. Our heating system and the house were built assuming only 3 air changes. To be honest I can't remember where this figure came from. I think I read up on lots of similar projects and then made it up. 

 Here's Jon making a CAD model of our seven-sided house - he needs to know the volume and/or the suface area of the building for his calculations.

The first result was 2.1 - good!  Jon gave me a little smoke puffer to carry round looking for leaks. There were big leaks around the steps to the sitting room and through the centre 3 holes in each socket (I'd carefully sealed the edges of each socket, light switch, ceiling rose, window sill etc. etc.) I quickly sealed around the stairs and plugged a few things into some of the sockets. Jon kindly re-ran the test and this time got to 1.86 and that is what has gone on certificate.  

I was very impressed by the seals on the windows and doors and the plasterwork, and a little bit annoyed to think how simple it would have been to seal the electrics properly before the plaster board went on. They were sealed in some places - but not all - which is a bit like fixing some of the holes in your bucket. Jon had visited earlier and one useful piece of advice he gave was to imagine the air was water - how it would find any path left open. He says we could remove each socket and put "putty pads" to seal round the incoming cable. For now I've bought 18 childproof socket inserts that should help.

This is what the garage looks like at the moment...

...best furnished room in the house so far?

 Or maybe it's the sitting room which now has the bookcase across one wall. Lovingly painted - twice! - by Dave after I decided white would look better than the pale grey we originally used.  Just can't always be right first time. It will be great to see it full of books. The shelves themselves should all but disappear.

Mid October I collected our engineered Oak floor planks.  "Engineered" just means about 4mm of oak stuck to cheaper wood with the grain in alternate directions like plywood. This should be a better option over underfloor heating than solid wood planks which would likely cup or warp as the heating (and humidity) levels in the floor change. They are currently acclimatising and I'm psyching myself up to lay them.

I'm struck by the variation in pattern and colour within some boards and between boards. Yes, I know it's a natural product but only about half of it is within the tolerance I expected. A conversation to be had with the supplier later this week.... I particularly don't like the two-tone board in the bottom picture that looks oil stained. 

 

A couple of other views of the sitting room. I've tried the stove out, it gets good and hot and the flames do look very lovely through the glass.

Still to come, finish painting and flooring, wood cladding, phone line and broadband, a shower door, frosting bathroom windows for privacy, kitchen shelves and larder, balance underfloor heating flow and the ventilation system.  Skirtings, architrave, curtain rails, blinds and shutters, sew the curtains, draghtproof the garage and sort out a letter box. Various things to sign off with the council, a VAT claim, transfer the mortgage, change the insurance and move in. I expect I've forgotten one or two things but we're getting nearer at last.

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