7 weeks on

7 weeks on in the build and the effects of the work have started to make their way inside.

Work has been disrupted today as we have had to wait for the 2nd lift of scaffolding. This next lift will allow for the Kitchen roof to be installed which should be 2-3 weeks from arriving. The 1st lift of scaffold to the front of the property will allow for the roof to that part of the house.

Today, whilst waiting to progress other areas, the builders have removed the window to the bathroom (natural light to be provided by a sun pipe later) bricked up the opening and have removed the hall way window and redundant radiator to allow for the new doorway to our new master bedroom.

Quite a lot of disruption today and the first time really that we have had dust sheets in the house.

The Sunshine Yellow bathroom

Room with a view?

Feature wall

Hallway - window gone!

So the front of the house now looks like this.

                                          

Lessons Learnt

One of the biggest lessons of this project is in how much 'rubbish' has been removed. We have so far had 2 skips and 9 Grab lorries with 2 more booked for Monday. We have recycled as much soil and hardcore as possible , but in digging footings etc we have had to remove mountains.

 Before we even had laid a brick on the extension we have had to pay for rubbish to be cleared, for concrete footings to be poured at a quoted cost of £95m3, Skips at £300 per time and for Grab lorries at £300 per load (depending on material). It really does all add up, and I think many people overlook this as an incidental cost. When you are building an extension of this size it's a massive cost.

Another point to mention , which designers often place on drawings as a caveat. Is, Footings to be tested on site or such like. We have found in our little house that our foundations have been far in excess of what would have been required for this little house. As such we have had to dig for longer in order to remove. Resulting in the plant being on hire for a longer period of time which could not possibly have been foreseen at the start of the project.

Also that Bl**dy Eucalyptus tree meant we had to dig footings at 2.2m as opposed to 1m!!!

2.2m Footings due to Eucalyptus Tree

Badmington Court v Patio

In our very naive plan to remove the badmington court, we set one of the guys the challenge of removing the Badmington court and using the hardcore removed for the new patio.....

The Badmington court 'was' constructed using reinforced concrete. Green reinforced concrete.

He started Monday, and is still trying to get it all up!

How it used to look.

How it looks now.
   

and the patio looks like this....

5 Weeks on

It's been a tough couple of weeks. Builder illness and Rain have affected progress and we've had some information delays all of which have resulted in a very nervous and overwhelmed PM.

Still, progress has been made and this week saw the arrival of our 1st lift of scaffolding, actual walls in the new kitchen and an order for windows!

Patio

After knocking down the wall which surrounds the patio and the house, we realised that the whole thing would need to come down. We are going to use the bricks from this wall as hardcore for the new patio.

The aim today is to excavate the soil etc from this little flower (Weed!) bed and use on the soon to be removed Badminton court, and backfill with hardcore from the old wall.

Up Up and Away....

Concrete blocks have started to be laid on top on the concrete footings. this level will continue all the way around the building with the  DPC (Damp Proof Course) laid on the top. This has just been laid this morning with concrete Lintels bridging the drainage which runs beneath the new Family room.