Finishing up

I'm going to declare the day-to-day writing o this thiing over. Last week the skip left, thank goodness. This week Tim finished off the floorboards at the top of the stairs and the last piece of shower glass is in, but wobbly. There remains various bits of painting to finish off, which we trust will happen before too long.

Perhaps we can start putting the house back together for living in now...

Day 345-350. Mostly painting

Mostly painting this week, and we're mostly finsihed now. As I believe is traditional, they are leaving a few irritating bits of stuff unfinished but hopefully will get done sometime.

Tim has boxed in the electric and gas meters in the hallway, making a rather nice looking cupboard out of it faced in the floorboards. Les the tiler has tiled the bath end in his standard not-exactly-brilliant fashion; and it needs some filler to stop leaks; but it will do.

Remaining: tidy up outside; a bit more painting (esp the stairs); uncover the stair treads; and do the floorboards at the top of the stairs. A days work if they actually set to doing it - any guesses for how long in practice?

Day 344. Guttering

So its now thursday; oddly enough the "we'll be finished on wednesday" didn't occur, any more than any of the other finish dates have. While we were away they were supposed to have painted out the kitchen; they haven't. Of course it sat empty for months on end when they could easily have painted it then. But I think Bob has this fixed "paint at the end of the job" attitude. While we're on the kitchen, the ceiling seems to have a slight leak... at least, it was wet inside near the front... Gavin reckons a problem near the Velux, and promises a roofer to look at it. In fact I must remind him of that...

The render coat is now finished though. Its pink; an OK colour I think. Certainly we seem to be able to live with it.

Tim is working to finish the chippy type stuff: the panelling around the toilet looks good; around the bath is OK. He and Gavin are now putting up the guttering, which has sat in our driveway for so long.

And the painters are painting away. They should be able to clear at least the small, and D's, bedroom by friday, which would be rather nice, so that Ma will have somewhere to sleep.

Day 337. Pink

I don't seem to be doing such a good job of updating this... mostly just hoping for the work to be over, with little success.

So, since last time, the painters have been steadily painting and the floor has steadily extended. Now it is down everywhere except the top-of-the-stairs, and in the entranceway and the music-room-to-be. We've scratched some of it already :-(

Today the plasterers came to put on the topcoat of stuff onto the render. Its supposed to be "like thick paint". Its pink, but it doesn't seem to me to be thick enough - the swirls underneath are still visible. It doesn't help that the instructions are in German. Shall I take a copy to Nikola?

We still need... skirting boards down (and painted). Painting in bathroom, shower room, kitchen, dining room. By friday? Hmmm... I doubt it.

Day 331. Flooring at last

Gavin arrives sometime past 8 (in fact about 8:20, just as I email Ian to whinge about no-one turning up) followed by Carl and later Tim. Duno what Tim does; Carl gets in the consumer unit (ie, new fuse box) and Gavin is floor laying. When we get back, the kitchen is mostly covered, and the carpet in the dining is ripped up, and some latex spread to even out the floor. At extra cost of course, but how much?

This confines us pretty well to the living room: MED play Uno there, and we eat off a tray. Hopefully tomorrow will see better.

Day 326-330. Misc week

Doing it by the week now, unless something exciting occurs. A fair amount of work done, though we are still suffereing from the Wroxham effect: Bob pulling people off to finish his own place (just this morning the younger painter turned up, began, and got called off 30 mins later). Hopefully the first rentals are this weekend and so that should stop now. Hopefully.

Not much mon/tues. Carl around a bit (hence, says Bob, no decorators, as they don't mix. Ha. Plenty of outdoors painting to be done). Wednesday was to be floor laying, but that got delayed to friday, and then, ahem, delayed till next week. So the answer to "are you *sure* you'll be finished bar snagging this week"? is "no", though never explicitly given. Ian seems to be fairly sure that Bob intends to be finished *next* week: this would be good.

Tim sets to and builds the cupboard in the corner of the dining, so thats good, and it looks good.

Were are we at? Old gutters are now off, and soffits and bargeboards painted. New guttering was delivered to the driveway a week ago, and only awaits putting on. Quite a bit more external painting to do. Internally the kitchen/dining, and the new kitchen, and the new stairwell need doing. And the bath/shower rooms need finishing off. And the floors. Errrm, well, lets hope.

Day 323-325. Shower :-(

Wednesdays disaster was for it to become clear that the wetness of the carpet in the shower room was *not* overspill from using the shower, as we had been asuming, but instead seepage upwards from below. Argh. Get a plumber over, and the explanation eventually agreed on is that they failed to mastic the join of shower tray to walls at all, so its been leaking there. Hopefully that really is the answer, and not that there is some leak in the pipework underneath, otherwise we'll have out rip it out. This has also spread a bit into the linnen cupboard, resulting in the loss of "map projections" book, but not so bad there.

Meanwhile, painters at work.

Thursday/fri (/sat/sun) it does become clear that the water isn't growing and is probably retreating, so the mastic seems to be the answer. And Bob owes us a new carpet. When planning the project, of course, we totally neglected the pain/cost of little troubles like this. Les the tiler starts on the windowsills in bath/shower, and appears surprised that his grout or whatever has disappeared in the interval since he was last here. If he had actually come back promptly to finish up there would have been no problem.

Guttering turns up.

Friday: finally have to clear out the old kitchen/dining totally, to allow the last of the units to be ripped out and making-good to commence, in advance of painting and eventually floor laying. Only Les-the-tiler (who finishes the windowsills upstairs) and the elder-and-not-so-good painter in the morning; the other is doing something else in the morning. When I get back at 2:30 though they've all gone. Friday work ethic.