Day 301: plastering, plumbing, flooring, planking

Hmm, seems a reasonably active day, though a bit frustrating and messy at the end.

Pete plasters the study ceiling, though this does rather lead to a measure of mess and plaster on the old cooker. Hmpf.

Paul does some more work at the front, removing the old concrete and adding a second plank. Sadly he can't finish today, though he is last out, and reports that he will be off at Norfolk next week.

Brian does more plumbing, good, though can't quite finish due to lack of bits.

Barry the chippie is floor laying, and gets the new bedroom done and some stuff elsewhere, inc half E's room. He would have kept going, but ran out of plywood, due to someones ordering mixup. Sigh.

Hors-serie: Brian comes in on monday, which is a bank hol, to do some stuff. Not sure exactly what (hopefully the bit that needed our florr coming up); will check with him tomorrow.

Day 299-300. Pete and Paul; and Brian and Carl too

Yesterday, a fairly big clear-up outside: the last of the stupid stack of cement blocks goes, and the area by the front door is cleared too, hurrah. Also, the kitchen sink and old units by it are cast into the skip, which gives us a nice big space to wonder what to put in it. We ponder the cupboards which will go round the corner.

Today, they are joined by Brian the plumber (who last appeared as Pete-tPP's mate, but now seems to be operative on his own; in fact now I think of it Pete was here briefly yesterday instructing him on what was where). This looks to involve the radiator in the bathroom, something in the "lumber room", installing the dishwasher which has turned up, and who knows what else.

Paul does more outside stuff: with the grinder, cutting an edge to our concrete; gravelling near the front door; putting in a piece of timber to hold back the earth at the side. Pete does stuff where the units were, chiselling off tiles.

Carl does more electrical stuff... there always seems to be more. Swap the insets in the study for pendants, since they give more light. HE doesn't wire in the hob, since there is only one cooker-power supply in the fusebox so would have had to disconnect the cooker. And he wouldn't have time to fit the new cooker. For that, he will be back next thurs.

All this activity is wonderful, but does raise the dust.

However, there are other things that need to be chivvied along. Phone Bob about the shower door, which we still don't have: Bob says thats cos it with Ian, to worry about vertical stability; Ian says that was all sorted and Bob should be ordering. In fact should have ordered it some time ago. Argghhhh... I hate circulars like that. Also have another go at him about windows and gutters which are now due late next week.

Day 297-8. Painters; plumber

Friday: a bit more decorating upstairs. Bathroom ceiling I think.

Monday: Pete the plumber in early. This one was ever so slightly baffling, as it wasn't clear that he knew what he was doing here. As it turned out there was (a) a slight leak around the toilet pan to fix and (b) the pipes to the will-be-study radiator to move into the corner in the kitchen. Was he doing owt else? Hard to know...

Mr Carpet Man (Mick Rule) came today (bang on his time :-) and was very nice and saved us from the terror of far too many choices in the Carpet Mill or whatever. So we're having "neutral" in the spare bedroom and landing and bathrooms (M always preferred carpet; I wanted boards but it seems sensible to get something down, so M wins); red in E's room. All at 50 weight, whatever that is.

Talk to Ian (later) who has talked to Bob who agrees things are going too slow. Big items to get done: get the hardboard down on the floors upstairs this week so we can carpet next week; guttering; windows upstairs (again, ideally, to be done *before* the carpets go down).

Day 294-6. More painting; doors; and some tidying, by me

Getting slightly bored with doing this day-by-day when not a lot is occurring. So, painting continues, and is indeed finished in the 2 upstairs bedrooms at the end, jolly good. It would be nice if the painters kept going doing all the other stuff needed, but they won't be back till tuesday. I hope that Tim will be around tomorrow to put down the plywood floors there, so we can use them this weekend.

Yesterday Tim was around too, hanging some new doors downstairs. A bit odd to have doors where we used to have gaps, but since they have no glass yet we can just step through :-)

I've done a bit of tidying at the front, moving some wood around and taking some gravel round to the back, so our drive is largely clear. Also I dismounted the cement mixer that used to stare menacingly at the road. I've started, slowly, to tidy and lay slabs at the back near the rear door. I've also just noticed that the lower panel on that door has started to warp a bit, probably cos of the rain and no gutters. Hopefully the gutters will arrive soon.

Also I fixed the basin upstairs which had a minor leak.

Day 293. Painter

At last the fabled painting of the upstairs begins! We leave before he arrives (M says Les has been here too, though thats by description not name; perhaps he was doing more steaming; someone has been) but when I get back the ceiling and top of the walls has been done and some filling of rough spots too. We await more tomorrow...

Day 292. Sink upstairs; electrics too

Pete tPP in to plumb in the sink upstairs, and the shower too (sadly, as Ian points out later, the fixings to the shower are wrong - plastic support bar for the shower head, and wrong tap-unit - should be as per the downstairs; however we can use it, though not with gay abandon till the door arrives.

And when I get back, Carl is doing electrics, nothing that we will use now, but keeping ahead of the painters upstairs; also moving some cables into permanent positions in the old hallway. I say, can you fit the hob in please; he says, no, cos I don't have a 45A isolator switch. Argh... if only we had warned him. Didn't think to.

Day 291. Sink

Pete tPP in the morning to fit the pipes onto the new sink and disconnect the old one. Fortunately the tap does indeed fit into the hole that I+R drilled for it, I was a bit nervous as to whether they had checked.

So tonight I get to wash up in the new sink, hurrah. Already mess starts to spread onto our beautiful granite and needs to be pushed back. Slowly slowly slowly I am realising that we need to spend more time tidying the house! One day M will realise too :-)

So not a lot of action today, things creep along their petty pace. We are promised Carl and Pete again tomorrow, cos the upstairs is actually fairly close to done and just needs a little push to be done.

Day 290. Grout

Les the tiler back today (such a shame he isn't called Watt) and finishes up the grouting. I come back after he has gone and pick a few bits of gunk out that he hadn't bothered to remove, sigh. Still in the end it looks fair enough, and M didn't spot the gunk till I pointed it out.

Day 289. Granite!

No work from Bob today (Ian round for a look at progress, so I take the opportunity to whinge about slowness), but the people from Ivett and Reed are exact to their day, and fit the worktop quite efficiently, levelling up the units and Tims battens are required. It isn't quite as heavy as I'd thought: two fairly hefty chaps get to carry the 3m lengths though its clearly pretty heavy from the way they put it down. It took them from about 1:30-4:30 to put it in, including finishing the cut for the hob (that came with 4 holes cut for the radius corners, and half-sawn-through for the rest, apparently to avoid any risk of it breaking under its own weight, since the hob cut takes out most of the width). We're not allowed to stand on it anywhere, and indeed I think that their ideal would be for us to do nothing except look at it :-) Still it *does* look very nice.

Day 288. Pete+Pete

Pete the bricklayer takes away some of our excess blocks that have been cluttering up the front garden for... well, months. Quite what else he got up to I'm not sure as we were out... more plastering I think. It looks like Tim was around a bit, as he has fixed a batten to the cabinet in the kitchen and boxed in the pipes that Pete tPP has moved into the corner of E's bedroom-to-be. No tiling... the tiler only works certain says, it seems.

Bob came around at 6 to talk to a painter-to-be; but he didn't turn up. So Bob promises us his, instead. Next monday apparently. A good talk with Bob otherwise. Point out that water has been coming in a bit at the new front door in all this very wet weather; the gutters are on order and will arrive in 2 weeks sez Bob. A bit frustrating as they could have been on order, and indeed fixed in, a month ago.

Day 287. No more tiling :-(

For no very obvious reason the tiler isn't here today. And nor is anyone else when I leave, so I complain to Ian, pho phones Bob, who says Pete will be plastering (and indeed he is later: the shower room ceiling). Still doesn't explain the tiler: hopefully monday.

Day 286. More tiling

Just the tiler here today... looks like the shower room is finished tiling-wise, and he has started on the bathroom. No grouting done... M wanted pale grey, and he had turned up with "grey, take it or leave it" (or have white). I'm leaving that one to M.

Day 287. Tiling mostly

Tim (and Pete at some point, though I don't see him) shuffle the kitchen units across as required for the central sink; and Tim routes out its hole.

Mr Tiler (Les?) has come today to do our bathrooms. He isnt very keen on the Fired Earth mosaics M bought, probably just complaining-in-advance so as not to be blamed if anything goes wrong. Still he sets to.

At the end of the day Ian and Bob come round to review progress. The tiling looks... well OK, but with some flaws. Hopefully it will look better when the grout is in. I push a few of the tiles into place properly. So does Bob.

Day 284. Front step; templating

Pete and Paul; Tim; and Pete around today.

Pete and Paul seem to be mostly engaged building the front step - by the end of the day this is done, though as I point out (at least) one slab is not level. Pete blames this on someone treading on it, but it wasn't me, and it needs fixing. Tomorrow.

Tim does misc upstairs (including first steps in patching the frame to the bathroom to re-hang the door outwards) to get it into a state for the tiler tomorrow.

Pete tPP - not sure what he is up to, but he is doing something, at least for the first half of the day - he is off as I return at 12 for...

The templater from Ivett and Reed. This turns into a bit of a marathon, because of The Sink. Oh no, not again. Why oh why can't we get these things arranged beforehand in good time? So... all is going well, until we turn to the hole for the sink. At which point he says, as a matter of course, "oh you realise that we cut out the whole interior" - the point being, its a sink-plus-1/2, separated by a narrow (2cm) ridge of stainless steel. But. You can't cut granite that thin, it would break. Argh. In many ways granite, whilst beauteous etc, is not an ideal material to make worktops from! After much to-ing and fro-ing and phone calls to M and not being able to bear going back for yet another sink, hit upon ingeneous solution: we just thicken the granite over that bit. It has to have approx 1 cm overlip anyway; so we will have to lose about 2-4 cm's worth of sink width depending on how tight the cutter decides to make it (partly this is cos the granite may chip when cut; hence the first cut has to leave excess in case a second or third is required).

Then... belatedly (how often do I write that?) realise that we'd rather like the sink centered on the window. Originally this was to be achieved centering sink+1/2+draining board - when we were going to have this "on top". And we arranged the units accordingly. But, now its underneath, the draining bit is non-obtrusive grooves, so we need sink+1/2 centered instead. But, we can achieve this by shuffling the 20 cm unit to the other end (first checking with Pete and Tim this is OK, technically). Sigh.