Liz & Matt’s Home Extension Blog

Sorry for the lack of information for the last week.  Much has happened so brace yourself for a minor epic.

Since last week’s giant leap forward with the new dorma window, we’ve seen nothing more of the roofer.  He seems to only be able to manage one day in every two or three weeks.  Apart from the flat roof at the back, there is not that much more to do, so hopefully another visit or two will finish the job.  With no further progress on the roof, the builders have been keeping busy putting up and skimming more plasterboard downstairs.

On Friday the plumber finally turned up and inspected the bathroom suite.  He fitted the bath in place and I was left with instructions to get the tiling done on the wall to which the toilet and sink would be attached.  I duly spent the weekend hard at work and have learned a number of valuable lessons from this new experience.  First, we had bought rather large tiles, partly on the assumption that this would make the job quicker.  What I failed to take into account was the fact that large tiles are much more difficult to break cleanly without the proper tools.  Fortunately the next door neighbour came to the rescue with a heavy duty tile cutter, which saved me an emergency visit to Homebase.  Mostly I discovered that you have to spend at least as long staring at and the wall, making measurements, positioning and repositioning the batten to support the first row of tiles and then staring at it again for a while as you do actually tiling.  Presumably this part gets quicker with experience, at least I hope it does since the first 2 square metres took a whole weekend and I still have another 12 square metres to go.  At least I have got past most the fiddly bits that involve cutting tiles to fit around pipes.  Oh, and there’s also a lot of walking up and down stairs involved to fetch the tools you forgot to bring up the first time and a considerable quantity of tea.

Liz and Emma spent half of Saturday at Ikea to buy some lights and do some research on bedroom furniture and kitchen units.

On Sunday evening we had another major flood as the cold water tank in the loft overflowed again.  Unfortunately we didn’t discover it for an hour or two so the new bedroom floor was well flooded by the time we got to it.  We mopped it up as best we could but a lot of water came through the newly plastered ceiling and walls of the utility room underneath.  Fortunately it seems to have survived and the overflow pipe has now been routed into a convenient drain to prevent any possible future damage.

On Monday, things started hotting up.  First, all of the remaining windows were installed (apart from the bay window at the front which is still being made) and the plumber connected up the bath and left a message telling me that I needed to grout the tiles so that he could fit the rest of the suite the next day.  This was yet another new experience, but I once I got into the swing it wasn’t too difficult and I finished around midnight.

On Tuesday a whole team of plumbers arrived, got the toilet and sink installed and immediately ripped out the old bathroom suite.  It was a bit of a shock to come home to but the new bathroom is now almost fully operational, apart from the shower, which is yet to be fitted, and the small matter of a missing toilet seat, which has not yet arrived.  The thrill of the new seems to be enough to overcome this minor inconvenience for the moment.



Today, the whole of the old bathroom was opened up to form the new landing (which right now looks enormous).  This involved clearing out the remaining pipework, breaking through into Debbie’s new bedroom and removing the wall that once contained the bathroom door.  It’s made a huge difference to the whole of the upstairs and for the first time we can see what it will look like when it’s all completed. Very exciting.  A man also came to measure up for the seamless aluminium guttering and we’re now waiting for his quote.

Our broadband connection still refuses to work, despite a visit from the BT engineer who cheerfully declared that we have an 8 Mb connection.  Freeola are trying their best to be helpful but don’t seem to be able to suggest very much.