And . . . relax

Another week nearly over, some good work done, some DIY tasks completed.

On the DIY front, I have been building a built-in desk for my office, using off-cuts from my Uncle-in-Law, oak-veneered MDF, and the base desk is now installed, oiled and waxed and looking mighty fine, if I say so myself.  It will still need a cable management bit added, possibly procured from Ikea, and also a shelf to hold the broadband router.
Phase two is to build a raised section for the middle of the desk rear, which will be to raise up the screens, and will also include two small drawers.  The main frame pieces are cut and sanded, ready for oak edging and assembling.  Once that is installed, I will then do phase two point one, which is to add the drawers to the unit.  I was slightly worried that my carpentry skills would not be good enough to make this, but so far it is looking pretty good. Still have the drawers to do, which are the most complicated bit, but based on what I have done so far, and how it is looking, I think they will come out well.

It is Maggot 2's birthday this weekend, and we are having a family day in London, going up on the train, and visiting the Tower of London and Hamley's, the latter for Maggot 2 to buy his present.  To avoid excessive sibling rivalry, Maggot 1 will have a small allowance to spend also.

Sunday is then a visit to a local "soft play area", with a friend who shares a nearly the same birthday, and their mutual and other friends.  It should be fun, for the little ones at least, and I may even get my shoes off and have a play.

I hope you have a good weekend, speak again on Monday.

And once again we find ourselves at Friday

I am glancing out the window, and the scene before me resembles something akin to a third world country; or Manchester.  It is absolutely tipping it down, and I definitely cannot see the hills. 

On the home front, the tiler has now done all the extensive preparation, and will be laying the first stone today.  The mayor has popped in with his trowel as is the law when any first stone is being laid, and Ladbrokes have also popped in to offer odds of three-to-one that it will not be finished by Christmas.  Meanwhile LO is at work, the kids are at school, and the weather has stopped Papa from starting on the outside painting.  Add to that a complete absence of milk, and you have what can only be considered a "disaaaaaaaaster dahhling".  How is a chap to get through the day without interruptions and coffee?

This weekend will see some more ticking off of tasks on the long to do list.  I have finished the carpentry for the boxed in soil pipe thingy in the downstairs bathroom.  This is a fat pipe to waste height that is a building regs essential part of the drainage or something, and we have chosen to box it in, but take it to the ceiling and the bit above the top of the pipe (with a fetching little hatch-like shelf concealing said pipe) has shelves, so that it is both use and ornament.  The plan is to paint it in with the walls so that it just looks like part of the room, so one inch MDF has done the job handsomely, wood I got pre-cut at the suppliers to the width required for the shelves (200mm since you ask).  With a bit of two-part wood filler (my new best friend, expensive, but the biz) the seams are seamless and now it is painted, it is as if it has always been there.

We have David and Samantha over on Sunday, which will hopefully be sunny, and we are very much looking forward to doing something that does not revolve around the extension, other than that we will be using said extension for the visit.

Have a good weekend, and speak next week.

Extension update

The floor is being laid today.  This means a tonne or two of concrete is being wheeled in to my lovely extension and unceremoniously dumped on the floor, to be patted about by the plasterer.  Such things are part of getting it finished, and actually once the floor is in, and dry, we can start painting, and electrician and plumber can get in for second and final fix.

As we are off at the weekend, it will be nice to leave a mess and come back to a mess, with some paint on, but a space ready to be occupied again.  On Friday I shall be mostly building cupboards.

I am clearly spending way too much time on my own working from home, coz I am sure I have told you that already.

Going in to print

I read with great interest that Bad Man has taken all his blog journals, and via an online printing company, had it compiled in to a hardback book.  This I like.  We are often tutored on what innovation is within our little tribe of Starfleet troopers, and "combining stuff we already know in a different way to make something new"  broadly covers it, and I have to say that getting your journal published is exactly that, and much of this piece of innovation liking I am.  I may even do a little Googling myself just to see what is possible.  Having said that, LO has not always greeted comments about my blog and its contents with anything other than disdain, and I suspect she believes I am confusing her with someone who gives a ....

At the same time, she loves to read.  Maybe the antipathy is just the result of using the wrong medium.  Hmmm.

On other news, the plastering of walls and ceiling in the new extension is complete.  Now begins several days of drying out.  The existing kitchen is also half done, to cover, if you recall, the mess made by removing tiles and coving, the former to bring the kitchen up to date and in-keeping with the new extension, and actually the latter also for the same reason.  It is slightly frustrating that the kitchen has not been totally finished, but from the plasterer's perspective the kitchen, and Maggot 2's bedroom, were additions to scope, and we all know how frustrating scope creep can be. 

So now we have the final 2 days of plumbing work, to get rads and water services in, ready for the floor insulation being laid next Monday/Tuesday, ready for the final floor screed to be laid on Wednesday by the plasterer.  We then have a little sejourn to the Isle of Wight, and on our return we will be getting stuck in to white-washing the whole setup.

Once that is done, I can then start to build the cupboards for the utility room, which consists of a pretty traditional mini-kitchen bit one side, with wall and floor cupboards, sink, washing machine and dryer, and on the other side floor-to-ceiling cupboards and a space for the second fridge-freezer.  All cupboards will be white gloss, which are probably slightly passe in the fast moving world of kitchen design, and the fact that they are now available on the lowish end stuff in which we have invested probably confirms that.  However, they will look fine, will ensure maximum light and will, set against the multi-coloured chinese slate we are planning to lay on the floor, look pretty smart we think.

It is fair to say that this building work has totally consumed us, and the gradual emptying of bits affected in to our living space (latest addition all the flat-pack kitchen stuff) means that we definitely feel our house is slowly closing in on us.  Hence why getting the utility room storage built is priority number one, since having that storage means we can start to reverse the closing in and start to reclaim our house.

Then all we need to do is fight dust for, oh, maybe a month or so.

Okay, enough talking about the blinkin' extension, must get back to work

So sorry for not writing

I have been very remiss in not writing.  My only excuse is that things are very busy right now.  The extension is continuing to roll, with the last bits of plastering inside being done this week.  Tail end of this week to finish off the plumbing which is going under the floor, then early the next week the insulation and floor screed will be laid, just before we go to the Isle of Wight in the 'van, a perfect time for everything to dry out, ready for painting when I get back.

We then need to lay the floor, something that has been the subject of much discussion, most of it at cross-purposes, with the builder.  We have now resolved our differences, are on the same page and are just doing a bit of shopping round for the right price for the inside stuff, a multi-coloured slate, which will match pretty well the corresponding external stuff, also multi-coloured slate, but twice the thickness (and from a different source) to withstand all that mother nature will throw at it during the year.

Finances have been stretched, and dreams of sofa and TV coming out the building budget are fading right now, but time will tell, since we still have the hope that we have over-estimated one or other of the remaining costs.

Other news sees Maggot 1 part of the Cub Box-Cart team that took first place at the recent district championships.  Now, this may not reach the front page of the national press, but I can say with some confidence that in these parts that is just about as good as it gets.  The main leader who drives this activity was actually on holiday, and when he is tracked down by The Sun will undoubtedly say that he is "Gutted not to be with the lads", but this is the third attempt to beat another pack who are, if not our arch enemies, at least the pack over which we like to gain the advantage, so not only did we achieve that, but we only also went and blinkin' well took the shield for first place as well.  Result.

We are really starting to feel the pain of the building now.  We have a tarpaulin across the kitchen again, to keep out the nasty fine dust from the plastering, and in preparation for a skim coat where our kitchen tiles and coving used to be, we also have a couple of kitchen cupboards off the wall, and one floor cupboard unhitched from its fittings and pulled out for the final bit of stud work behind the breakfast bar.  This has lest our dining room table full of cereal, tea and sugar.  The sense that the house is slowly closing in on us is very acute right now.  I am not sure we can take much more of this, and the thought of returning from the Isle of Wight to start putting it all back again is, for me at least, something to which I am clinging with two hands and knuckles-a-white.

And . . . relax

We have finally arrived at Friday, and as the first 4 day week for a long time, I can honestly say that it has been a long week.  There are rumours on the web that the coalition government are trying to add another day to the working week next week, and we may be forced to do FIVE days next week.  I have had to have a little word at the club to see if someone can knock some sense in to them, because a five day working week is going to severely impact a chap's social life.

Other news is that the extension is proceeding well.  We have a bit of a scare with the rooflight, which looked absolutely fantastic, until it rained, when we realised that it had been installed with too little angle on it, and due to a very faint dip in the glass, we ended up with a feature fish pond.  Sadly noone's fault, but a real pain none the less.  The whole roof had been finished, it was looking great, the build phase was all but complete, and then this.  And the roof had been sealed with a glue sealent, so was stuck on the upstand like sh!t to a blanket.  Much consternation was experienced by all, but after some genius thinking, our builder went to the local glass merchant, and old drinking buddy of his, and he came and saved the day.  The roof light is off, the carpenter is booked (maybe for free if we are lucky), the roofer will come and do the new riser bit with roofing felt (maybe for free since he did set our roof on fire!) and then the glass merchant drinking buddy will come back and re-fit the rooflight, and also coat it with anti-smear stuff for good measure.

So, we are "tacking up" tomorrow, getting all the plasterboard fitted on ceiling and those walls that are stud.  We are getting the bi-fold doors fitted Sunday.  We are getting the plastering starting Monday, followed by second fix electrics and plumbing, followed by plasterer returning to finish the floor skim.  Then when he can make it with the plasterer will finish external rendering, including fixing two cracks that are leaking water.  He will then finish off by re-doing Maggot 1's room - two outside walls shot due to crack in external render, plus a light skim on the existing kitchen which has had coving removed, so it matches the new room, which will be covingless, and also smoothing where the tiles have been removed, a job we did because a) tiles are so yesterday, apparently, and b) because we want to change the work surfaces as soon as finances allow to bring the kitchen up to date with the new room and c) because the tile colour compromised the overall colour scheme of the new room, of which the existing kitchen is an integral part.

Now, as Bad Man has commented, I am allowed to be a bit peed off with the builders being in my house, being on week 11, and while we will actually miss them when they are gone (no bad moments, except for the rooflight which is now sorted), it is simply that them not being here means we have our room, if not finished, at least ours to do with what we want.

I hope you have a good weekend; catch up next week.

Is it really Thursday already?

Time is an abstract concept, we all know that, and my mate Professor Brian Cox hasn't helped much with all his mind-blowing information, however, where did the time go?

I do stuff, and mostly the stuff I do is little and quick, sometimes it can be middle sized and not so quick and sometimes small and not so quick.  The stuff I am doing right now is a biggie.  In value, and complexity, and I find myself having to revert to good old fashioned techniques, ones that can be dulled in the "fast moving consumer goods" world I tend to inhabit, and while there have been a few growing pains along the way, overall I have enjoyed having the time to really get stuck in, and have to think about deep stuff, and to engage with a number of troopers who I have never met, and probably never will. 
I also have one of those dratted deadlines, and am reminded of someone, it may have been Terry Pratchett but don't quote me, that said "I love deadlines, I love the wooshing sound they make as they fly past me".  This deadline is, as the name suggests, a line that crossing or not crossing (can never remember which one it is) will result in instant death.  It may not be to everyone's taste, but it focuses the mind.   And thus I am focused now.  Except for the little break to write this blog, obv.

Other news sees us venturing up North to visit Brad and Angelina, for a fun time, and also to plan our up-coming holiday the week after next (indeed, the week after my deadline, so another reason to hit the said deadline).  It will be fun, and I am very much looking forward to it, and with the weather being just fine, hopefully plenty of outdoor stuff to boot.

Building is still going.  We hit the tricky bit now where we are dependent on plasterers, chippies, sparkies and other neer-do-wells, and the project may well judder to a slower pace now, albeit the foreman will be running as tight a ship as he can in pursuit of the good deal.  We are water-proof now, and looking for first fix and windows to make it water-tight. 
Now, BadMan told me that week 11-12 is when you just wish they will leave.  He did a two-storey extension, and mine is single storey, so maybe it is OK that at week 6 I am having similar feelings.  In fact, I have a bit of a trough of disillusionment right now, and can only hope that time away from the pad will make my heart grow fonder.  Time will tell.

Until next time, adieu mon amigo.

An interesting week

I am reminded of the curse "May you live in interesting times" and decided to Google it.  After all, a chap needs to maintain his education in these interesting times.  Its supposed Chinese origins seem to be a bit of an urban myth from the "Confucius say" camp, and its real source may be much more Western. 
It has some sister phrases of "May you come to the attention of the authorities" and "May you find what you are looking for".  I guess it is all in the telling. If you can inflect a slight psycho lilt as you utter them then maybe they can work.

"May you come to the attention of the authorities" seems apposite in these current interesting times, where Starfleet is once again looking for volunteers to step in to the air-lock and attend to matters on another craft, and maybe the second one is both curse and advice in such troubling times.

Now, a chap must refrain from hysteria at all times since it can unsettle the staff, but there does seem to be a grain of truth in these three phrases.  Maybe I have a future as a horoscope writer if I can find meaning in the meaningless.  But then us Librans are often sceptical but open to new ideas.

Anyhow, enough of the froth, show us some substance. 

We have survived the roof fire and all traces of said fire are now buried in the skip under the remains of the roof gravel (the balance of which was used to bury the new soil and water pipes which is, apparently, needed to give the pipe space to move).  Indeed, the building inspector visited to inspect the drains and was none the wiser that there had been any fire damage, assuming the beams had been replaced due to subsidence as part of the process of inserting the final two steels, which was achieved by cutting away the beams so the steels could be lowered in from above.  His assumption being the cut ends had sagged and were thus replaced.  Phew.
Work is work, and is definitely living in interesting times.  We are slowly getting more troopers and as they come up to speed, we should start to see the benefits.  The only cloud on a chap's horizon are the number of internal and transformation projects looming, all of which require assistance from my team, resource that I simply cannot spare at the moment without breaking something.  Either more troopers will arrive, or big bosses will need to make priority calls on what gets dropped, which then tips us back in to "interesting times" territory. 

So why, you may be asking (and if you are not, then you have definitely not been paying attention), are troopers being asked to volunteer for other duties if we are suffering so for lack of troopers.  Damned if I know, and the stars are telling me nothing, however if a dark stranger offers me millions of pounds to help free funds from an African country, apparently a chap is advised to politely decline.

A bit hot to handle

Things were going so well with the building work.  And to be honest, there was no reason that should change, but some folks believe that there is a quotient for good and bad luck, so we were due a bit of the latter.

This arrived with a vengeance last night when we had a fire.  The roofer had been gone about 45 minutes, when there was a knock at the door.  "You seem to be on fire" said the friendly neighbour.  "Oh, don't worry, we have the roofer in".  "OK, but it doesn't look quite right to me", reiterated the good Samaritan.  And so it was, probably the bits of felt that had collected in the gutter had combined with the heat from the heat gun to make fire, and several beams, the roof boards and the edges of the insulation were all burnt.  I was summoned and proceeded to find the hose and start dousing in water.  Meanwhile a quick call to builder was made and within 15 minutes both builder and roofer were onsite sorting it out, which required the removal of layers until the source of the last remaining smolder smoke was identified, doused with water and the roof made safe.

The maggots found it awesome.  The adults found is rather scary.  But all live to see another day.

Mid-week update - well, near enough

I have been rather pre-occupied this week, with a couple of days in the office (long days, plenty of progress on audio story though), a blitz activity going on (same as a normal day, but with management "focus") and, of course, the building work, which goes on apace.  This has meant I have been neglecting you, dear reader, and I know from the many letter that you have been missing your daily dose of mundanity.

On the building front, we now have both the washing machine and dryer under plastic sheeting outside the kitchen window, and with the wooden wall now blocking rear exit, I have had to tackle one of the items on my long term to-do list, to make our french windows from the dining room able to be opened, closed and locked.  This required some fiddling with bolt locks top and bottom, and a fair amount of planing and sanding to reduce tops, bottoms and sides so they fit in their hole again. 

I also replaced the lock and handles which were well rusty and cheap and nasty respectively.  Final stage is to paint them.  I have done the rubbing down, a job no-one likes, and have painted the left hand door.  I hope to do little bits at lunch time and finish the right hand door and frame.  I am using Sadolin external gloss paint.  It goes on a bit funny, with a texture like chocolate goes when you melt it too fast, but it is self-undercoating and pretty robust, which means you can just slap on two coats and it will do the business.  Having done experiments previously, I can confirm that on day 1, it does not look quite as good as old fashioned undercoat/gloss combination, however by day 44 there is no difference in appearance, and generally on day 999 it is in a better state.  So, any paint that is easier to apply, can stick to anything and looks good for longer is a friend of mine.

Other news is that the steel over the main doors at the back is in, as is the steel across the roof span.  The final steels, that bolt to the steel spanning the gap in a T formation, will go in shortly.  All the walls that need to be removed have now been removed, with Acros holding up the ceiling until final steels and associated roofing carpentry is finished.
The footings are also dug for the new wall to brick up the garage door space, in which will ultimately be a window, and even the trench to take the washing machine and utility room sink waste is dug out to the point that will be our new whatever-it-is-called plastic junction and rodding-point contraption into which will also flow sink, shower and toilet gubbins.

I have the sense we have turned the corner in as much as we had done with all the pulling down of stuff, and will now be (slowly and painfully) putting it back together again.  Badman reliably informs me that it is usually weeks 11-12 when you start to wish that these jolly and friendly strangers would just leave, so at the end of week 4 I guess we need to hold our nerve for a bit longer.  Overall we are coping very well, albeit our house looks like a squat that has been greedily furnished with the spoils of a post-riot plundering campaign.  I mean, really, who does need TWO fridge-freezers, and why on earth put them in the dining room?

Correction

I told you the other day that my builder was chopping out bricks in the existing house to key in the new brickwork.  I was wrong.  He was simply getting back to the bare brick (our house is rendered) to screw on metal strips from which metal protrusions are put to key in to the pub layer of the new brickwork.  I sincerely apologise for this construction faux pas, and also for my fickle nature, since already I prefer this method.  My builder tells me it is "bloody good", so thank goodness that we are not doing it that old way.

One unexpected, for us at least, aspect of all this banging is that the wall to which the right side in to which our existing patio doors used to screw is no longer there.  It is secure with bolts the size of my pinky top and bottom, so security is not likely to be an issue, but I can see daylight through the crack.  Some may mourn the sad decline and eventual demise of these patio doors, but not us.  The day they are removed, and either carted to the tip, given away on Freecycle or sold on eBay (depending on their condition, and whether I can be @rsed) is the day that we will be rolling out the bunting.  And in line with LO's strategy for often buying stuff we didn't know we needed, and certainly don't use, we have some rather fetching bunting in the loft ready for that day. 

That was the weekend that was

I had a very productive weekend.  David came over mid afternoon on Saturday to help with the removal of the innards of our utility/study/store room area, and we have a very productive couple of hours taking down two of the three stud partitions.  This was a job for the persuader*, the claw hammer and Big Bertha**.  The maggots had a go with the claw hammer making pointless but fun holes in the plasterboard walls, whilst the men did real man's work ripping stuff down.

By the end of the session, the whole area was covered on bits of door frame, lumps of four-by-two and a mass of small and large bits of plasterboard.  Oh, and they insulated, of that is not insulting the world of insulation, with sheets of polystyrene, which were singularly useless, and collectively no better, and which made one hell of a mess.

The next day was the clear up, and Maggot 1 helped me sort first the polystyrene out from the rest, to fill up the back of the Punto, seats down, and to take to the tip.  Next trip was for all the plasterboard, which did make one hell of a mess of the Punto.  Scobi is gonna be hoovering soon me thinks.  Finally, all the ripped up laminate flooring.  I did wonder whether I could Freecycle this, but in the end speed won out and the tip it was.  I did Freecycle a fridge, a shelving unit, a computer desk and a door, so hopefully they will go soon.

Have to spend today working, but the builders will be here early to start and I for one cannot wait.  Maggot 2 asked whether they would still be here when he got home from school, so I think he may be a bit excited also.

==========================

* The crowbar

** My biggest, and best, cross-head screwdriver

We weren't expecting that

We had a call from our uncle the builder, let's call him Bob, last night, in which he confidently informed us that he would be starting on Monday.  We weren't expecting that.

We are not frantically finishing the clearing of garage, study and utility room, about 80-90% done, and removing all the decking from the back, now 100% done.  Just need to finish the study, get the computer and chair in the loft ready for a weekend of destruction.  David and Samantha are coming over on Saturday, and David has volunteered to arrive early and help do some clearing of the utility/study/garage area.  There will be much removing of cabinets, for safe storing in my parents' garage, and we also hope to do some bringing down of stud partitions.  Now that we are going the Bob the Uncle route, this will be a more hands-on (and lower cost) option, so anything I do is stuff we don't need to pay Bob to do, and we do have our eyes on a number of furnishings that will finish off the room nicely, but for which we need some of our budget to be left over once all the structural stuff is complete.  Now, I am an avid fan of Grand Designs, and I know that the budget and time line always goes over, and I know that when we interviewed at the start of the build, we will make assertions on timescales and budgets that will be blown out the water, since that is how the show goes.  About half way through we will want to give it all up, but by the end we will proclaim that it was all worth it, and we hope never to do anything quite so stupid every again.

Having said all that, we are very much wanting to control the finances, and that means for us using relatives, paying day rates and generally taking it a stage at a time.  The goal is for Bob to complete the brickie duties, up to first fix, when my father-in-law, let's call him Bob the Second, will take on the work from first fix to completion, being his own plumber, and being related to a carpenter in his brother, my uncle-in-law, and with Bob the Second lining up all the specialist resources as needed, drawing from his large circle of fellow tradesmen, all of which will be personally vetted by Bob the Second, which I think is just the ticket.

I am off to do a day's work now, with the aim of finishing on time ready for the next phase of project strip-it-out, which will continue all weekend.  I hope to give you a thoroughly good update early next week.

Until then, be good, be safe, and think of my poor little office-boy hands.