The Hedge

And finally Bob removed all the roots, and old bricks, leaving way for the old footings to take the new wall. Everything is much brighter and it will give us back over 1 meter of space along the side of the house.

The rest of the branches were cleared, and that just left the roots

We made the decision to replace the hedge with a wall, so down came the hedge, leaving all the stumps.

This is the hedge as we got it when we purchased the land..and a little more sparse than it looks on the picture

Completion of the Stairs

We were really pleased with the stairs which are American White Oak, going up three floors, with a gallery on the first floor. Here are some of the posts being prepared for fitting. The large double post is for the very top of the stairs,

We went for Pine risers as everything is going to be carpeted, with oak surrounds on the outside, here is part of the downstairs staircase.

Assembly starts downstairs first, and allowance is made for the flooring height, and then the components are fitted together

Within a day its starting to look more like a staircase, and Paul and Jason are doing a great job pulling it all together.

This is then the first floor, and in the background we still have the trusty ladder access to the top floor area.

..And finally its starts to look like a staircase, the time consuming job of putting in the spindles has started

And this is probably the best picture to show the gallery style landing on the first floor. We decided to maximise the hallway space within the design, so as much light as possible comes through the house.

Flooring (Continued)

The material is applied using a trowel, and gently spread across the flooring, with one person wearing spikes (the furthest) and another rolling the liquid to ensure it spreads evenly.

The mix of flakes that we have chosen is then thrown over the screed, fairly evenly, and then sticks to the top of the liquid

Close up this is what you get - the mix we had is a combination of creams, black and gold to reflect the kitchen units and decor.

and the final (well almost) finish looks really great - the next step is to then apply final clear layers to build up the finish. We have opted for a slight matt finish, but you can get an extra layer that can be polished as well.

Very happy with that - and now they start on the bathrooms using another new concept 'Hot Rocks'

Flooring (Continued)

Flooring (Continued)

So out came all the powder and materials to make up the mix - here the lads are getting ready to mix up the 'potion'

Barefoot Flooring

Well finally comes the finish we have been waiting for - the Barefoot Flooring Cocktail Mix. This is a new flooring finish that you can pretty much specify any finish, and any combination of colours, and it is poured on like a screed, then it dries to a matt or polished finish.

We had seen it in the showroom, and it looked pretty stunning, so this was the first time to see it in action.

So first of all they set out the floor, by putting down a sort of rubber screed that sealed the floor.

Then this was cleaned and any bumps and grit taken out, so we had a very smooth finish

Tidying up the outside

All the bathrooms are being prepared for the underfloor heating and the 'hot rocks' floor from Barefoot. There is already some substantial wood on the floor but it is being reinforced with 12mm marine ply, to give rigidity to the flooring.



From the lake, all the 'green' bits are now gone, and its starting to look like a finished house. This is the 'estate agents' view as my brother in law likes to call it, taking in the lake. You can't see the road though!




And here we are starting to tidy up the front of the house, this came as a bit of surprise for Heather, as I had only mentioned to Bob the digger man the evening before that I was thinking of taking out all the old shrubs, which had given us some privacy, but hid the views to the lake. Next thing - Bang - all gone, and I forgot to mention it to Heather. Oh well, I guess in the end she will hopefully see the funny side of it :-)

Oops forgot a bit

I found some pictures on my phone, I forgot I had taken, which should be a couple of sections back, but as I can't figure how to edit old posts, it can sit here instead. The top attic room is divided into two sections, and one of these will be a 'cinema' room. This is the frame that will hold the fixed screen, which is around 99" diagonal, in front of me is the HDMI cable that is threaded through the ceiling, and all the speaker cables are due to go in. The longest stretch I can get is nearly 5m from projector to screen, so that just works out about right with the Infocus Projector that we are using.



The underfloor heating finally went in, laid on top of Kingspan insulation boards with clips to hold them down, a serious amount of pipes once you counted the rest of the downstairs. This is the kitchen and snug areas, all ready to go. The rush is to get the floors ready for installation of the barefoot flooring, and then the kitchen, which are due in mid July.

The kitchen is fully plastered and the screed is now complete, with the underfloor heating in place - it all looks so much neater. We decided to extend the ceiling to accomodate the cooker hood, so the ducting is neatly hidden away, and with a set of 6 spotlights and a slightly different shade of paint it should look really good.




And here it is painted - it doesnt really do it justice, it looks much better when you are standing in the room. The flooring is due down soon, so all the finishing touches need to be in place in the downstairs rooms. The ceilings are all painted as well, with no marks about where any of the lights are going to go - but I am told Tim (the electrician) knows exactly where everything is!

In the corner is coiled up electric cables, ready for the kitchen, and in the middle the pole sticking up is the gas pipe, and there are also a couple of conduits to bring the electric into the middle of the room.





Here is the lounge, ready to paint, with all the flooring complete.

The house is now all plastered out, and the second fix is going in for the joinery, the windows look great, and the curves around the ceiling look neat and tidy. All radiators are now fixed, and as you can see from the pile below, all the fittings are starting to be delivered on site ready to go.


The doors are going on - these are one of a couple of sets of double doors, where we wanted the light to come through to the hallway. At one point I thought we may have to use solid doors, after the inspectors wanted every hallway door to be a fire door, but we found a glass from Schott that was rated well enough to use, so these are fire rated glass doors! And very very heavy. They look black, as we have covers over them on the other side to protect them.




Upstairs again we have gone with Oak doors (Yoxall I think) which give the house a more traditional feel, with softwood architraves. This picture is the door to the landing, wardrobe door and the open Bathroom door. All skirtings are now fixed upstairs, interestingly all MDF based, which everyone seems to rate better than what I would consider a normal wood skirting.

Gutters

One of the areas of overspend was the guttering, we started with plastic guttering of the black variety which was on budget, and then we saw an imitation cast metal (plastic with bumpy bits) gutter, which I thought was pretty ok - and then we saw a good deal on Aluminium guttering (good dela being relative in this case) and I must admit, even given the extra cost it did look so much better. While I was still deciding Heather went and ordered it anyway, and it is the DB's.

These are the bendy bits, and the straight bits are in the next picture

We also had all the underfloor heating put in, and the boiler, which all comes into a cupboard in the utility room - all wireless with an outside sensor, so in theory we should have a constant temperture to match that outside. Each room will have its own control, but I am not sure we will use it like that

Well its some 6 weeks since we have posted anything, mainly because of Holidays and slow progress on site, but things have moved on a pace, so it seemed a good time to show where we are.

Long gone are the green bits, now all the brickwork is finished, and the sandstone Quoins look really good - very subtle. Here you can see the peaks finished and the nice little finishes like the sandstone block within the peaks. The scaffolding is up for another week or so to finish some adjustments to the Chimney (Heather wanted another 3 courses of bricks put on) and just to tidy up the brick line.





Also the front is being cleared, and the window covers have come off, so everything seems a little lighter