Cinema Room

I have probably bored everyone to death over this, but the cinema room is pretty much done. It is painted in a flat matt paint that absorbs white light, so when darkened almost turns black, but in the day it looks great. The back wall is painted matt black - the middle unpainted bit is where the screen is going, and you can see the cables hanging down left and right for the speakers. Underneath are shelves for all the equipment, and lots of plugs and cables behind the screen to keep things tidy.

In the top left of the picture is the HDMI cable that runs from the back of the room to where the projector is going to be, and the white vents are the in and out for taking warm air out of the room.

Now if you would like to take your seats......

and finally the other side showing the shower cubicle, a custom designed wet area, that has worked much better than I thought. The floor is all covered so you cannot see the 'hot rocks' but know they have been filled I will get some pictures up. Fairly unique flooring, almost like small pebbles, from Barefoot Flooring, and again they really look good.

This is the main bathroom above, all tiled and done, we used a patterned grey tile for the back wall, and a white pattern for the rest. It did start out that we were only tiling one wall and shower, but somewhere along the line it went horribly wrong when the tilers pointed out to H that it would look much better all tiled. Well 4 extra deliveries later, all the bathrooms were pretty much fully tiled. We used Porcelonosa tiles, very large, and very heavy, but they look the business.

The bathrooms are coming together, this is our bathroom being finished off around all the pipes. The tiles are a black glass tile, so although they are dark, they reflect light really well. A pain to put up as they chipped easily, but they look good.

Well starting with the kitchen, most of it is now in place and it looks fab as the centerpiece of the combined back rooms. The granite in the middle is missing, as they forgot to cut a hole in it for the gas hob... still the breakfast bar to go on, and then its all wrapped up to keep it clean.

The Name...

Finally the name plaque arrived, all neatly cut out in sandstone, and no its not crooked, thats the camera angle... We had another plaque with a date on, but that got missed out somewhere along the line, so this will be good.

Moving the Fridge

Well at this point you might wonder why there were no more pictures - no it didnt get dropped, but I leant a hand to get it over the kerbstones, and into the house, where it now sits happily waiting to go into its new home. Lets hope it fits......

Well it started when H said the container is going back next week, which meant we finally had to empty it, and the biggest heaviest thing in it was the American style Fridge Freezer. We (or Clive) figured the best way to move it was by using the mini digger. Well it was a tense moment but out it came....

The Garage

and it starts to look like a garage! Considering the house was first designed with the garage integral, where the dining room was, it actually looks good seperated out, despite having to sell our souls to cover the extra cost (and dont mention the sliding gate and electric garage door)

Now the frame is up fairly quickly, and Rob is making a start on the roof.

Next down goes the footings, because we have a gas main and drains somewhere down there, we have had to create a 'raft' of concrete re-inforced by lots of steel, that 'floats', (hence the name Raft I guess). Lets hope it doesnt float down the hill in all the rain!

well we have now started the groudwork in the back garden, which involves moving shedloads of dirt from the back to the front, then cutting out the patio areas, meaning even more dirt being moved. Finally the building works can start to construct the small wall, for the height difference between the house and garden.

Here it all starts in the wettest weather of the week, you can see the areas dug out for the stairs and patio

Oops a little problem

We had all the wall figured and suddenly hit a problem - the wall was not supporting the trees that were already in place, and had in fact bowed the wall outwards. A bit of poking around showed that the wall would have needed replacing in the next 2-4 years anyway, as it was weakening with the build up of pressure from the drive and trees.

So its been quite a big job - and foundations have to be excavated down to about a foot below the wall and up to the proposed drive level - shed loads of dirt, replaced with concrete, then a block wall with re-inforced steel, again infilled with concrete.

What started out as a simple job..... I hate to think what this is going to add to the budget, but it is what it is I guess. They builders have made a great job of strengthening the drive and new wall, its just made everything that bit slower.