Cracking on

More garden space now!

A wider drive

Despite the colder weather at the end of the week, we've seen really good progress at Brookvale.
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All the internal woodwork and plasterboarding was finished off by Thursday to allow Tony Holland our plasterer to start on Thursday evening - and very cold it was too. Even though we had a small fan heater running, it failed to take the chill out of the air as Jan and I put plastic sheet over the windows (to protect them from the plaster), whilst Tony taped over the joints between sheets of plasterboard. We managed to do the big bay in the bedroom, together with the smaller window and french doors, plus the window in the en-suite. This gave Tony enough to start the serious plastering on Friday. As he lives next door but one to us in Clifton, we heard him leave at 06.45! By late afternoon he had virtually finished the bedroom. What a difference! Even though the plaster is darker and therefore making the room seem darker than before, the room now looks like, well, a room! And the finish, as we knew it would be, is first class. Tony is now going to work through the weekend, and next week until completion as his normal source of work seems to have dried up at the moment. So, by next weekend, we should be totally plastered - that calls for a celebration.

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Roy's boys have been back in force this week, tackling the drive widening. This has involved major excavation of soil, and then filling first with rubble, and then aggregate. Kerb stones have been laid too, and the final topping of a dry concrete type mix as the base for the tarmac at a later stage (when all the big lorries have gone).
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The other job completed was the digging of the service trench for BT, laying the conduit and cable, and then filling in. We just need BT to come along and connect to our nice new telegraph pole, and provide the terminating point in the house.
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One major step forward has been the removal of most of the clay spoil that was piled up in the garden. A grab lorry carted that away on Friday, followed closely by the overloaded skip. Its surprising how big the garden now seems now that the area has been cleaned up.
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Jan and I spent Saturday in that most enjoyable of tasks - moving bricks. Having previously moved them from A to B, and then back to A, as different needs dictated, we decided that we should put them out of the way completely. So, now they are tucked away behind the garage - an area that looks a bit like a builders yard with different bricks, roof tiles, and paving slabs. Still, at least we won't have to move them again.
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Today we had Vic our potential bathroom fitter coming along to take a look at what's involved in the shower room and en-suite bathroom, as well as Andy, the electrician, who needs to add a couple more connections for the heated floor in the shower room, and a power supply to the overhead lighting for the en-suite basin unit.
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We had intended putting up more polythene today to protect the rest of the windows and doors from the plaster. However, the dampness of the wet plaster, combined with the cold weather had made most of the windows run with water. Despite Jan's best efforts at mopping up, the damp surface refused to accept the masking tape. Tony has therefore promised to be "extra careful". To try and help dry out the house a little we purchased a small greenhouse paraffin heater, which managed to take the chill out of the house, and in fact we saw that some of the plaster in the bedroom had already dried.
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With the screeding quote accepted we now need Darren the plumber to lay all his pipes before the insulation and screed is started. I'm looking forward to getting the floor up to the right height as we both feel a little like Ronnie Corbett when we look out of the windows.
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Our biggest problem at the moment is our inability to find kitchen cupboards that we like. So, this weeks challenge is to surf the Internet to see what we can find.

Jan & Rog