The hired dehumidifier now in the kitchen

I have named this dehumidifier "The Beast", as it is mega efficient! So efficient that the first night, it overflowed its bucket onto the floor. Andy had a plan and moved one of our dustbins to catch the water. Good plan, except it leaked, so we had water over the floor the second night too! Slightly counter-productive. Anyway, we have sorted it now. It, with the other two, is doing a grand job!

Day 22- Lesley and Abby Morris model the new step on the landing later in the day. Look at the step, not the girls!

Day 22- What a smart looking house! Only a new front door (on order) could improve it!

Day 22- Morning visit with Martin and Lesley

Martin and Lesley came with us on our morning visit to Haddef today! It is great to have them with us and they were keen to see the house. Lesley wanted to see the stairs in reality, as she had seen them already on the blog! They had a good look round and made appropriately encouraging noises. It is hard for them to visualise how it will eventually look. It is hard even for us, and we have planned it and seen it through each stage. Lesley was worried about the fact that you can see daylight between the floorboards when you walk upstairs! I have to admit, it does seem strange. It makes you realise how thin the floorboards really are. There is only one decorator today, finishing off the last bits on the front. Picture of the finished job to follow! Keith and Mike are putting in the concrete lintel today, which will be reassuring! They are also going to be tackling various bits of woodwork around the place, which is very exciting!
When we went yesterday, they seemed to be moving the staircase (Our lovely new staircase! Gulp!) They cut a bit out of the beams and slid it about 6 cm further away from the wall, probably to allow more room for the tanking and plastering, when it gets to it.

Timber frame for the wall around the stairs and the cupboard under them (plus Andy looking cheerful!)

A doorway where there was once a wall! Our ensuite shower room takes shape

Rotten beam removed. Only the planks and props are keeping the ceiling up!

The bricks surrounding the beam ends in the kitchen and living room were removed to allow better drying and access to the joist ends

Day 21- Removing the rotten beam in the living room

Day 21 Decorators hard at work

Day 21- More decorating, propping up the ceiling and taking out the rotten beams!

The decorators are beavering away at the front of the house and making a very good job of it. It is so nice seeing the house beginning to look smart, even if one glance through the windows shows that the inside isn't quite at the same stage!
Today, Keith and Mike are using acro-props and planks to shore up the ceiling in the living room, while they remove the entirely rotten beam that the other joists are resting on. The beam they are taking out is set into the wall the length of the room, so it is a big job and they have to make sure that the ceiling is well supported until the new concrete lintel/beam is set in place. After that, the dehumidifiers will have to do their work, until the beams and walls are dry enough for the wood preservative to be painted on the exposed ends of the beams.
This is an extra job, therefore extra expense, but it really needs doing to prevent problems in the future- little things, like furniture falling through the floor when the joists rot through!
The other problem we have spotted is the original lathe and plaster behind the tiles in the family bathroom, which are due to come off shortly. There is no way that the builders will be able to retile on that crumbling surface, so we have asked them to replasterboard the three walls around the bath area. We have chosen a bath with a slight bulge at one end, to allow a bit more space for the shower. It is going to be very posh! There is already an electric shower over the bath, which was working when we first viewed the house, so we hope we can re-use that. The shower in our ensuite shower room is going to work off the combi boiler.

The decorators are making the front of the house look much smarter too

We have stairs! No more ladder climbing to go upstairs.

Day 20- They build the stairs from the top down. How strange!

Day 20- morning New stairs in the making

Day 19- Disappearing bath

Today the plumbers came, so we spent at least an hour wandering around the house with them, talking about the size and position of radiators, and the bathroom and kitchen arrangements. After that, it was a fairly hectic day, with a visit to see the church leader, a haircut for me (Sue), Diane, our new friend for supper and then the Prayer Celebration. As a result, we didn't get many pictures taken. We were pleased with how the plumbers got on though.

Kitchen electrics. This is where our range cooker will go.

Chiselling out the wall for a new socket. We only asked for 10 extra double sockets, that's all!

T..I..M..B..E..R..!!!

Breathe deeply and keep calm! The timber report is back!
Basically all of the timbers at the outside wall end of the house are very damp at the end. There is a supporting beam along the length of the wall in the living room, which is completely rotten and needs replacing with a concrete lintel. The beams then need to be dried out completely and the ends need to be painted with anti rot treatment. The ceiling of the living room will need to be acro-propped while this happens. A similar thing will have to happen in the kitchen, in terms of the beams being dried out and treated.
The good news is.. no sign of beetle infestation.
The bad news is that the timber man is recommending a four week drying out period, using at least two industrial dehumidifiers, before any plastering etc is done.
After discussion with Graham Ottaway, this will mean the work planned for this week happening as planned, but then a gap of 3-4 weeks before anything further can happen in the house. This will push the completion of the work into August.
This is disappointing, but not that surprising. I could see, as soon as they had taken the ceiling down that the beam was crumbling. Graham is going to get a price for the extra work, including the hire of another dehumidifier, to us soon.
Another piece of news is that Graham is picking up the staircase tomorrow! That will definitely be a big step forward!

I wonder how many more of these to go?

Dehumidifier at work!

Electrician in search of a caption?

Day 17- Peter Harris in action

I think the elctricians might have arrived! (Day 17)

Decorating the front

Decorators at the gable end- Day 16

Day 16- Decorators!

Today the decorators arrived to start painting the outside of the house, and it was a great day for it- warm and sunny for most of the time. Haddef now has a bright, clean white gable end and is looking much better at the front too!
Early on in the project, Andy and I were thinking that internal decoration should be white all over,both for ease, cost and to make everything look clean. As time has gone on, and I have started to imagine living there, I have felt that perhaps some rooms need a different colour on the walls. The decorator gave us a colour book and I have decided on colours for the dining room, kitchen and our bedroom. The names of the colours are: symphony, blonde and ellastone. There- now you know exactly what to expect, when you come to visit!!!
Tomorrow we are meeting the (elusive) electrician in the morning and hopefully also meeting the dehumidifier in the afternoon (machine rather than person!) The dehumidifier is still desperately needed, as when I peeled off some lining paper by the front door the wall underneath was soaking. It's a legacy from the rubbish guttering, I am afraid.
I am worried that the wetness of the walls is going to be a problem if the builders start putting plaster over the top, and then the decorators paint it. In my mind, the walls should be bone dry before you add anything to them. Of course that might take a bit of time! I think I will have to talk to Graham about it.

Kitchen style

Chalking the walls

This evening I went around to the house with some chalk, a tape measure and the kitchen plan. As the electrician is coming tomorrow (we think), I decided to go around the house drawing socket symbols on the walls in chalk and scrawling messages to the electrician. I do hope he is fluent in hieroglyphics!
I am quite excited about the new kitchen. We are going to have a range style oven with fan electric ovens and a gas hob, in cream and a cream, shaker style kitchen. It's funny how everything seems to be shaker style these days. I am sure I had never heard the term until a few years ago. I have found a picture from the catalogue, which I will upload in a minute or two. I really liked the dresser style cabinets, but once the lady had done her electronic picture, I realised that I would lose too much work surface, so I have sadly changed two dresser units for two normal size glass fronted cupboards. It is cheaper anyway! I guess I was quite spoiled for work surface at Forge House and don't want to give it up! You never know, we might have parties!
I have acquired another little dream for the house. The first was having a real Christmas tree in the bay window this year and looking all festive. The second is sitting having breakfast with Andy in our new kitchen looking out on a sunny courtyard. I guess I am easily pleased really! I'd rather have those two than a large diamond ring.
Another thing we did today was to measure the windows. Sadly, only a few of our curtains will fit it seems. The windows at the back of the house are smaller and some of the curtains would fit, but what is the point of cutting out the light by putting curtains in the kitchen or hall, when no-one could possible overlook it! The windows at the front are huge. Do you think patchwork would be a good look?

Day 15 - holes in kitchen floor are concreted in

Two holes are concreted in. The chimney left a hole. The wall is moved by the stairs.
Other than that. Another quiet day.
The builder is waiting for the electrician and plumber to do the first fix. The stairs are ordered but not ready yet. The new kitchen window is also on order.

So we wait to meet the builder tomorrow.

Sue is getting a kitchen plan done and a quote from Varley Kitchens.

We went to the house and we pulled a lot of wallpaper off the wall. That made us feel good about the slow activity and waiting today.

Day 14 - day off

Today nothing happened at the house. Come back tomorrow for more activity.
(I did visit the house anyway and checked the electrics).

We also showed some friends, Jo and Chris, around the house.

Day 13- Much calmer!

Today was the day of the damp proof course, which was fitted by Paul Davies and an employee. Basically it seemed to mean drilling lots of holes in the mortar and filling them with a white foamy substance! While they did that, Keith filled in the hole in the back bedroom floor and started filling in the hole in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He also put timber into the chimney breast hole for plaster board to be fixed to later.
At the end of the day, Andy and I went back and looked at the bathroom next to the room that we will use. It is over 50% demolished at present, so we are thinking of asking Graham to move the door so that it is an en suite. How posh! We have never even dreamed of an en suite before! Our new friend, Diane, will be pleased, as it is one of her recommendations.
In the morning I took the kitchen plans to Howdens and I have to say they were most unhelpful. I explained that Graham Ottaway was doing our building for us and that he had suggested that we try them for a kitchen. As they are trade only, they weren’t prepared to discuss the plans or any prices with me… so I left! I then went to Newtown Tile Centre, where the lady, Kerry, was impressed by my plans. (A bit of flattery goes a long way!!) Anyway, she was very helpful. I had to be very strong willed to avoid coming home with a truck full of catalogues! She is going to price the plans up in the kitchen we like and a slightly cheaper edition. Time will tell!
Tomorrow the builders are having a rest, waiting for the electrician to come and discuss electrics with us on Wednesday. I think I must put some thought into decoration too. White everywhere is very appealing, but may not be best for every room. There is a lot to think about in this house renovation business!

Day 13 - Andy takes over from Keith (who has gone home) as demolition man!

Day 13 - shower room floor - is it going to morph into ensuite?

Day 13 - floorboard under shower room

Day 13 - chimney in back bedroom is given a frame ready for plasterboard

Day 13 - timber for stud wall in coat cupboard

Day 13 - damp proof course squirted into wall

Day 12 My Goodness! What a day!

Today did not start well. There was a power cut at the flat which started at 2.30 am. Not such a problem, you might think. We would be asleep and unaware. Except that the fire alarm in the bank below, which is linked to the fire alarm panel in our flat, goes off when there is a break in the power. At 2.30am it started bleeping in the hall. Not intolerably loud, but incredibly persistent. We managed broken sleep until about 7.30am, then woke up, unable to have our first cup of coffee, because the power cut was continuing. Major trauma!
(This reminds me of a sermon C.J. Mahaney gave on the book of Job. He said that he was completely unqualified to talk about what Job went through, because his idea of suffering was being on a long haul flight with a large person in front pushing their seat back into a reclining position!)
We had breakfast at the local bakery (maybe the power cut wasn’t so bad!) and sat next to an elderly lady called Joan, who remembered that the house we have bought used to be lived in by a high-up police man in about 1939. She thought his name was Brumwell. More clues about the house-very exciting. We will have to highjack a few more elderly Newtonians!
We went around to the house and, following our discussions with Graham yesterday, work had already started on removing the kitchen ceiling, cutting back the landing to accommodate an extra step and removing the wall between the kitchen and the stairs. By the end of the day, the whole downstairs of the extension was one big empty shell.
After our morning visit to the house, we went home. Still no power. Still irritating bleeping from the fire alarm. Not only that, but there were three Scottish Power vans in the street and a digger digging a hole in the pavement. We decided that, since work was impossible, we would go to Newtown Tile and Kitchen Centre to do some choosing.
It was remarkable easy to choose the tiles. Andy chose a beige coloured stone effect for our little shower room. I went for a white tile similar to the ones we had in Buxted for the other bathroom. You can get a frame tile of the same sort which can fit a few coloured mosaic tiles in, which should give a bit of colour. (I can’t cope without a bit of colour!)
Then to the kitchens! Once again, remarkable harmony. We both liked a cream coloured kitchen with slightly old fashioned features. The price for a sample kitchen didn’t look too bad. The lady gave us a brochure to take home. That’s when I realised that maybe it was a rather expensive make, as the brochure had all the marks of a “very pricey” range (Silver embossing on plain white cover, several pictures of each kitchen taken from different angles. You know the score.) Anyway, we will send the measurements in to the company, with the plan I made on the Magnet website, and see what they say…. then probably start looking again!
Back home. Still no electricity and the men round the hole in the street were predicting 8pm at the earliest. Andy went off to read the papers in the library and I decided to get on with some artwork- after I had wrapped the fire panel in three layers of bubble wrap, four hand towels and two duvets! It definitely muffled it.
At 3pm, the bank staff came to inform us that they were going home. They had tried everything they could to silence the fire alarm, but it couldn’t be stopped until the power resumed later that evening and then someone would have to reset it. The bank doesn’t open on Saturday……. It didn’t take long for me to get the coded message they were sending me… We would be listening to the bleeping until Monday morning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I knew we weren’t prepared to do that, so I phoned the letting agent to explain our predicament. Fortunately, I didn’t have to burst into tears on the phone to be taken seriously. (I was so close to it!) In the end, the bank sent out a security firm to accompany the bank manager as he reset the alarm at about 9pm.
It was great to have the power back after 18 hours and even better to lose the nasty beeping! Andy said he could still hear it when we went out to the pub later! It was a funny old day.

Day 12 - day of power cut and diggers outside our flat!

Grumpfffffff !!

Day 12 - kitchen with Trevor hiding having done rendering

Day 12 - kitchen area end wall rendering finished

Day 11 - new kitchen opening breize blocks - ready for window

Day 11 - Floor support created where chimney gone

Day 11- Camera shy Keith

I think Keith was feeling shy here because we had actually caught him building something, rather than ripping something apart!
This is the brieze block wall where the french doors used to be. There will be a window in the top half, above work top height.

The living room later. Keith is handy with a broom, as well as a hammer!

The rendering continues

Keith (aka Mr Destructor!)

Keith removing the living room plaster.

Day 10- It's tidier!

When we arrived, Keith was enjoying himself, ripping the plaster off the living room wall. It was a complete bombsite!
Zoe from church was passing and came in to see what was happening, so we bothered Keith by getting in his way a bit. Zoe is very used to all the chaos, as she and Joe are doing up their house bit by bit, while living in it, with two children! I cannot imagine how difficult that must be! Actually, I can begin to.... and it's not a nice thought!
By the end of the day, all of the rubble heaps had disappeared and the place looked relatively tidy. Keith had put a pile of brieze blocks in the kitchen, ready for the french doors to come out and be blocked in tomorrow. (A number of people have wailed in dismay at the thought of losing a pair of French doors, but we are standing firm! a) They are rotten. b) We want to have a run of kitchen units against that wall. c) We still have two other sets of French doors- two is enough for any house! ) One of the big developments today is not visible from inside the house. The builders continued rendering the gable end wall, which still is not finished. Andy and Trevor were still there at 6pm waiting for the cement to dry enough to roughen the surface. It is a very big job!
We have a bit of a conundrum with the shower room next to our bedroom. At present it doesn't look as if it will be big enough for a shower, loo and basin! We are relying on Graham, the builder, to help us sort that out.

Day 9 - Diane and Sue lift the coal bunker hole cover

Day 9 - Sue stands in new extra wide hallway

Day 9 - view of front living room window through floorboards!

Day 9 - Day of holes no.1 from front bedroom down to living room

Day 9 - Keith widens our hall passageway with his big hammer!

Day 9 - Rendered over on west facing wall

Day 9 - West facing wall painted with PVA

Day 9- Rendered water resistant!

The builders were busy painting the bonding adhesive onto the gable end wall when we got there this morning and by the afternoon they had put the first coat of render on. Inside, Keith had cut into the landing passageway to widen it. I was so pleased with how open the landing now appears. It is going to be a great improvement.
By late afternoon, the living room ceiling was in a heap on the floor. Kilimanjaro size heaps of rubble seem to be a feature of this job! Fortunately, the lads are now expert at chucking rubble out of the windows into their truck.
Holes also are a big part of this project. At present, you can see from the bedroom through the floor into the living room. You can see through the floor of the back bedroom into the kitchen. You can see through non-existent walls in both bathrooms and the kitchen has a staircase size hole at one end. The piece de resistance is the hole where the stairs once used to be!
We took our friend Diane to see the debris and were very pleased to see how positive she was towards the house. She even called it a "little gem" (which, considering the mess, made me wonder whether she should have gone to Specsavers!!) It is actually really encouraging to have someone showing so much interest and being so enthusiastic about it!
We are beginning to see more and more how it will finally be. And it is very exciting!

Day 8 - Andy on stairs up to first floor

Day 8 - Sue looks through a hole where chimney was

Day 8 - We have a hole in our bathroom!

Day 8 - Chimney is demolished