Leaving the Summer behind us

While Stuart was on holiday I've been busy with a number of things - putting up plasterboard up the side of the stairs trying to get ahead of the plasterers who come at the weekends.  I've knocked a hole through a wall which will be the doorway into the lounge and built a stud wall which will separate the lounge from the office

I've cleared the 2nd bedroom and cleaned out all the mess under the floorboards and then fixed battens which will support the underfloor heating, and today I put a sealer coat of paint on the walls, (tomorrow I will have to move all the stuff in the main bedroom back in - spend so much time shifting stuff from one place to another!)

Meanwhile it's good to have Stuart back laying blocks on the extension. Nearly at a height for leaving spaces for the 2 windows. We should have bought the lintels when he was away. Forgot about it. Now we may have to pay extra to get them delivered in time!

Sue ventures out

...on to the scaffolding. Stuart is on holiday for two weeks so progress has halted on the extension.

Meanwhile Tony & Darren have been coming at weekends so the 1st floor is gradually getting plastered.

Iron Man

...well steel man really. Stuart has reached the 1st floor of the extension and now a big steel RSJ has had a plate welded to it (handy that Stuart used to be a welder) and is now in place together with the lintels above the back door and the windows. Easier to imagine it as our kitchen now!

Meanwhile I have almost finished plasterboarding upstairs and the plasterers are in today (I am staying out of the way!)

Walls

The walls in the extension are on their way up!

Hedgehog

Here is a prickly visitor to our foundations trench!

Foundations

We are appreciating having Stuart and Andy working at the house this week. The foundations have finally been dug out by Andy and because we were worried that a readymix lorry would not get down the drive they mixed up the concrete by hand. Stuart has set out the corners of the blockwork so things should start going up quickly next week.

Another change has been the widening of the hallway - we wanted to make more of an entrance! It was started last week - Stuart built a new wall in the current kitchen (the room that will be an office. Then we inserted an RSJ to take the weight of the floor above, and today Andy knocked the old wall down.

Stuart and Andy are here

We now have some more hands at work. Stuart's work at our friends Peter & Jo's  is coming to an end and he is switching over to work at ours - a couple of Thursdays so far, accompanied by by his son Andy, and he was here today. They put in an RSJ to replace where the chimney breast was, and Andy has been digging foundations for the extension and Stuart has been putting in lintels in the existing house where we are going to put in new windows.