Almost up to roof height. And Location is key!

It's true. We almost have full height walls. But of course, nothing is simple for us Foxes. Nope. We can't build up much higher, due to the rather fetching fascia surrounding the guttering, and then we'd need to leave the new wall at a funny angle, which then couldn't be covered properly with a cavity closer. Plus we don't want to rock the boat too much over winter - we can do this later on when the new roof is ready to go on.

The roof is being designed by a local structural engineer. We were trying to weigh up the pro's and con's of a traditional roof over trusses. Apart from the obvious, being cost. We have also had a thought, about perhaps putting in 3 big steels in. One right at the top of the roof, and two lower down under where the dormer windows will sit. A traditional roof will then be built to suit. We think this might be the winner, as it gives us the most useable space upstairs, and apart from the costly steels, the price will be more modest.

   

We want lots of floor space upstairs, given we are moving half of the current house up there. It's a strange conundrum to be in, as our previous house had good upstairs space, but lacked downstairs space. Hopefully the bungalow when it's done, will have both.

 

Down the side of the dining room/kitchen into the back garden.

Steve is hoping to have all the front house walls up to window height by the end of next weekend when the clocks go back.

Just bits of the porch and the wall leading to what will be the garage to finish off.

Sunday 22nd Oct

I took the girls out today, so Steve could crack on, as evenings are drawing in and he's finding it harder to get stuff done on an evening. His plan was to finish the front walls, and the porch, but he made a start on the garage instead. It's quite exciting now you can see walls either side of the garage, even if it's only a little corner!

I think I've mentioned in a previous entry, about our main doubts about buying this project. One was how lovely the old house was, and how very little needed doing to it. But when it comes to a house, it's things you can't add on to the property that really matter. Like the size of the plot, the location, and walking distance to school etc.

For us, we didn't really suit the new build standard of living. We felt confined, and hemmed in. I like trees and open space, and the village life. I like being able to walk to a small local pub on a sunday afternoon, and look out of the window to trees and a nice big garden. None of these things you can buy in a box, and install into your house, which is why I think Location is so important.

Practice Makes Perfect

...It would definitely appear that way when it comes to laying blocks. Steve counts up the number of blocks he's laid that day, and at first it was around 40 and now it's closer to 100!

He still has a day job, so most of this work is done on evenings and weekends if the weather is fine. Little things like being able to pick up a block from the top, help him lay quicker and more effectively he's getting the knack of flicking the cement down at the right angle, too. His hands are drying out and cracking from days of mixing and handling cement. But he seems to really enjoy it. 

We've recently been looking at window options, because we need an idea of cost. Apparently you need the windows to be a certain percentage of the size of your room, to let in enough light. And given the size of the new kitchen/dining room, and the fact that there is only one window going in there (right at the front) and a 3m bi-fold door at the back, the window needs to be around 2m.

We are up to window height!

When you look at windows online, anything over 1.8 meters requires extra support, or a change in the way the window opens. It's all quite dull, but basically it means they'll cost us a bloomin' fortune. But we only have two big windows at the front on the ground floor. Two small ones on the porch, and two small at the back of the house in the utility room and w/c. 

We are going with white render, and Anthracite Grey windows & doors.

Then three Dormer windows and one Velux at the front upstairs, and seven Velux windows across the back upstairs. There will also be one small window at the side for the girls Jack and Jill en-suite. 

So hopefully it will be nice and light and not too bad on the pockets!

Porch/dining room

He's a man with a plan, and it's quite exciting thinking ahead. He's now tieing the house/extension/new garage in together, which meant cutting into the existing house, which looks scarier than it is.

He's used wall ties on the other side, and on the inner skin on this side but he's had to cut out and tie in with block here because it joins off for the back wall of the garage and we aren't finishing that part yet as it would block the back door up. So once we've emptied the utility room, and don't need it anymore we can knock it down, and do the garage floor slab.

For once it's not me worrying about it, and I'm actually quite looking forward to seeing it get knocked down, but it will create so much dust and mess. Plus We'd need to sort out the shed to make space in there...and I hate tidying the shed!

This is also where the house inside starts to get knocked about a bit, too. Because there is currently a little porch from the kitchen into the utility room. This will need to be removed and blocked up, which means moving half of the kitchen around to suit. But it's only temporary, then the kitchen will be moved to the opposite side of the house once we have moved the kids rooms to the upstairs.

Kitchen porch leading to the utility room

We'll also need to use the front door, which we never currently use. It has the worlds smallest internal porch, which is so small the door doesn't even open all the way in. So we will remove some walls inside to make way for the hall being used as the main entrance from then on.

It will be such fun at christmas time in our house!

Blocks Galore!

I'm going to try and pop an update on here every week. Although progress is pretty boring at the moment, and there are only so many pictures of blocks I can upload without them all looking like the same photograph.

This weekend (9th & 10th Sept) Steve got a fair few blocks up, with the intention of having a good full day at it on sunday as the girls were away with their Nana for the day. However, the weather had other ideas. When you are doing this type of building work yourself, you'll know the hardest part is setting up and putting away. It can take a good hour to tidy up, clean everything out and cover up the freshly laid blocks so they don't all slide off and collapse. Well sunday it rained on and off, and was forecast heavy showers in the afternoon...great!

The wall at the back is part of the dining room

Anyways, work on the front extension is well underway, and Steve is aiming to get a full course of block all the way around the front by the end of this week, and then getting the corners setup and it should be fairly easy from there on. We aren't in a massive hurry for the blocks to go up, as we won't be able to afford the new roof until early next year when we have had the chance to save money from overtime and general savings. Which means I need to curb my spending...luckily we put money away each month for Christmas, so that is already paid for!

But we are running out of daylight hours once Steve gets home from work, and weekends are spent laying as many blocks as he can (weather permitting) so he's missing out on seeing the girls at their swimming lessons, and gymnastics lessons, but it's not forever, and once the weather gets cold, and weekends are darker earlier, we'll start making the most of the time together and just pack up until the clocks go forward again. Steve was hoping to have all the blocks done by then so we can focus on the roof earlier, then make a start on the upstairs, but we always knew that this is a long-term project so whatever will be, will be!

Trying to keep the walls covered in the rain

The next big issue we'll face is having to knock down the strange inside-outside room which is attached to the side of the house. We use it as a utility room and a room to store all the building materials and tools. It is so handy! It's also a boot room, pet food store room and somewhere to hang our coats and bags up. Once that needs to be knocked down we'll be left with no side door too, so we'll have to start using the extension (which won't have doors/windows in until next year) and access via the exsisting front door. Which makes quick access to the house really difficult. Plus space is an issue as the hall is crammed full of large furniture bought to fit our old house.

Not the best picture, but this is the utility room which will need knocking down soon.

Once the inside-outside room has been knocked down, we'll need to put in the floor slab, which is absolutely enormous. In fact, I'm told it's that big, it'll need to be sectioned off and done as two different slabs. It is long enough to fit the pickup in with the trailer attached! and then another car could fit in  next to it too, but it is slightly narrower than a full double, but over twice as long as a standard. Atleast he'll have plenty of space to organise his stuff I guess.

Once the slab is in, and the walls are built, the roof can go on the garage, and the upstairs part of that house can begin. Which is what I'm most excited about as it's the master suite. Nice big ensuite bathroom, and walk in wardrobe! 💗 I think realistically though, they'll remain as empty rooms until after the girls bedrooms and main house bathroom are done as these are the priorities! 

The walls are going up, Back to school and GIN!

Sooo, I've been really quiet on the blog front. Mainly because of the summer holidays, but also because I've been helping out with the build where possible too. There aren't enough hours in the day at the moment. I'm feeling how pretty much every parent probably feels over the summer holidays...exhausted, and ready for the new school term to start!

I'm lucky that I work in a school, so it means that I get school holidays off with my children which saves us a small fortune in one respect, but costs us a fortune in another. We have packed in a solo trip to New York for me, a holiday to Portugal for all four of us, and a mini break with just me, the girls and their granny to Filey. Plus a trip to the Zoo, and countless other days out to parks, gardens, and amusements. They have so much energy, and require a full day out to properly tire them out, which is pretty full on when all you want to do is hoover up in your PJ's then watch Homes Under The Hammer in peace. The mess of toys, cushions, and crumbs is relentless when you have a day at home, so I prefer to tidy on an evening, then try and get them out of the house after breakfast the next day so it keeps me sane. But the housework standards (until today) had slipped dramatically.
I find when your house is a mess, and your garden is a mess and you are surrounded by a building site, it can get you down, but focusing on progress that is being made, and making sure my little ratbags are happy, fed and clean gets you through it. Oh and, yes. That and copious amounts of GIN.

My Current favorite, mixed with Blackwoods Gin, Ginger Ale, and lots of ice!

We are also fortunate that the bulk of the work is being done without affecting the house inside. The walls are going up around the existing house, and at some point next year a new roof will be going on (the old one will need to come off for this to happen, but the ceilings inside will remain intact. And providing the weather is okay, we will be home and dry once that is complete.) Then we will focus on the upstairs of the house, putting up stud walls, doing electrics, plumbing and bathrooms, plastering and bedrooms etc. Then we will start knocking through downstairs and re-jig the layout to suit the new floorplan. This is where copious amounts of GIN and perhaps long visits to the girls grandparents come into play!

It will take a long time to complete, mainly down to finances, but we are looking forward to the challenge, and then eventually the beautiful home we will have built ourselves for our children to grow up in.

Below is our progress of the past few weeks, in pictures.

Both front and rear slabs are in, and have been passed by the building inspector.

Blocks starting to go up!

Back is almost finished, on the outer skin at the far right hand side can't be started yet though as the outer engineering bricks weren't laid 100% true, so it's out about 10mm. They'll need to come back out and be re-laid. But luckily the slab isn't effected and it's easy enough to fix as it's the outer skin only. Just annoying and a bit time consuming, but hey ho, we've been through far worse 😉

The front will be started next, just another week or so working on the back and then we'll start seeing a real difference. Currently it's being used as an extra patio! haha

We recently celebrated our 5th Wedding anniversary, but it is also our 13th year together. We were lucky that the girls went away with Granny up to Northumberland for the weekend, so we went out and celebrated, but also got cracking on the house front. I like helping (hindering), and cut some insulation up, put some insulation ties together, and loaded up the cement board. I even made the odd cup of tea and then cleaned the house! It's hard work this wife malarkey. Steve is an absolute trooper, and would work 5am-10pm is daylight wasn't an issue. I feel very lucky to have him. 💑

Rainbows After Rainy Days

It would seem that every time we organised the concrete mixer to arrive, it rained. Torrentially. And given we've had three loads of concrete being poured, it has been challenging to say the least.

I haven't written a post in a while, because there has been so much going on. But I feel I need to upload all the pictures I've taken over the past few weeks, so they don't go missing and so I forget about all these important moments during the build.

The work has evolved itself into three phases.

Phase 1. Is the front extension base up to slab height (playroom, hall, porch and dining room).

Phase 2. Is the back extension up to slab height which stretches out across the entire back of the house, for approx 1m out.

Phase 3. Is the garage up to slab height, which is to the right-handside of the house as you face it. the foundations for this took way longer than expected, because there was a hidden 1m deep chunk of concrete under the old garage. The building inspector said it couldn't be used as the foundations for the new, bigger garage so it needed to be cut through, and new foundations poured.

This is the only picture I took before Steve started fencing it off. The chickens and children kept escaping, so we needed to block it off. It also doubles up nicely as a storage space which won't offend all our neighbours and passers by's eyes. Building material isn't pretty!

The new garage wraps around what is currently our large utility area. We are debating knocking the utility room down this year, and getting the garage done. The garage will have a separate roof to the main house. Our bedroom is above the garage, so there will be an upstairs door opening into a large hallway, so it will need to tie into part of the new roof, so some of the existing house roof will need to be removed to allow this. Which is why we keep going round in circles about what to do!

My dad has just left now and we have got all the main dirty work done, which is great. We are contemplating getting some builders in to build up the walls to keep progress moving a bit. Then they can do the fussy tieing in etc. Meanwhile we'll be doing bits and bobs until the new year, and that's when we'll get cracking. We've had to think much further down the line at certain things, like where the new drains for the kitchen will be going. I'd like the sink and dishwasher in the kitchen island, which means the new drain needs to come from the middle of what is currently our bedroom. Awkward.

Next on our list is moving the 30 tonnes of soil we have sat in our front garden. We call it mud mountain. Strangely, it doesn't bother me at all having it there. It bothers Steve more. Which I'm amazed by, he's so laid back. So he's spoken to a good friend who has a large wagon we can use, to shift it all up to Steve's dads. He has a big garden and paddock which will lose our soil easily, but we are really lucky to have this available to us, as it's usually between £50-£100 per tonne to dispose. Saving us lots of money!

Once the soil has gone, we can concentrate on tidying up the front garden a bit, and then get the slabs poured. We have all the stuff ready to go, we just need to buy blocks the month after ready to start with the walls!

This is going to be a long slow slog, but we are both looking forward to doing it bit by bit.

Below are the pictures of what Steve and my dad achieved over the last 10 weeks...

The first week of building

The first week of building ( 5th - 12th June) has been a very busy one. I wrote about the first few days on my previous post here. I wanted to commemorate the entire first week as I feel given the awful weather, it has flown by and progress is being made! 

Day 4 (Thursday 8th) was a rainy-write off, the building control officer was due to come and check the foundations, but the rain had hit that hard they were full of water. We were instructed to take a picture before the concrete was poured to show the bottom of the foundations once the water had been pumped out. I was at work this day, and my dad was stuck inside waiting around, so he had a tidy up in the house and made a lovely stew. Perfect!

Day 5 (Friday 9th) was glorious, wall to wall sunshine. Just what we needed for a productive friday. I was off work, and so was my husband. My dad and Steve pumped the water out and started prepping the foundations ready for the concrete to be poured early on saturday morning. They got some steel rods and cut them down to use as pins so they knew what level the concrete would need to come up to, and we bought some foundation blocks ready for the following monday!

 

Day 6 - Another rainy day! (Saturday 10th) was an early start for the boys. 7.30 the concrete wagon arrived, ready to start pouring promptly at 8am. I watched out of the window at amazement at this enormous wagon being reversed into our front garden. I fed the girls breakfast, and got my scruffs on and went outside to watch. It was so exciting!

I couldn't believe how fast it was all done, and for the price I honestly wouldn't have done it any other way. The man driving the wagon was polite, professional and helped out a great deal whilst on site.

I took the girls swimming with their Granny, whilst my dad and Steve made sure all the concrete was level, and tidied up. The boys did a couple more trips for blocks and bricks and then we all went to my mother in laws for a lovely BBQ. Beer and steak was needed to top up my dad and Steve's energy again to prepare them for next week. The girls stayed over at Grannies, too. Bonus!

Day 7 - (Sunday 11th June) was a day of rest. Well, the morning was. The afternoon was spent sorting the garden out, laying all the blocks out ready to start laying them on Monday morning. All the sightlines needed re-doing, so back up went the string, to ensure the blocks are laid straight.

    

                                         

I cleaned the house a bit, cut the grass and cleaned out the chicken coop and generally made the most of it not raining by hanging out some washing and weeding the garden. In the afternoon my mum and her partner Karen came round to see the girls, and helped me with laundry (which has gotten a bit out of control recently!) then we sat and ate dinner together. Lovely stuff!

I honestly cannot believe it has started, and my feelings of the week are positive on the whole. I think things are moving much quicker than I expected, but the gritty layer on my kitchen floor isn't leaving much to be desired, but you can't have it all, can you!

This week is all about laying the foundation blocks, and getting up to floor height ready to pour in the new floors.

Front Foundations (Days 1, 2 & 3)

Day 1

Day 1 & 2 of building work were very productive. Also very wet, but productive nevertheless. Monday 5th (a day after my dad arrived!) Steve and my dad spent the day marking up and pegging up for the foundations. Steve was off work, which was perfect as they got the day together thrashing it out, and getting things straight in their minds before they started the work.

 They had a few head scratching moments, one was they were concerned with the floor levels in relation to the existing damp proofing course. It turns out the porch is a bit higher than the rest of the floor, as it was a bit of an addition at some point so it was bodged to suit. This means that the internal floors will need to remain as they are, and we'll need to add extra insulation in the ceilings instead. This actually works out better, as it means the new slabs which will be poured in for the floors around the house will come up to existing floor levels, allowing for insulation etc, and none of the bungalow needs to be touched whilst we are still living in it.

Day 2

Then (Tuesday 6th June) the digger and dumper arrived to make a start on digging out the foundations. My dad, and Steve's dad were out all day working hard, despite the awful rain.

They were rewarded with a bacon & egg sandwich at half time, then soon got cracking again. It amazed me how nice the soil was that came out (apart from the rain making it all muddy and wet) it is quite nice powdery soil. It's a good job it's nice mind, as I currently have approximately 20 tonnes of the stuff piled up in the garden. This will hopefully get lost in various family members' gardens, and our own back garden. Which leads me nicely onto landscaping. I know I'm jumping the gun slightly, but getting rid of all this soil isn't something I'd like to pay for, especially when we'll need to buy a load to level out the garden when the house is finished...

So we are thinking of building a retaining wall in the back garden, around where the patio will be outside the back of the house, and lose most of it there. It does mean having a very muddy back garden though. Hmm not 100% sure yet. I think we are jumping ahead! But, the garden does slope upwards, and the patio will be much lower so it makes sense.

Anyways, back onto the foundations..it rained, and rained then rained some more. Even the dumper was slipping and skidding around on the planks they'd put down.

The holes started to resemble little rivers more than where the foundations will be going.

I was amazed at watching it all take shape though. In such a small space of time my dad had most of the foundations dug out, and Steve's dad had been carrying it all away with the motorised mini dumper.

It means that we now need to get the concrete poured in quickly now though, as because it rained so much, all the water might risk the walls collapsing in. The mud is unbelieveable!

The building control person came yesterday, mainly as an introduction but also because we have chosen to have the build looked at in each stage, he'll need to confirm what depth the foundations need to be dug, and how much concrete he wants us to fill it with. Luckily, it was all as we thought, so no surprises there. Phew!

This is the new dining room, which will be on the front left as you face the house. I think it looks tiny...but I've seen so many people say this at this stage. I'm sure it'll be just fine!

This 'un touched' bit of grass at the bottom of the picture is the new playroom, and just beyond that (in the middle) is the hallway, and porch (where the digger is) then beyond that is the dining room.

I counted yesterday that we are adding 12 rooms to the house. TWELVE. This includes the porch as our current porch isn't even big enough to open the front door into. And I'm not even kidding.

On the above floor plan, you can see the three added bits out of the front, and the rest is existing house (apart from 1m out the back, which is also added on).

And upstairs we are making full use of the garage and having our suite above there. The garage is double width, and longer than a standard garage. The grey bits show the storage eves.

After we knocked the old garage down, we marked it all up and realised we'll be able to fit the trailer in there, with the pick-up in front of it, and two more cars alongside. It gave me an idea as to how big our new bedroom is, however, because it's a dormer, there will be sloping ceilings, with a large dormer window in the front. Downstairs in the garage however, it'll all be one huge space and it should be more than enough to keep Steve happy!

Day 3

Wednesday 7th June my dad finished off the front foundations, and unfortunately hit the water mains, but a few spare bits of pipe later, it's all sorted. Good job he brought a pump with him though, between that and all this rain it has been very wet and soggy in the garden. It is coming on quite quickly now, and today (Thursday 8th) we wait for the building inspector to come to pass the foundations that have been dug, so we can order the concrete and move on to the next phase!

**Edit** Since publishing this, the foundations have been passed. The ready-Mixed concrete is booked for Saturday 10th June!

Diggers, Pretty gardens, Pizza ovens and Firepits!

We have been a bit quiet recently, but things have still been moving forward. We had a BBQ on the sunday of the May bank holiday weekend, which was lovely. And we got started on some of the bigger jobs on our ever-growing list of things to do!

We had a digger in, which was pretty exciting. This was to make a start on digging the garage floor out, as it's at the wrong level. Once this is out, and all the rubble removed, the drains will be moved, then the foundations dug. Steve wanted all of this done before my dad arrived, but once he started digging out the garage floor, he realised it had a steel mesh enforcement throughout the concrete, which made it ten times harder to dig up.

This is what it looked like after knocking the garage walls down but before the floor got broken up.

Both girls enjoyed sitting on Steve's knee and "helping". Even I had a turn!

Meanwhile, in the garden, we've built two planters at either side of the patio. I planted the rescued plants from the front garden in them. We had loads of large Foxgloves which were too pretty to get rid of, along with masses of Geraniums. The planters look really pretty and have the lovely cottage garden effect I was hoping for.

Jessica and I planted some seeds earlier in the year, so the broad beans, sweetpeas, and herbs are doing really well in the raised beds now!

The garden had a huge pile of top soil sat there, from when we dug out for the summerhouse and the patio. so we filled the raised beds with some of that, and used the rest to level out that end of the garden out a bit. it's still not perfect, but it'll need landscaping once the building work is finished anyways.

We were lucky as the sleepers we used were from underneath the two greenhouses and the shed we removed so apart from a couple of new ones which we'd been storing up at Steve's dads for a couple of years, so it cost us nothing to make. Bonus!

Steve also got round to laying the flags in front of the shed. It has tidied up that area nicely.

We organised a BBQ for the bank holiday sunday, and although most of the garden was soil, and the garage was filled with rubble we still had a lovely time. And another bonus, was that Steve's friends Matt and Steve  put up the new lights around the outside of the summerhouse! (Aaron helped by smashing one of the bulbs...thanks pal 😂)

And because I am always looking forward...I've been eyeing up firepits on Pinterest, I'd love a firepit at the other side of where the planter is. It'd be lovely to have a fire on the go as it starts to get dark, and on the odd weekend where the girls can stay up later than usual, we can sit around with marshmallows on sticks. I love the stone on the one below. I think I might be jumping ahead though, as there is so much to do in the way of preparation for the foundations, plus finishing off jobs we've already started and haven't yet finished!

Whilst on the topic of wish list items for the garden, I've asked for a pizza oven for my Birthday (in August). I think the dream would be to have a stone built oven, built in as a permanent feature on the patio, but given the house will also have a patio which will probably be where we spend most of our evenings in summer, a portable one might be better? I've seen this which I absolutely LOVE! 

*Hint Hint* Steve

Meanwhile, we've been away with friends to the Lake District for the weekend. We stayed in a gorgeous 4 bedroomed lodge, with a hot tub. It was a nice little treat before the mess and chaos starts.

I miss this Hot tub!...might be on my wishlist once the house is finished!

And my dad is here now, so Steve & my dad got straight to work discussing a plan of action over a beer or three in the sunshine yesterday. Then we woke up to awful rain this morning. Typical!

One of the cars has been in for it's MOT today, and the building inspector came to discuss building regs. We've opted for staged building control meetings which will take place at certains points throughout the build. This was mainly out of lack of time to get the detailed drawings in, but actually we decided it'd be better to have guidance along the way given the fact Steve isn't a builder. But, luckily for us, my dad is. And we will be off to a great start whilst he's here over the next 10 weeks. Busy day for Steve & Grandad Paul!