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!