...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!
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