Brick Wall Down, Stud Wall Up ...

and ... hey presto! we have a utility/laundry room.

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If you can be bothered referring all the way back to the plans on one of our original postings, you will see that we had a separate bathroom and toilet. A wall separated the loo from the kitchen.

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We knocked it down - after moving the W.C. to its new location in the old bathroom, having ripped out the rotted unit that was holding up the whb/sink and was, no doubt, harbouring billions of germs.

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Meanwhile, Christmas came and went (we went too - spent Christmas elsewhere!), then we built another wall 3ft into the kitchen, thus creating a small (6ft) laundry/utility room. The photo shows the view from the kitchen - you can see the gas boiler on the wall and a temporary mobile pantry-unit! (note the yellow and pink walls - and the electrics! H&S nightmare!)

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I should clarify that when I say 'we' that means Del and Tone - with a little encouragement from the paymasters.

From Attic to En-suite

November. . Del and Tone have moved inside to work on converting the roof space at the front of the house from a mini-attic to a reasonable sized en-suite. The photos show the wooden supports and insulation. There will still be some eaves storage which can be accessed from the bedroom. The irony is that we bought the tiles and sanitaryware for the downstairs shower-room a few months earlier but we hadn't given this room much thought! Time to do so.

We have a a local builders supplies merchants, Brookers, not far from here so we grabbed tons of brochures - Ideal Standard, Aqualisa, various radiator companies - and also looked at their wall tiles and vinyl floor samples.

I love going to Brookers. It's quite old fashioned in some ways and service seems to run at the speed of an action-reply but they have unusual things to rummage through and you can browse for hours without being harrassed for a sale. They sell work clothing and boots at very reasonable prices that could easily be worn as casual wear.

Brookers also has a shop in Hitchin town centre. It was better before they housed the post office but it's still a good shop to wander round. It has a brilliant range of cookery and kitchen stuff that I've never found anywhere else, including the internet, plus gardening, diy and small household appliances. It's staffed by women who are probably retired dinnerladies - friendly and helpful.

Brookers has a website. Well, more a web presence. It's a pleasant design but doesn't give much information other than contact info and an idea of the what they can supply (no detail, but that would have meant a dedicated resource and budget to maintain such a diverse site and I get the impression that they've lasted till now without technology so why change); also, unless you happen to know that the company is T.Brooker & Sons, the site's near impossible to find! For those of you who live in North Herts and want to contact Brookers, it's www.tbrooker.co.uk/

We made our choices for the en-suite. Meanwhile, work continued in another area ...

Moving on ... to the next window

Halloween Special! The nights are getting longer and more importantly, the working day is getting shorter!

:-o

Soon, there will be more concentration on internal tasks.

:-)

The third dormer is well under way without breaking into the bedroom, which is still useable.

:-D

One done, one to do!

Constructed and weather-protected whilst awaiting its cladding, the first dormer was temporarily left while the guys moved on to create an identical one in the next bedroom. What we'll end up with is a row of three similar (including next door, shown to the right of one of the photographs).

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Having to buy a new window for the new dormer, we also decided to splash out on a new window for the existing dormer so that they matched. In any case, we had had to tape the window on the inside to reduce the whistling noise when the wind blew through the gaps! We obtained quotes for aluminium (which we preferred) and PVC (which was approximately half the price). In this case, we felt that choosing PVC would be good enough ... and we hope we don't live to regret that decision in the next few years. Still, having had stained wooden frames on our previous abode, we felt that PVC couldn't be worse; being south-facing, the wooden frames were in constant need of maintenance plus a bit hard to open when they swelled in the rain or heat, so at least we should be avoiding those annoyances.

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We used Hertford Glass to supply the dormer windows, as our builder has used them before and Stevenage Glass didn't bother getting back to us, despite two emails. If a company encourages emails from its web site visitors, why don't they bother responding???

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Improving the old dormer window

The Dynamic Duo on the Main Roof!

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You may have noticed that our dormer window, whilst functional, was a flat roofed flop, aesthetically, sitting next to the neighbours' pitched-roof dormer.

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We debated whether it was money wasted (no extra benefit) or money well spent (eventually, when we decide to sell and potential new buyers might find the utilitarian flat-roof style unattractive. Who knows?) and the consensus was to create a pretty pitched-roof dormer.
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While the work was being done, an old broken tile was replaced as this had resulted in a leak and, it was discovered, a plastic bag had been inserted, possibly years ago, as a stop-gap repair. The guys also took the opportunity to do some necessary pointing whilst they were up there.

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Another neighbour just 5 doors up the street had some spare roof tiles and very kindly offered them but they were not the same.

October: The Roof is ON!

One photograph taken looking in, another looking out. Now you can see the size of the holes that the bifolding doors and tilt&turn windows will be fitted into. The Schumach tree in the neighbour's garden is glorious!

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We have had regular visits from the council during the construction of the extension and occasional visits from the neighbours. The "attached" neighbour takes a professional interest, as he is in the building trade; the neighbour of the adjoining garage is considering an extension in the near future and the neighbour immediately opposite is ready to begin a similar extension so is asking our builder for a quote (unfortunately, he'll be tied up with our job for a few months so is unable to take on a second project just at this time).

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The diggers/brickie have left and the carpenter (boss) has come on site full-time. The new enclosed space makes a lovely workshop for our carpentry/construction duo. They plan to do as much work on the outside as they can while the weather holds and, in any case, need to secure the outside before opening up the inside to all the elements. We hope that our late decision on windows and doors will not cause unnecessary delays.

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The flat roof is on the ground floor extension and was protected from the weather by the fetching blue groundsheet until the man who puts the black weather-proof stuff can come to finish the job.

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Final Stages of Preparation for the Main Extension

The builders left the roof of the old lean-to for as long as possible, to provide shelter while they worked, removing the existing groundworks so that modern methods of insulation can be laid: it seemed to me like a mix of a different type of rubble plus cement plus layers of polysomething and silver foil (biodegradeable? I think not. How will that affect future generations?) plus rusty old metal and more concrete on top.

The lean-to roof had to go and therefore a door opening was made into the garage so the builders could sit in there for their teas. A sheet of plastic roofing was used as a makeshift door. We are near the end of September now so the weather could be a bit unpleasant.

The walls were now being built so a decision was made regarding the bi-folding door system. Having solicited various quotes from prominent companies on the Internet, we discounted those who could not install within six weeks and those who could not also supply the particular windows we wanted. We had also decided that the integral venetian blinds were a must-have so out went the contenders who did not accommodate them. From 8 companies, we were down to two - prices were similar, both were based in London's home counties. We chose SunSeeker Doors, based in Luton, who showed us an installation in our home town and who had the shortest lead time. Additionally, it turns out that SunSeeker Doors not only manufacture their own bifolding doors (which we were invited to see by appointment) but the aluminium they used for said doors was also manufactured in England, yay us! If you are interested, visit www.sunseekerdoors.co.uk (I mentioned that their web site was a bit naff and another one is under construction for Spring 2008). We opted for the 8ft opening (3-door bifold system) and two very large tilt-and-turn windows either side of the door opening, all with integral blinds (requiring no dusting and guaranteed for a few years); we played safe and stuck to standard white for the blinds and the aluminium window/door frames.