The Transformation - Week 11

This week will bring lots of activity in bursts as the trades balance the commitments to other contracts - largely Schools when the children are on holiday - and our desire to get it all finished - and it's nearly there.  It's really starting to look like a house now and it's going to be great.  the house has a lovely feel to it now, we have been so lucky with the weather which has allowed the old place to dry out and hopefully that will continue as the heating is commissioned at the end of the month and it will continue to dry out years of running damp and neglect.

 A view from the bathroom across the village rooftops.

 A coat of paint on the walls of 'Mission Control' - slightly easier to do it now before they construct the wall along the hallway!

A view of the diningroom and kitchen from the front window  - with a sense of how light the room will be as the sun floods in from the courtyard.

 We had to reluctantly take the decision to remove the wood panelling from the dining room wall.  As they started to remove some of the damaged panels to replace them it became clear that there were at least two 'wooden batons' across the wall - probably to save on bricks and/or attach the panelling to - and that they were in poor if not rotten condition.  This is the result.  Although the middle baton is not too bad and can hopefully be treated with wood preservative the bottom baton will need some serious remedial work to underpin the wall.  Although we could have replaced it with modern panelling there doesn't seem much point so it will simply be plasterboarded and skimmed.

 The dining room lampshade, rescued from the London flat, has now been installed in its new home.

 The wooden panelling underneath the kitchen window has been removed - yet more firewood - in anticipation of the imminent arrival of the French Doors.  We will then just need to wait on the glass and hopefully that will be fitted next week.

 Removal of the wood panelling from the dining room wall has allowed the replacement and patching of the panelling in the kitchen - ready for sanding and painting.  We sanded the ceiling at the weekend and removed the remainder of the old  wallpaper on these walls which as always takes longer than you might expect - or is that hope!

Now believe it or not this is 'Mission Control' with the wiring tidied up a new fuse box and a power supply now operational upstairs.  This progress leaves gaps in the painting as they have removed the temporary sockets that have been the only source of power since the work started so another little job for this weekend to paint over those.

 Ah, the two-tap basin has been replaced with the correct basin and the mixer tap fitted - job done!

 The towel rail in the bathroom has been fitted..........................

 and in the shower room.

 The shower area has been tiled

and downlights fitted in the bathroom and the shower room.

 The gas pipes have been fitted in the trench and are in a loop outside the doors ready and waiting on Wales and West engineers to dig up the road - the village will love that disruption - NOT! - thankfully it's August and the traffic in the village isn't as heavy as usual

The trench has been extended to just before the Vine which will hopefully hide the ground level gas supply and subsequent meter.

 The electricity supply is now properly earthed!

 We are keeping ahead of the plumbers - just - so base coat and first coat of white paint to enable fitting of the re-cycled Belfast sink and the toilet.

 This is the roof above the Utility Room which is in need of some attention as we discovered some rot in the roof timbers when we took the ceiling down in the next room along a few weeks ago.The roofer said that they simply did not fit the flashing properly so it won't take much to fix it (the lead flashing will be the expensive bit) but worth doing now.

 The external lights at the front door now fitted!

 It's not a terribly clear  picture but this is the water pipe which according to the plumbers has been upgraded at some point and is plastic (the black pipe at the bottom of the picture) but was then joined to the original cast iron pipe at the T-piece which went into the outside toilet and caused all the fun in the first week soaking the carpenter!  We will take the opportunity to sort this out too whilst the pipes are accessible.

 External power supply under the archway - future proofing for electric doors and various things at some point.

 Gas Pipes in Waiting!

 The last bit of wallpaper has been removed from the kitchen wall.  It was ~4 layers thick and old paper so not easily removed.  The bamboo pattern remains on the wall in some places so who knows what chemicals were usedto derive that particular colour!  I

 Ikea special in the utility room - looks great!

 Mission control in development

 Light fitting in the Snug

 It's amazing what you can do with a wallpaper scraper (albeit a large razor blade in reality) to remove layers of paint from a stone fire surround.  Work in progress in the dining room..................

 Base coat of white paint now on the kitchen and dining room with black plastic bags covering the light fittings to save splashes etc.


There hasn't been a lot of activity this week as we are waiting on the gas supply to allow commissioning of the boiler and the heating etc so the plumbers are 'in waiting' as there is only a small amount of work to do in the bathroom and shower room which can be done when they do the heating etc - hopefully next week.