BLOG !!

Wow be impressed people, you the people of the www internet online world thing have had the pleasure of 2 blogs posts to read in one day !!

Good news, the council have registered our latest planning application, naturally as Sue was so keen to push this forward she would already know this amazing news on Christmas eve, then again as she is the financial backing behind the project and im the skivvy I have found out first . !!

Check it out:

http://planning.cheshireeast.gov.uk/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=11/4509N&theTabNo=1&backURL=<a href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=1027376>Search Criteria</a> > <a href='wphappsearchres.displayResultsURL?ResultID=1308123%26StartIndex=1%26SortOrder=apnkey:desc%26DispResultsAs=WPHAPPSEARCHRES%26BackURL=<a href=wphappcriteria.display?paSearchKey=1027376>Search Criteria</a>'>Search Results</a>

Some of that may get you there. !!

What amazing news for us to have over Christmas, it'll be better if they grant us permission but we will just have to wait for that. !!

Out,

Kieran

Christmas eve !

Went upto site earlier, the electric is now re-connected and hidden underground (just need the sparky in Jan to put a socket we can use in place) Andy was working away laying bricks until lunch time (see not all Builders are useless, ours is amazing) as the weather has been pretty bad for a few days to he's trying to catch up a bit and get back on course. He's back in Jan now and is hoping to get some weekends done then too to catch up.  Other than that not a lot to report really other than leaks, we discovered a few in the old part of the house that we have not caused so they must be inherited leaks (perhaps we can claim the cost of repair back !!) one in the new bathroom coming in where the lead flashing isnt there, 2 in the bedroom, one on the chimney breast no doubt lead flashing problem on the chimney and one in the corner of the bedroom window past the frame.... all contributions to these problems would be greatly received as a roll of lead is about £50, we have bought 2 already but will need another 1 or 2 and they are all for repairs..

Over and out, have a good Christmas folks ! KKS

Electric

Well after a week of communication with Scotish Power we will be having a new pole, it will be in the field and we wont be paying for it, so we were fairly happy to dig the trench for the cable if it saved us about 3.5 grand which it has because they are paying for it all to be done. Amazing as it is, this only took 3 of us about 3 hours to do which is pretty good considering the drive is thick hardcore as you can see.

 

Tiles

Although Im loving all these reclamation programs on sky at the moment im actually buying things that will be used, these tiles although slightly different to whats going on the roof should be perfect for the low roof over the back door and perhaps a log store if we have one one day. Approx 300 (going to get them over the weekend) and will need 50 per mt sq, a snip at £20 for the lot. Im just glad we can make use of someone elses cast offs and save a few quid at the same time.

Im back

Is it me or are the days even shorter now ? I know the clocks have changed but I feel like they cut down to 12 hours too. Short and sweet post here for you folks just to show you the amazing quality of brickwork Andy does for us, these are the arches above the lounge window and the other above the toilet window, both amazing.

 

Thorn in my side !

Are you familiar with having a something that really gets on your wick, like a thorn in your side that you just cant get rid of, ive got one. Being the Amateur Property Developer that I am, im finding the development of number 2 a challenge learning all the time but enjoying it too, we are going over to the house after work each day to discuss things and visualise things, anyway more of that later but to be honest I could to with having a few months off work to manage the build. Needs must and thats that really, but as if that not enough I have this nagging pain that wont go away, it emails me and then facebooks me asking for blog updates, I have 2 thorns, one is in the UK and knows who he is and in fairness only asks every now and then and I like the interest but the other, well he must be retired, have all the time in the world to wake up, brush his teeth and then decide what he’s not going to do that day and all in sunny France. !! Yep we all know him as Steve, well Steve this blog update is just for you.

The bricks are upto the tops of window height just about now and scaffolding will be next then arches over the windows will come, the weather in sunny Bridgemere hasn’t been so sunny of recent so we have been doing what we can when we can, nearly all the bedroom is plastered, all the pipe work and electrical stuff is in, Sue and I have even run network cables everywhere, hdmi cable through the ceiling and speaker cable too ready for it all to be hidden with plasterboard. The ceiling has had a load of wooden chocks put in between the wood to true things up and take out some of the movement in the floor upstairs. En-suite is ready for fitting out now, towel radiator is marked out and all pipes are in position, we will collect all the wall tiles on Thursday hopefully then Dave can come and get tiling at some point. The Garage side door has been removed and had a sheet of 3mm galvanised sheet secured to it so that looks hard as nails which gives a little more of a secure feeling. Sue has spent ages this week trying to sort out the requirements of the chimney breast for a log burner and has got there, we now need to open out the fire place to a good size then that will be ready for finishing at a later stage. Lastly we have spend a fair chunk of time drawing (Sue using Visio) stables and horsey things, I really want to push that forward and get a planning application in for a Menage and Stables ASAP. We have a meeting with Mr Marshall Jnr tomorrow night at his house that is not and has never been opposite Dingle lane to discuss sizes of the buildings and so he can get quoting us happy. The well is still a well, we have not opened it for a couple of weeks but we know there will be a fair amount of water in there anyway. Too many jobs and too little time, think yourselves lucky you got a blog update, you getting no pictures but we have had no dinner either & I bet you all have.

Over & out

KKS

Window

The first window has been fitted, to the old house. Gone is the nasty frosted wooden framed thing that was in the bathroom and now as the bathroom is the en-suite it has a nice new window and as we are lucky enough to have a great view its a nice clear window that we will be able to see out of from the shower (this has all been planned so we can see the view.) The first pour of concrete was done today for the extension, the 1st 4 inches so when thats nice and hard bricks will start, Monday weather permitting. Spoken to Scottish Power today and the re-connection pack for the new underground power supply is all ready for us to collect too, I plan a few days off next week and get that collected and hole for it all ready too. Things are taking shape now and its getting really exciting. Plumbers in on Monday or Tuesday to put pipes in for rads in bedroom and bathrooms along with checking, finishing and insulating heating pipes near the control room. Bedroom nearly plastered, the majority is done so its full steam ahead.

Trenches

Yep we have trenches, so we are nearly a geothermal ground source heating house. we have 600mt of pipe underground in the field now, this trencher made us a perfect 1.2mt trench that was about 15cm wide, the 40mm bore pipe was then put in and as much sand as possible put back in the trench. The equipment was amazing, all done in one day by the Welsh chaps enjoy the pics as they are nearly as impressive as the workers of the day, Sue site manager of the day, Andy, Alan, Jess the trencher driver and  the lorry come mini digger driver. I was working and unable to get time off so had to attend at lunch to see them sailing along and over half done.

 

Blogging again.....

Yep here I am blogging again with todays news, while I remember the DLB 1904 stands for Delves Louis Broughton so he was the financier of the build and then owner of the estate as the time (1904). 

Todays pictures are, the floor just after about 10 tonnes of hardcore were put down, then sand being leveled, as its not a garage and only has foot traffic we dont use metal or fibre in the floors unlike the garage. Then the damp membrain goes down and we wait for concrete to be delivered for the first pour.

In the mean time Andy has been starting to get the heating HQ in order, any holes in the walls filed including the large arch of the far side (not on pic), the roof rafters have been boarded and have about 3inch of insulation cut for them and in the gap to keep the roof insulated, the door frame is in place and as the garage will be this door will be an external fire door with a sheet of steel secured to it to help keep the unwanteds out of there. There is wood on the facia's and soffets which will be replaced on Alans side too and will have guttering on it as we will with the rest of the out buildings when we have re-felted some parts oh and an entrance step which is very heavy and stone (recycled stone) from the edge of the old driveway and cut to size (All Andys idea, he got on will all this without our input) which looks amazing. Interesting that this part of the out buildings has several bricks below ground, about 6 I think although the houses only have 4, in a taper for the house but we were very surprised to find out, we will be digging under them to run heating pipes into the building and then back filling the holes so we wanted to find out. Right im off too see if this kidney stone wants to exit my body although im doubtfull and then for a shower. Enjoy.

Moaning !

Yep ive recently received a complaint from a member of public about the time between my posts on here.  Im all honesty I want to post loads and all the time but we are just so busy at the moment finding the time can be hard and when we do get the time its time to relax.

So we have paid Scottish Power for the re-connection of the power which will be underground to the house when we get done, paid a deposit towards the heating system, ground source with approx 600mt of pipe 1.2mt deep in the field. The trenching man is booked for next Wednesday, the extension just has the hardcore, sand and membrain down now, building inspectors visit tomorrow and 1st 4 inches of concrete poured for the floor on Monday (then we have 4 inches of insulation, heating pipes and finally about 4 inches of screed.) The en-suite has been fully plastered now and the window ordered (clear glass as I love the view across the field which we will be able to see when showering) The house floor will start to be pulled up tomorrow and I expect a pour of concrete in there in about 10 days I'd imagine after the chaos of the trenching and all hands helping lay the pipes next week. Other than me because ill be working all week.

 

Footings for the house

Well here I am doing a blog, it seems there are people in this world that have a lot of time of their hands and think we all do, but for them ill make time and do a blog update.

So the footings are all there and done, Andy then boarded the footings  as that way the concrete section of them is exactly the correct size and we don’t spent money that we don’t need to on concrete.

Inside the house, we have some more internal walls upstairs now, we have decided the location of toilets and sinks in bathrooms and copper pipe and waste is now in place ready for installation when the walls have been skimmed. Slight changes have been don’t to the electrical installation as the houses 1^st fix is nearly finished.

On Monday I had at very short notice a site meeting with the connections organiser from Scottish Power and he will let us put the new meter exactly where we want to put it and we can also run the cables along the edge of the footings back to the pole which will save us a hole load of digging trenches.

Concrete now poured and Andy should be laying some blocks to get us to damp course hopefully by the end of the week as this is his last week with us then he’s on another contracted job for 2 weeks.

Today we have bought towel radiators, light fittings and an electric shower along with  measuring the field and putting in pegs to plan routing of heating pipes as we have a site meeting tomorrow night with heating man. We have also spent ages measuring for location of Sues riding Menage and drawing pictures of stable block lay outs as we are hoping to get a planning application in the post in the not too distant future.

Walls here today gone tomorrow

Lounge wall is going tomorrow so take a look not while you can.

Bedroom is now an open plan space along with every other room, spot the black lines on the floor where we have decided we will put internal walls. the front bedroom will be huge and the en-suite not so huge but thats the joy of being able to do what we want with internal stud walls. Andy has now given us full price for everything so its all become very serious. Will we decide to give him the go ahead for the extension, will we have holes for footings soon.... time will tell

Catch up time.

Blogger strikes again & I still think I need my own site, so no text because it lost it

 

We Return

Ahhh we are back, after a week or so down south and Andy being let loose on the house for a week alone, what would we return to, what would be left........ any walls ?? Windows ?? door ways ??? In short, the stud walls have been removed, the windows have been removed and blocked up whilst keeping the plinth bricks as we want to re-use them, the utility room is now accessed off the lounge for the time being and the old door way blocked off. The new doorway to the utility was easy to remove as it had been previously blocked off as it was originally a door we gather, there is a wooden lintle already in the wall which we shall replace with concrete re-inforced and the bricks blocking the hole were on top of the floor tiles & not tied into the walls, thats why it all looks so original, in reality where the radiator was in the lounge before we started, if we gave the wall a big big shove it would have gone through. We are also missing a lintle above the fire place so the chimney breast has a bit of a sag but that will be opened out larger and be "linteled" anyway. Enjoy, we are.

 

Demolition

Yep its play time, all the door frames are going, plaster is coming off walls tomorrow after work and this evening, well we had a little fun with what we think are amazing results. As we have had a quote for all the internal work in the existing house I suppose the more we do then the less there is for Andy to charge us for, a few busy days ahead now getting on Kieran style.

A busy 3 hours, I think we can say we are gutting the house

Is all we had at the house today as I'd been working until 3pm, so then I set about carrying out some meaningfull action and making progress, the house is now totally empty of furniture, all storage heaters removed and wiring dis-connected, skirting boards removed where possible (some have sockets in and bathroom ones are behind pipes,) some interior doors gone and the odd door frame gone. Its things like the walls we decided that we were not moving that when you start pulling skirting off reality hits home and we may be keeping some walls in the same place but all walls in the lounge will be insulated & plastered and all stud walls will be replaced because as good as some are they are very old and more flexible than a wall should be.

Below we have a few pics and then a hole in the bathroom to bedroom wall that I did because there was a question as to weather it was block or stud, I was correct as my hole proves, on the 2nd one through the hole can you spot the ninja's eyes ??

Fire day tomorrow burning what has been removed today and what will be removed tomorrow

 

Operation House : Phase 2

Well the garage is finished and is in use, the only thing that it seems needs constant adjustment / shaving is the exterior door as it keeps growing & needs trimming slightly.

So the house.............planning permission GRANTED with no conditions (must be in keeping though) we are awaiting prices from Andy for the removal of an interior wall, building the extension and finishing the walls. We need to be thinking about windows, doors & frames and kitchens, we have sorted most bathroom things already. The first site meeting was last night with Andy the Builder and Dave the plumber so they can price things, the second site meeting will be on Monday evening with Andy and Steve the electrician. Andy is booked to remove the internal wall and fit beams in place on week commencing 4th July and prices for the rest are required first.  I love the fact we have a builder as oppose to a contractor to price things because Andy has some amazing ideas which we both love & I love the fact we have asked him to deal with more of the build process / managment if he gets the job as I dont have time, he always assures me that I shouldnt worry about things and that the things he suggests are easy....... I just get stressed about the things we discuss because all I can see is us departing with huge amounts of money and until we get prices I dont want ideas because the potential costs scare me.  We will go later after work to the house and operation strip down will start, not me as your thinking no ill be fully clothed but the remaining furniture, carpets, doors and the odd door frame can have an official cremation in the burning field. Andy may be meeting us there to measure the lounge floor so he can price the cost of digging up & out, lining, insulating and re-pouring.

Im really really excited but nervous, will re-post soon either happy with progress & prices or when I have recovered from passing out although we have had enough of that this week to last a lifetime.

Im back in blogging mode

Although ive not really been anywhere, just not been on the blog for a while.

Well here we are busy busy, the garage is nearing completion with a few little things to do to get it finished, the door is on and is amazing, the electrical stuff is done and is equally amazing so the end is in sight. Please note the picture of the pad stone on the front of the garage, as the house was a Delves Broughton estate house for the first half of its life and was under Sues Grandads ownership for the same amount of time I decided as a surprise to Sue id have a pad stone in the name of Sues grandad Oliver hense the O.R. 2011, Andy & I had planned how we'd do it so decided to brick the front wall then cut it our one early weekend morning so Sue would just see it fitted into place, the plan was flawless, carried out to perfection and looks amazing that and I may have grabbed perhaps a little bonus point with Sues mum for having such an amazing idea.....!

The council have registered the planning application for the house extension and local residents have until the 17th May to object although they are all perfectly happy so wont we hope, we have ammended the plans for ther house to add a couple of windows.  The grass is growing in the field and we're excited about the future and im excited because ive found out we ca avoid paying any council tax for upto 18 months if needed with our house plans which will mean no council tax until we move in, yeah.

Here is couple of pics of amazingness until we get finished and I make Blogger crash with my final "exterior" photos.

HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE

So the blog has now become a combined house & garage blog until the garage is finished anyway. We now have the house to play with so today set about playing with the wallpaper steamer, its been out of service since the extensive work at Middlewich Street I think (??) but all the same worked perfectly. Here are some pics of the new look walls in the house....