Decisions, decisions

The focus of the work has moved indoors now. With that comes a sudden need for us to make decisions on a whole range of things that we really hadn't thought much about before.

• What sort of internal doors do we want?
• With which door handles?
• What colour and design of skirting and architrave?
• Blinds, curtains or shutters on the big window?
• Design for the fitted wardrobe - external and internal?
• Positioning of the shower heads and valves?
• Design of the utility cupboard?
• What type and colour of paving do we want for the verandah?

As well as decisions, we are having to arrange deliveries of the bits that we have bought directly - like bathroom tiles and furniture - so that they arrive to fit the builders' schedule. All of a sudden the project is less of a spectator sport than it was up to this point.

Fortunately, we are quite good at making decisions. Unfortunately, we are equally good at changing our minds about things a short time later!

Meanwhile, the boarding of the walls and ceilings is well under way.

 Bedroom walls

 Utility room ceiling - with hole for the light well

Nearly there...

The larch cladding is almost finished, and it's lovely. The skew has been remade today, so the roof join between the old and new should now be water tight - we hope!


The plumber is expected on site tomorrow, and the builders are planning to get some plasterboard up on the internal walls. I'm told that from this point on, it all comes together really quickly. Exciting stuff.

Progress

The larch is looking good, and the "ceiling" of the verandah is being fixed - there will be three down lights so we can sit out at night. (Midges? What midges?)

Back to work

Returning home after a few more days of holiday - surprise surprise - we find that the project has started to move on again. In fact, for just a couple of days work it's pretty impressive progress.

The outside walls have been framed up and the first of the larch cladding is in place.

The doors and windows have arrived and are all fitted. You need a university degree in window technology to open and close them I think, but they seem very well made indeed. The big bedroom window doesn't open, but it's an impressive big bit of glazing. Worth the long wait while they were manufactured for us in Norway.

Inside, the nice woolly insulation has been tucked into the walls. Suddenly 'indoors' actually feels like indoors should.

And, they say, they will be back on site tomorrow!

Holidays

Thursday update as promised.

The slating is finished. The building company are, we are told by the architect, on holiday this week and will return on Monday 18th. Good for them. So all is quiet for another week.

Since there are no pictures of building progress, here is one from our wee holiday in the hills of Torridon.

This is Angela at the summit of Tom na Gruagich. At 922m it is the lower of the two Munro summits on Ben Alligin. The higher summit seen in the background is Sgurr Mhor, where we went on to have had our "lunch with a view". The weather was just perfect - warm, clear and still. It's not at all bad to be out in short sleeves at 1,000m height in the NW Highlands in October.

We got home last night to find the delivery man had left a couple of new toys on the driveway for us. Getting back (tenuously) to the subject of 'building', we had already constructed stands to hold them - and they fit - and they didn't fall over!

This morning we went out to try the kayaks. We expected to potter around a bit by the shore, but loved it so much that we paddled all the way to the end of our sea loch and home again. Great fun indeed!

That's it for this week then. Who knows what next week will bring?

...and another

Another week has passed with little to report. Nobody was here on Monday or Tuesday. The slater has been working alone for the last three days, during which he has almost finished the second side of the roof - and it's looking great.

We are off for a few days of holiday next week. I have no idea at all what progress we will see when we get back home next Thursday. Perhaps there will be none - but whatever happens, that's when you can expect the next update to this Blog.

A slow week

The past week has been the least eventful we have had for a while. The larch boarding has been lying undisturbed on our driveway for more than three weeks now, and we've seen nothing of the builders themselves for a while now. The owner and boss has been in Teneriffe for the last two weeks (which may or may not be relevant!) and there is some kind of high priority work going on on another job at present. Given time, there may be some high priority work going on here as the contract deadlines approach...

Meanwhile the electricians have been finishing off their first fix cabling, including telephones and some nice purple network cable. The plumber has finished the lead work on the roof. I didn't keep count of the number of days it took, but it's much, much more labour intensive than I would ever have guessed. The final section where the lead meets the GRP took days, with lots of shaping, welding and hi-tech epoxy work. The final product looks good to me, with just the rebuilding of the skew to be done.

Having finished the flat roof, Donnie has moved inside and is beginning the first fix of the plumbing. So all is well, but we would like to see some more excitingly visible progress next week!