Ups and downs

Great news. I said in my last post that I'd be impressed if Chris managed to get the wall tiles to line up with the floor tiles and to sit symmetrically around the shower valve. He's done it - at his first (and only available) attempt. "Well," he said in true joiner style, "I measured it, so of course it worked."

The bulkhead is in too, so nothing now should stand in the way of the rest of the tiling.

Not everything this week has gone so well. The decorator was here for his usual early start on Monday. By mid-morning he had disappeared, leaving a Marie Celeste of open paint and dirty rollers. According to the joiners he had gone home "to spend some quality time with his toilet". He hasn't been seen since, but we do have some sunny yellow walls in the utility room to remind us that he was once here.

Yesterday afternoon we placed an order with John Lewis (they do free deliveries to Skye, so are a popular supplier around here) for a washing machine, a tumble dryer and a freezer. Today we found that the ones we ordered have a combined width about 15cm longer than can be accommodated in the utility room.So, it was onto the phone this afternoon to plead for a change to the order. Failing that, we may have to slide them gently under the worktop with a sledge hammer. They will let us know tomorrow. We have our fingers crossed.

Monday also saw the first of our nice oak doors hung. I was so pleased with the look of it, even before it has been oiled, that it was about an hour before I realised it was the wrong door for the doorway it had been hung in!

 

Yesterday there was a solid door on the shower room - today there is the one with glass panels instead. Much better, if a bit of a pain (no pun intended) for the joiners.

The next bit of fun began with the arrival of the skirting boards this morning. They were not what we wanted at all. The source of the confusion is complex and not very interesting, but confusion there was - and it lasted for a while. Late this afternoon we resolved things with the builders' boss. New skirtings and architraves will be arriving...sometime. Meanwhile, the doorways will have that 'unfinished' look for a wee bit longer.

All outside work is off for the time being. Daytime temperatures are relentlessly sub-zero and the garden is under frozen snow. That's a thin excuse to add a picture that's nothing to do with the extension - but it is very pretty around here at the moment...

A busy Friday

Well, it’s all been happening today. In the midst of a bit of a snowstorm, two of the decorators arrived at 8.00am to sand the filler on the walls ready for painting to begin. Almost immediately the whole building was filled with a fog of white powder and an ever-deepening layer on the floor. Inside was starting to look spookily similar to outside.

Then came the arrival of a big flatbed lorry loaded with pallets of sandstone slabs. Robert and Richard offloaded them by hand, remarkably quickly, and then failed to make any headway with the empty truck back up our snow covered driveway. After a bit of futile slithering and sliding, I towed them up with the Land Rover – diff locks on and in low ratio reverse gear. Nae bother. There’s nothing like having the right tool for the job...

 Two of the pallets of sandstone slabs

Half an hour later they returned with the final couple of pallets, arriving at the same time as Donnie the plumber, with shower tray and shower fittings. He was quickly followed by Chris the joiner, here to build the bulkhead that goes at the end of the shower. Much measuring and discussion went into us all agreeing the exact positions of the shower valve and the shower heads. I think it took less time to fit them!

 The start of the shower installation

The shower tray (yes, it is white under that blue wrapping) is an even lower profile than I expected, which is a nice surprise. By the time the floor tiles are laid, the step up into the shower will be less than 20mm.

The multi-skilled Chris will be working tomorrow, Saturday, to begin tiling the bathroom. His attention to detail is brilliant, and that’s before he starts. Everything is planned, measured and marked up so that the floor tiles will be laid first, the wall tiles will be aligned with the ones on the floor, and the wall tiles will arrive at the shower valve with symmetry. I’ll be impressed when and if that comes to pass.

Skye Express, our local carrier, had brought the tiles over here from Inverness several weeks ago. They kindly agreed to hold them in their depot in Portree until they were needed. When Chris went to collect them this morning they were not in the depot. Early this morning, with the main roads on the island covered by fresh snow, Skye Express had put the pallet of tiles into the back of the delivery van heading up to Staffin - as ballast. They liked the idea of that half ton of extra weight over the back axle to help the grip! The van arrived back in Portree this afternoon. Chris had them loaded onto his van and got them to the top of our drive. From there we shuttled them down the icy slope in a wheelbarrow. They are now stacked safely in the bedroom.

 The 'Ballast'

By close of play the sanding was finished and all the walls are ready for the first coat of paint. The decorators may be working tomorrow as well.

For the past 24 hours it has been much warmer in the extension than it has been here in the house. There have been two free-standing heaters running non-stop to help dry the filler. The temperature they are achieving is a good sign that the insulation is working well. Perhaps we should take chairs and torches through and sit in there this evening.

Working long hours

Up here, the days get rather short at this time of year. There were just seven hours between sunrise and sunset today. But since the decorators arrived yesterday, the working day has become longer.
The taper (who tapes and fills the joints in the drywall boarding) arrives at 8.00am and works on late into the evening, head torch on. Another coat of filler tomorrow and he'll be ready for sanding it all down on Thursday. That will be a day for us to to keep well away until the dust has settled. Then it will be straight on to painting.

The excitement today (I think the joiners might call it something other than that) has been the fitting of our glass pocket door on the utility room. When open, it sits in a metal frame inside the partition wall, completely out of sight. Never having had one before we weren't quite sure what to expect - but we are delighted with it. It slides out really smoothly, and it takes up none of the room space that a conventional door does. I'm now wondering why all houses don't all have doors built like that.

Remember these?

Back in August we posted this picture showing the cables from the underfloor heating mats coiled on top of the concrete base.

Now they have appeared through holes in the wall where the timer/thermostat controls will be.

It's always good when a plan comes together...

Concrete and curbs

Angus has started putting in the rolled topped curb stones today:

As well as laying the concrete on the path:

Where these two sections meet, and what that junction is going to look like, is the topic for discussion with the builder and architect tomorrow. We'll let you know!

No progress at all today on the inside. This project is supposed to be fully completed on 3rd December - but we weren't banking on that anyway :-)

Drains and paths

Today we've been out on the kayaks on a perfect, flat calm, November day. It wasn't like that yesterday when Angus was digging out paths and drainways around the outside of the extension.
It was cold, sleety and windy all day - and all day he worked alone, with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. Rather him than me. At the gable end of the building he was working less than a metre away from the stump of a big Sitka, down in the mud cutting through massive roots with a handsaw.

Having dug it all out, he connected up some rainwater drains and began to fill it in again with hardcore. The next stage is to cover all that with a layer of concrete and then grey Indian Sandstone slabs bedded in mortar.

For the first time we can begin to see how the building will sit in its surroundings.  The levels and layout near the main gate are still unclear (or, more accurately, they are clear to the builder, clear to us and clear to the architect, but with three different clarities...) Nonetheless, we expect that to be resolved at a site meeting on Tuesday.

Progress indoors has been slow over the past few days for a variety of reasons. Once again, we are told that next week will be all action. There's certainly going to be plenty of exciting stuff coming up sometime soon.

How big a wardrobe can a girl need?

That upper level is going to be big enough to store a few hat boxes...

The Poo-viewer

This week began with a flurry of action. There were four vehicles here by 08:30 and it was non-stop all day. The questions began before I was properly awake:

• Have you chosen the paving yet?
• The doors you chose for the big cupboard won't fit - can you choose something else?
• The Megaflo hot water boiler has been damaged in transit. It's only cosmetic, do you want to wait for a replacement or shall we go ahead with this one? (It's in the attic. I really don't care what it looks like.)
• Do you want the slabs bedded in mortar or concrete or in a dry mix? (I've no idea either.)
• Shall we fit the WC a bit further away from the side wall to give more 'legroom'?
• Where exactly do you want the shower head to come through the ceiling?

By the end of the day lots had been done. We have sills on the windows. The end wall of the full-height fitted wardrobe has appeared.

 The (slightly dented) boiler is up in the attic.

Pipes are appearing all over the place.

Sometime soon we will see the Megaflo plumbed in, with a temporary power supply connected to it. Then it will supply mains pressure hot water to the existing house, and the old hot water tank will be removed - our first tangible benefits from this extension.

Oh yes, I must tell you about the Poo-viewer.
The drains from the extension were connected to the existing sewer that runs from the house to the septic tank. The access chamber for the junction cannot be capped until we have the ground levels sorted out. That means that for the next few weeks 'anything' that is en-route from the house to the septic tank can be seen as it passes by.

We may be going 'out for lunch' most days this week...

Weatherproof - with rooms taking shape

Yesterday, the final bit of weatherproofing was finished. The lead flashing joining the new roof to the existing gable was mortared in - in a pretty industrial strength sort of way - to stop any water penetration there. So far it has stood the test of 24 hours of proper Skye rain without problem.

That allowed the boarding of the internal wall below it to be done, adding to the recent progress inside. Over the past few days the joiners have been strapping walls, building partitions, shoving masses and masses of insulation of various sorts into every possible gap, mounting plasterboard and pulling through cables ready for the electricians' second fix next week. For the first time we can really see the internal divisions - you can no longer walk between rooms without using the doorways!

The biggest excitement this afternoon was reserved for the appearance of the shell of Angela's big storage cupboard off the utility room. It's huge - and she loves it!