Week 34 - Kitchen, doors, and more...
Entry posted by Benpointer in General
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Hi everyone. It’s been four weeks since the last blog instalment and despite the Christmas and New Year break, quite a lot has happened.
Apologies for a somewhat scattergun approach but I wanted to try to cover all the progress.
Kitchen units and appliances
Last time, just before Christmas, carpenter Chris was halfway through fitting our kitchen units. That work was completed during the first week of January in readiness for…
Kitchen worktops
Martin from Langford Stone came out to template the kitchen/pantry/utility units for our worktops. While he was at it, we also asked him to template for several granite surfaces for our master ensuite.
A week later Langford’s team of four fitters arrived with some very large slabs of granite, which they duly fitted without issue and to a high standard. We’re very pleased with the results:
Internal doors
Chris and Alan fitted the four pocket doors to the sliding gear installed back in September, before plastering. They then fitted the oak door linings for the 8 conventional doors and hung those doors. The door linings required some thinking about because we originally opted for rebated linings but these have had to be reinforced with ply backing to give enough meat to confidently screw in hinges that can take the weight of the (44 kg!) doors. We hope still to get the rebated look by fixing full width door jams, which we’ve now ordered.
The doors themselves are 33” Avon Oak fire doors from Todd doors. We opted to buy them unfinished because the factory finish doors felt a bit ‘plasticky’. Mrs P. has done a brilliant job with sealing them with Osmo Door oil and we are very pleased with the results - they have a lovely look and feel to them . The doors supplied were really good quality - no need for further sanding before oiling and no complaints from the carpenters (except about the weight!)
Troy Pointer supervising operations:
2nd fix electrics
After a pause at the beginning of January, Darren is now back with us and making good progress on the second fix electric.
Skirtings
Steve, our tiler came in to fix the porcelain skirting tiles and was able to make a start, but the rethink needed for the door linings meant we are not ready to fix all the architraves just yet. So he has promised to come in on a future Saturday to finish those off. The skirting tiles themselves are 900 mm long and have more of a bow in than we were expecting (well I was expecting them to be flat to be honest!). Steve was worried that they would not look great but in reality unless you look along the line of the wall you can’t really notice the bowing and we are happy to live with it (especially since we can’t think of any sensible alternative at this stage). Once grouted or caulked to the same colour as the walls we don’t think it will be an issue.
Ensuite boxing-in
I’ve been whiling away the odd hour here and there preparing the ensuite for final fix by my brother next week. There’s quite a lot of pipework which needs to be hidden - given the way the house design squeezes three bathrooms into a small space, the stud walls are just not wide enough to take it all. So my idea was to create some boxing-in using spare 4x2s to hide the pipes, provide some built-in cupboard space, and form a framework for timber cladding on the lower walls.
Sure, I could have asked the chippies to do this and they’d have done a great job in no time... but where’s the fun in that?
For the timber cladding itself we’re going be using some of the left over Brimstone heat treated ash we have used to clad the outside of the house. This time of course we'll seal it with Osmo oil. The quality of that Brimstone Ash is too good to waste solely on the outside. You will hopefully be able to see from future blogs whether this bathroom design idea has been successful or not but for now here's some 'boxing-in'.
Moving in next month!
I mentioned in the previous blog that we had brought forward our target moving in date to the end of February. We now have a removal date booked of 23rd February. - so only five weeks away! We should be fine, we could probably move in and camp now if needed. The main things we really need sorting are a fully working bathroom, electrics, and ideally smooth and solid access to the front of the property. Hopefully we can get all that done in the next five weeks.
Council tax
Mrs P. and I were wondering about bin collection and also how soon the council would want to start charging council tax, when lo and behold the man from the council turned up. He explained the process, gave us a form, and told us we could request bins (for which we have to pay a £81 one off charge - of course we do).
Since we will be ceasing the council tax liability on our rented house, we are happy to start paying council tax on the new house. The council man said it could take three or four months to get a council tax valuation but they will backdate the charge to our move in date.
Address
After seven months(!) Royal Mail have finally got round to adding our address to their postcode checker database. They say on their website that they will only add it when you move in but as anyone who has self-built will know it’s really very difficult to arrange deliveries, service installs, etc. if your postcode is not on that Royal Mail database. My advice for anybody starting a self-build is get that address registered as early as possible.
Fibre
Another service that’s taken seven months from request to delivery is our full fibre to the house. Many of you will know this is a new build building control requirement for England, so we requested (and paid for it) back in June. It finally arrived last week. Unfortunately we didn’t get added to the Openreach fibre database straight away so no service providers could offer us a fibre service until that was resolved earlier this week. We’re hoping to get the broadband service up and running next week.
Focus for the next two weeks:
- Electrics, still lots to do. We’re hoping to have two sparkies in for most of next week so they should make a lot of headway.
- Plumbing. My brother Chris is back for 4 days next week and will focus on getting our master ensuite up and running, the kitchen & utility sinks fully plumbed in, and then if there’s time progress on the family bathroom and guest ensuite.
- Landscaping. Ashley, our garden landscaper is making a start on the front landscaping from Monday. We’re really looking forward to seeing the crushed aggregate disappear under something more wheelchair-friendly.
Dashboard:
Contractor days on site this past four weeks: 47
Contractor days on site since build start: 495
Budget: No change - over budget but within contingency.
Plan: Moving in booked for 23rd February.
Issues and worries closed this fortnight:
N/A
Current top issues and worries:
None.
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