Sunday, September 30, 2007

Conservatory Rebuild - Day x (lost count!)

Another few weeks go by, and the conservatory remains 80% complete. In fact it is more a case of 2 steps forward and one step back!

The tiler arrived last Monday and boarded 3 of the walls in the cloakroom ready to tile the next night. But, thanks to a lazy electrician who had put 2 junction boxes on the 4th wall which, if boarded over, would have made it impossible to actually sit on the toilet, he was unable to do the 4th wall. A few frantic phone calls later with an electrician who can talk for England (he even gives me a run for my money) and we have a date of a week and a half later for him to come and sort the job. The tiler left, and has not been seen since :(

To try and get it sorted quicker Tamsyn asked the guy opposite if he had any idea how we could sort it quickly. He did. He ripped it all out (it was only feeding the outside plug socket, which is easily sorted by running the wire round the outside of the house rather than destroying the aesthetics of the cloakroom).

Unfortunately though, while removing said new wiring he found some clangers that should have been spotted by the electrician: a loose cable made 'safe' with insulating tape left dangling behind the cooker and a cable with junction block cemented in the kitchen wall. These have both now been made properly safe BUT look at our kitchen!

The kitchen

We now have another date for the tiler (Monday and Tuesday) and even the plasterer has decided to return our calls and is due on Tuesday and Wednesday (I'll believe it when he turns up though). We will be asking for another quote, as I decided to 'tidy up' the mess in the kitchen and have progressed to:

The kitchen

So, the conservatory is still not finished, and now we have to get the kitchen sorted as well ...

Thursday, September 20, 2007

We've got a door on the bog!

At long last there is light at the end of the tunnel!

This week we have managed to get the electrics finished, the glass replaced with self-cleaning glass (though the kite mark is the same as before so I'm a bit sceptical) and we have a lockable door on the cloakroom (though the *&^%ing thing is broken).

Conservatory Rebuild

We even have a window sill in the cloakroom as well.

Conservatory Rebuild

They will, however, be coming back to fix the broken lock and fill in the door frame, though they can't do that until the tiler has been.

So we're basically now waiting on the tiler, plasterer and guy opposite to fit the radiator, and then we're something like.

Friday, September 14, 2007

Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1

We're almost there. In coding terms you'd say we were 80% done as it sounds like you've almost finished. The fact that it might take just as long (or longer) to get the final 20% done is never really mentioned ...

There are floor tiles:
Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1
Guttering and a soak-away for drainage (the soak-away is the length of the border but you would never know - I'm impressed with how well they did that):
Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1
Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1 Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1

The toilet and sink are in, and we have lights and plug sockets (not quite finished):
Conservatory Rebuild The final Stages 1
As you can see we need tiling in the cloak room, plastering on one of the walls and a door for the toilet. All supposed to be happening over the next few weeks...

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Conservatory Rebuild - Day 11

Having sung the praises of the guys doing the conservatory I am now getting fed up. Yesterday (Friday 31 August) the build was a whole week later than expected.

As you can see progress is being made

Conservatory Rebuild - Day 11 Conservatory Rebuild - Day 11 Conservatory Rebuild - Day 11

but I found out yesterday that because they are waiting for 4 panes of glass they won't be back until next Thursday! I reckon there's more than 2 days work left to get it finished so we're going to have to wait even longer before we can get plasterer, electrician, plumber and tiler in: And juggling these guys is hard enough as it is without having to put them off any more.

They've also royally pissed me off with the guttering - I was assured that the guttering would go all around to the side of the house so I could divert the water into a series of water butts. But, somebody mis-measured the roof so the main part will now have to go into a soak-away in the border. They did suggest we have it go straight into a water butt but, as you can see from the picture below, that butt would be right in front of the window (on the left of the picture) and once it was full it would still end up over-flowing into the border!

Conservatory Rebuild - Day 11

And if there was nothing there then we run the risk of flooding, both our border and next doors. So they will be digging a soak-away - what a waste (and possible mess while they destroy the border to dig the hole).

I wonder what other surprises they have in store for us? :(