When people have told me in the past that “building projects are stressful”, I don’t think I ever really believed them. Now I know. The light at the end of the tunnel is within sight and it feels like we’re going up now instead of down – but by god it’s been stressful.

We’ve had near punch ups and pestering phone calls, claims for more money, shouting matches and make ups. All hopefully behind us now. It really shouldn’t be this hard.

Fortunately the progress is still on course and we reckon we’re about 6 weeks away from moving in (maybe end May or early June?)

Today we’ve been putting the finishing touches to the kitchen design, getting ready to order the appliances and deciding on worktops. The kitchen will be the crowning glory of the house and we hope it’ll be worth spending a little more than we’d bargained for in there to get the right look. We’re obviously trying to economise wherever we can.

Our Polish Painter is making great, thorough progress and the first coat of the colour “Natural Calico” we’re having everywhere went on in the front bedroom. It looks great. And more importantly, everywhere is starting to look clean and tidy.

Here’s a run through of the latest progress:

Stairs get a coat of white paint:

Door with broken glass:

Sockets in the kitchen (nearly the right place):

Hallway base coat:

Tiling in the bathroom nearly done:

Tiling in the bathroom:

And the floor, looking nice:

Veluxes in the dark:

And the light:

Corner:

Floor – the utilities need to move to the circle…

Plastered walls:

Back of the house, getting close:

Clean white:

Natural calico – the finished paint colour in the 1st floor bedroom:

And again:

And again:

Ladder:

And the new roof – hopefully not quite finished, some more tiles to go in:

Water?

Leading in the paraphet – roof terrace for the study?

Gulley:

Loft bathroom floor and a place for the toilet:

Shower:

Tidy:

Roof light:

And the front of the house:

It’s been another eventful week in Grosvenor Mansions.

Generally progress is still good – mostly now because the builders want to get off site as soon as possible and we want them to be.

We nearly came to blows on Thursday morning when the tri-partate arrangement between the building company, the two leaders of the building gang and us had some full and frank exchanges of views. This mostly prompted by the gang leaders who are trying to add a few thousand extra to the bill for “unforeseen” extras. But we don’t agree they are extras and according to the contract any material changes have to be quoted in writing to us before the work goes ahead. None of these extras have been.

There have been a catalogue of errors on the part of both the gang and the building company – and we hope they can come to some arrangement. Preferably one which involves us neither paying the extra nor ending up in court.

The kitchen (as a room) is just a week or so away from being completed now – leaving just the decorating (six more weeks), the rear concertina doors and the kitchen fitting itself before we can actually contemplate moving in.

It’s been exhausting and stressful and I expect the worst is yet to come. Extricating ourselves from the tangle could be a pain.

As usual here’s some photos of the current state of play:

Plaster drying slowly? Or is it getting wet from the roof?

Electrical first fix in:

Plans through the doorway:

Blue velux:

Pointing completed:

Parapet looking good:

“2 tile courses and a half brick”

Plumbing first fix:

Corridor and the manhole cover:

Lighting:

Painting upstairs:

Fan light:

Wall repaired:

Cracks filled:

Newell posts cut and finished:

Front bedroom:

Fireplace:

Door handle:

Down pipe?

Sockets finally replaced in the loft:

Tiling in the loft bathroom, corrected:

Plumbing items to go in:

Tile “alcoves”:

Lights and extractors:

Toilet:

The view from the hall way:

We’re still dicking around with the kitchen design.

Luckily the measurements we took for the last iteration were wrong – and so it turns out the kitchen is bigger than we thought! This means we can retrieve one of our earlier designs.

We also went to see a nice woman at Sheen Kitchen Design who voluntarily gave us some expertise – in front of my laptop – on layout and design and helped us to significantly improve it.

Here’s some photos so you get the gist. Basically the corridor is lined with wall cupboards just 370mm deep but providing much needed storage. Then we made the run down the wall continue in the same line with top line wall cupboards the same 370mm deep and the hob and work top above some clean-line double deep drawer units.

The fridge freezer and ovens go in a block of tall cupboards 600mm deep to the left as you enter the kitchen and the generous island unit contains the sink and dishwasher.

The cream worksurface (probably laminate of some sort) makes the space feel bigger and the dark wood veneer adds some depth. Lime green splashback just for fun.

Bit more streamlined than before – now we just have to work out if we can afford it!

From the garden:

From the side, showing island and hob run:

From birds eye view showing oven and fridge freezer unit.

In just one day, major steps have happened.

The veluxes are in and the floor is (mostly) down:

Corridor:

Veluxes, nice and big:

And the soldiers finished, floor level in:

Those veluxes again:

Flooring:

Plumbing first fix comes next week:

And the decorating begins upstairs – this is the diluted undercoat to seal the plaster but already the room looks so much cleaner and spacious:

A More Space technical drawing?

Veluxes from the top:

And feet on the new Juliette balcony, finally in:

The roofline:

Leading around the bathroom window:

Tiling in the loft bathroom:

Apertures for shampoos etc:

Bricking up over the steels in the study:

We’ve been away for a few days and fortunately returned to find progress has been good.

The beginnings of the sloping side-return roof (which will hold 4 veluxes) was going in yesterday, as well as the “concrete slab and beam” floor.

The steels are in place and the walls above them have been bricked in – so hopefully by the end of this weekend, most of the brick work will be completed.

Elsewhere the house has been tidied up and feathers smoothed (a little). I don’t think we’re out of the woods entirely but our point has been made.

Painters began working on the front of the house (filling the windows etc) and also doing the diluted emulsion base-coat on the walls in the front bedroom. So it really will start feeling like home soon.

Putting the roof in:

“Soldiers” above the door, now in the right place. This rear wall will have a “paraphet” top which hides the short flat roof behind it.

Juliette balcony above is finally fitted and looking nice.

Putting the bricks in:

The match with the old wall is pretty good – all the bricks have been reused from the dismantled walls/chimney breasts:

These are the concrete beams for the kitchen floor:

Mixing cement:

The interior steels – now nicely out of the way of the kitchen space – and it feels very spacious as a result.

Footings for the steel “goalposts” now in place. The blocks at the bottom of the wall are where the floor beams rest on:

Space for veluxes:

Other than the site being really dirty (see previous post) progress has been good again this week. The steels are in and the back of the house now doesn’t look like it’s being suspended magically in mid-air.

The clever steels are connected in such a way that the building can be supported without needing any unsightly pillars/columns inside the kitchen.

Now just need to brick back up the holes, remove the props and then put the side-return roof on. Can’t wait.

Acro props still essential:

Back garden builders’ yard:

Bathroom really looking nice now:

Builders on site:

These are the “goalposts” which are supporting the weight of the floors above down the side of the patio doors:

Breeze blocks:

New fence for the neighbours:

And the steels are finally in place:

Complicated joints designed to make sure there are no visible pillars in the kitchen (finally). This design took three iterations to get right:

Bolting together nicely:

And the padstone:

On top of the goal posts:

And embedded in the wall:

Goal post with concrete feet, very safe:

Wheel barrows:

Pile of bricks:

From the neighbours garden – side wall is looking really good!

Chaps
We went to our house today – the good news is that the steels in the kitchen extension are finally (2 weeks late) in the right place and are looking good. The bad news is that the site is in the worst state it’s ever been in.
We’re writing this email because we feel like the crew is simply not respecting our house or our newly purchased fixtures and fittings and things are getting damaged and botched as a result. We have personally spent three hours tidying up the crap in the living room, the two front bedrooms, the rear study and the loft – and have thrown out several sackfuls of rubbish and swept all the floors.
See the attached photos for some examples of what we found (or click here).
And here’s a list of the problems:
* The shower tray in the loft bathroom is *totally* covered in dribbled plaster – see photo. I’d be very surprised if this is going to clean up without scratching. So whoever did this without using any kind of dust-sheet or protection will need to replace the shower tray entirely.
* The sink and tap in the utility room is thoroughly scratched – the guys have clearly been washing their gritty buckets in it. This will need to be replaced.
* The guys have been cutting tiles on the floorboards in the front bedroom – see photo – this is just stupid and disrespectful. This needs to be fixed.
* Mess and rubble and wet plaster has been left littered across the loft floor, rear loft bedroom, and both front bedrooms – see photos. It should be swept up daily.
* Food is constantly left out in the front bedroom overnight – which is a vermin hazard – especially since the house is not sealed. We have thrown it all out.
* There were cigarette butts all over the floors – the guys should not be smoking in the house and not leave butts on the floor
* The front reception rooms are just one massive mess of tools, wood, equipment and junk. There’s no way it should look like that – we tidied some of it up – it needs to be fully tidied and swept.
* The new flushplate we had ordered for the loft bathroom which needs to be returned (it is the wrong type) has parts missing – so we need to either find those or someone will need to pay £40 for a new one
* The heating keeps getting left on constantly despite us switching it off repeatedly – since the back of the house is open this means we’re paying to heat up the garden
* The brand-new oak floor (which is inadequately covered by cardboard/sheeting) is possibly being damaged. Any scratches as a result of negligence will need to be replaced/repaired.
As a result of this set of issues we will not be paying a penny more to either the gang or More Space until the site is tidied, swept and cleaned up to our satisfaction – and the list of snags in the loft completed.
I sent the list of loft snags to you separately. And I’ve copied it below for reference.
Furthermore, we have removed the More Space leaflets and advertising from the front of the house – because we don’t currently feel like we should be recommending you to any other clients. There is little pride to be taken from the current state of this project. The advertising can be reinstated when the site is to put back to rights.
Yours sincerely

We’ve seen some good progress this week on tiling in the utility room and 1st floor bathroom – those are getting close now.

Also we seem finally to have sorted out the mess at the back and now most of the walls have come out – leaving only a pillar which will be removed when finally the steels are on site.

We’re probably delayed 1 week as a result of all the cockups – and now hopefully back on track.

Kitchen design continues to play on the mind – we’ll get it right.

Black tiles in the utility room:

Slightly dodgy splashback in the downstairs WC:

New floor tiles in the bathroom – lovely:

1st floor bathroom , getting there:

Sink:

Shower now works well:

View from the study – unconventional:

With the benefit of accurate measurements of our new rear kitchen room (even prior to it being finished) and due to the surprising thickness of the new wall, we’ve discovered our original beautiful plan was never going to work…

Initially disappointed, we have reworked the design and are getting close to something which is (a) possible and (b) quite practical.

Basically the room is less long than we thought it would be, which makes it proportionally “wider”.
Also we don’t think we can have any full sized cupboards in the “corridor” – so those will just be 400mm deep full height cupboards. Still hopefully useful for storing all the stuff which normally clogs up kitchen cupboards – including the hoover and ironing boards etc.

The key problem with this kitchen room is that it has no corners. Because of the two “entrance doors” and the rear glass doors, all the key work-surface space which you’d normally have in a kitchen of this size is unavailable.

So we’ve had to be a bit creative. We think this layout will feel “spacious” but still retains the minimum requisite of worktop (which is in short supply) by using a wide island.

An island and a fridge:

And the view from the decking:

Any thoughts?

There are some changes now required to the current site as a result of all the shennanigans this week but those’ll happen next week. Here’s the current state of play:

Back of the house and something close to resembling a new doorway, note the “pin” holding things up (more of those to come):

New wall – we’re quite pleased with the way it’ll blend in to the old:

 

 

Entire back of house

New wall:

Will it match the neighbour’s?

Side return, need to measure it:

Padstone we shouldn’t have had – needs to come out:

Drain and manhole which needs to move:

Rear corner:

Damp proof course:

From inside the house of horrors:

Upstairs bathroom, space for a toilet, nearly done:

Loft nearly complete: