JWK's Garden Destruction

Thanks for asking Tropical Gaz :gnthb:

Progress has been a little slow to put it mildly! If you remember the last thing on here was me wondering to do with these odd looking pink bricks under the window:


I think I had some â??usefulâ?? suggestions like mount a giant LCD TV or paint a mural over them. In the end I painted them with masonry paint samples; it only took me about an hour and seems to have come through the winter looking OK. I'm pleased with the effect - you can't see much difference from the ground:


Iâ??m also working on the front of the house, converting the integral garage into a utility room and adding a shower room just in front of that:




That was last December, I finally got rid of the scaffolding, it was up for 6 months and we were starting to get used to it.

At the back of the house again; around Christmas time, I put down the floor insulation:


On top of the insulation I had a wrestling match with a giant slinky - that was pretty hard work holding a 200 metre roll in one hand and trying to lay the pipe in a pattern with the other:





On top of the insulation & heating pipes goes 5 tons of ready mix screed (Mid Jan):







At the end of April I fitted the main doors and windows and itâ??s finally weatherproof.



The doors slide and fold across to one side. Iâ??ll try and get a better picture of them once Iâ??ve tided up a bit.

Part of the new extension will be a kitchen area. We already have our new kitchen units, but itâ??s still in flat packs. I bought it in the Jan sales hoping I would be ready to install around Easter. That was way too optimistic; itâ??s probably going to be October at the current rate of progress.

Iâ??ve just broken through into the part of the old house, and Iâ??m trying to work out which job to start next: put up stud walls, fix electrics, plumbing, plastering or flooring.





So I havenâ??t started my new garden area yet, maybe next year.

 

Thanks Aaron, we are not very far away, some of my work colleagues live in Horsham.

 

Well I've been keeping my veg patch going and the extra soil depth has certainly helped. All I've done on the area near the house is make a temporary bed with summer bedding and a few container plants, just for a splash of colour amongst the chalk.

Thanks dee, we are using the extension already, its got a table and sofa so we eat and sit in there most of the time now. It has also been a great potting shed and greenhouse so I'll miss that when we start using it properly.

:gnthb:

 

Thanks Penny.

Yesterday with my sons' helps we took down the wall between the old house and the new extension. Now its all opened up, there are no more big structural messy jobs left. It was very dusty, I was using my garden sprayer with liquid soap to try and keep it down. We all ended up with grey hair although in my case it's natural.

This is the wall from within our old Dining Room yesterday morning:


By 6pm it was gone:

 

YDD; yes you are right, the patio area is going to be in full view, I just hope I can make it look good. If I get rid of the piles of bricks, scaffold boards and cement mixer that would be a good start

Kristen; it has made a big difference getting the light in, I've got a few seedlings growing in there and they seem to do OK.

Kelly; Those doors were not too expensive honest!

 

Thanks for asking TG, it's still very slow going, I'm working inside every free moment and making some progress, I seriously underestimated the amount of time I needed to put in so I may not start the outside garden area this spring.

Anyway we did use the inside space for our christmas meal, I've got the heating working and it's fully insulated and sealed so apart from the bare brick/block walls and dust it's useable.

I installed all the electrics and had the first fix approved by the Building Inspector just before christmas. I fitted the plasterboard over the christmas holiday,



I started plastering last weekend. I've never done it before so I'm practising on areas that will be tiled or hidden behind kitchen units:




My first couple of sections were lumpy, by the end of the weekend I think I might have got the hang of it. When it's dried out I'll paint it quickly to see what the finish is like, if its OK I might attempt areas that will be on show. Today I bought a 'Teach Yourself Plastering Course DVD' on ebay :lollol:, so I'll watch that a few times to try and improve my technique. Doing the ceilings is going to be tricky, my OH wants to video me doing it, she has visions of the plaster falling off on top of me, I suppose we might make £250 out of "You've Been Framed" if nothing else.

I'd like to get a professional in to do the plastering but can't afford it right now, so if my attempts are no good then it will put the whole thing on hold for a while.