All hail the end of week five of house renovations!
Our site manager Neil and his crew including the incredibly polite Taylor have worked their socks off again this week.
Focus has been on getting the steel bar supports in this week, two of which are now in situ, one more to go.
We were incredibly surprised and happy that Neil managed to remove the entire chimney breast in the old kitchen. We weren't expecting it to be possible, he really is a total star. Making more room for book and vinyl shelves, which you can never have too many of.
I cannot tell you how excited I was (there may have been a few tears) on Monday evening when we saw the brickwork for the extension. We have a room! OK, it doesn't have a floor, windows or a roof, but we have a room!
The electrician has been in this week and we have electrics now running through the ceilings for the down lighters and he has made a start on cables for sockets. Having lived for 26 years in a house with not nearly enough socket space it will be fantastic to have as many as we want. He is also adding charging and data points, which is totally Star Trek.
After much discussion with the crew and the electrician it was also decided to install an outside light for the garden. The main purpose so that we can see Eric in the garden in the dark, and his poop. We welcome the installation of an Eric Poop Security Light.
And talking of Eric, we were worried how he would deal with people in his house because he is incredibly anti social. The first few days he barked at every noise. But we took him down to meet the crew and made sure he saw them a few times each day. The barking has now decreased incredibly, he still barks if he hears them outside the front and barks to welcome them first thing in the morning. Other than that he ignores all the banging and crashing. And he loves to go see them, particularly Taylor. Although that may have a lot to do with Taylor discovering the tin of dog biscuits...
We were as prepared and organised as we could be before the start. And things have worked out quite well. We are working from our bedroom, which is a bit cramped with both desks and computers in, but it isn't too bad and Eric loves sleeping all day on the bed. We have a tiny makeshift kitchen in the spare room, with a kettle, fridge, toaster and microwave - among all the boxes stacked from floor to ceiling with all the kitchen and dining room wares. But it has worked remarkably well.
The crew clean up at the end of every day, they even vacuum the hall carpet, which makes me smile as half of it is missing and just floor boards. They make sure everything is as tidy and out of the way as possible. I will be honest, a house renovation isn't an ideal situation to be living in the middle of, but they have made it as bearable as it could be. We are extremely grateful to have such an incredible building crew.
Roll on week six...
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