Garage Conversion page 8

Day 9 – 3rd April 2018

We’re on day 9 and now there is more mess as the ceiling in the old kitchen comes down and they start ripping out the remainder of what kitchen units were left…

men at work….making a mess, I could watch them all day….fascinating!

…and its at this point we realise that trying to cook, clean and wash up it going to be difficult. Our ‘catering’ facilities have been removed quicker than we expected they would be!

Reverting to a microwave (I think it was in the living room at this point) and takeaways is going to be a common occurrence for the next few (quite a few) weeks.

…and would we have only the outside tap for fresh water, with the bath upstairs for washing up?

It didnt turn out as bad as we first thought by the end of the day (read on)

Brickwork to front

The brickwork where new the new window will be installed is being done by Carl, the builders have obtained a mix of different bricks to allow them to blend the new out brickwork to those that the house is made of already.

Incidentally we found out that the house (and the other 4 around us) were built with a special ‘one off’ batch of bricks which meant that there was no way of just ordering a new lot of bricks to a specific specification.

Nick did a cracking job of obtaining about 3 varieties, they are marginally larger than the originals but this isn’t really noticeable and the mixture of colours matches exactly what we already have.

So this is a view of the inside looking through from the front towards the back of the property, in essence looking through what was the garage towards the back garden.

The ceiling is down and new insulation put in place (there was none in between the ground and first floor beforehand).

The temporary kitchen we are left with

The pictures coming up show what we were left with at the end of day 9 – the 3rd April 2018…

A kitchen with a sink, dishwasher, washer/dryer, and oven connected electrically to the ceiling by a heavy gauge power supply and a hob!

We are truly blessed as this is much more than we thought we would have when the day started.

Here you can see the garage looking towards the front of the house, where the garage door used to be, in the second picture the old and new steel beams in place, now joined together (bracket on the hidden side).

Wife and no 1 daughter posing in the new temporary kitchen.

Day 10 – 4th April 2018

More general work on day 10…

Alfie the cat is now getting used to the builders…usually he runs a mile if there are any tradesmen in the house

Day 11 – 5th April 2018

Day 11 pictures showing a little more progress…less ‘big stuff’ is evident than previously

End of day 11 – The women in my life posing around a birthday cake made for Lucy (12 in a few days time).

Day 14 – 8th April 2018

The lintel that was put across the front of the old garage entrance meant a slight excavation of the driveway sets around the front and manhole cover. These were all put back as per the pictures below (again showing the way that the front of the house now looks at the end of each day too!)

Day 18 – 12th April 2018

This is a picture showing that the insulation has now been put into the ceiling of the old kitchen/old garage areas aka the new room. There was absolutely zero insulation between the ground and first floor before this was done.

Day 13 – 13th April 2018

A day we have been anxious to get to…the front becomes more homely and more importantly more secure…here comes the window!!!!

Further pictures showing the window in situ with Nick busy at work.

Carrying on inside is Dave the plumber who installs first the upright radiator (a good purchase at £159.93 when it was expected to be closer to £350!).

…underfloor heating manifold is now being installed by Dave and connected to the oil-fired boiler the other side (outside) of the wall.

Day 20 – 14th April 2018

Another day starts…and what a belter it is for April!

some further pictures of the interior on day 20 (14th April 2018)