Welcome to our blog.

This blog will follow the ultimate in home improvement: demolish and rebuild!

This is our starting point: a 1930s bungalow. While not a bad house; it is too small for us with three teenage children so what should we do? A full storey extension versus complete rebuild - ultimately the stronger eco-credentials and more certain finances of a new-build helped to guide our choice.

For a number of years we've been trying to find the right route for us to build an eco-friendly, low energy home. We tried various architects and building companies and have eventually settled with a German prefabricated build. The new house will be nearly to passivhaus standards (but not quite due to budget constraints). In any case, the house will be heavily insulated and airtight.

As a family, we have not built a house before so everything is new and exciting but the risk of making a mess of things is quite high!

This blog aims to outline the day to day steps involved in our build.

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Sanding madness and tiles

Our sanity was stretched this morning as the wood grain came up overnight on all the kitchen units that we had thought were ready for painting! I spent an hour tackling the sanding alone and went back to the rental house for strong coffee and biscuits. An hour later we all returned armed with our new purchase: a detail sander. I wish we'd bought this a few days ago! The sander made light work of task and we could quickly start on the painting and calm was restored.
Dave, the tiler, started to work on the downstairs bathroom floor. Fortunately, there weren't too many cut-outs...
...so he had time to do the utility room floor as well! It was very fiddly with all the gubbins in there. He's going to move the water softener a bit tomorrow so he can tile under it. I like these cheap and cheerful tiles; they should hide some of those muddy footprints.
It was a rather dull day today, the painting is brain-numbing and the early mornings aren't great for the children (or me) but we keep on going. I am longing to see the kitchen come together. If we take a step back and look at the bigger picture we are all very excited. Like my friend Martha says; it's like a jigsaw puzzle, you get the outsides done and you think you'll never finish the middle pieces. Then suddenly you are on the final stretch. One month to go until we move in.

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