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.

Thursday 29 July 2010

varnish, tiles and windowsills

This morning I arrived early to make sure the house was tidy (and to bring the thermos of hot water for coffees). I checked out yesterday's paintwork. It wasn't fantastic but we will do one more top coat after the kitchen has been installed. Later on during the day, we varnished the insides of the cupboards.
David did a lot of work yesterday and managed to get the utility room grouted in anticipation of the busier site today. He also finished the initial tiling in the downstairs bathroom ready for grouting today.

A bit later, the now familiar grey van arrived in our street; it was Ebi, his van loaded with exciting house materials. He settled in, creating his temporary workshop upstairs. Meanwhile, the floors were double and triple swept in anticipation of the levelling compound going down.
The tiler managed to finish the mosaic borders in the family bathroom, thankfully the extra mosaic tiles matched, a little bit of grouting and it will be done.
The downstairs bathroom was then grouted, ready for the next stage (showerwall and then maybe even sanitaryware!). David chose ivory grout which matches the tiles. The tiles don't look liken much in this photo but they are really smart and remind me of a hotel.
Amongst the many things Ebi managed to take in his van, are the windowsills. Here he's ensuring they fit and are level.
It was a long day but we are definitely making progress. We even managed to get rid of the plasterboard leftovers, and the skip is going to be picked up tomorrow. Just the pallets to go! I can imagine now that we may soon be able to transform the front of the site back into a driveway and garden.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for all the information here. It is really useful to know.

    ReplyDelete