Slow progress!

Progress this last week has been a little bit slow... and although the builders keep telling us they are nearly finished... it is still all a big unfinished mess!
We have now however made a few important decisions... boiler is to be scraped. As of today we will be central heating-less for a couple of weeks as our plumber will take the old boiler and pipes so that they don’t hold up the building work, but he doesn't have the time to install a new boiler until after Easter. Fortunately I'm planning a minibreak to tropical Sierra Leone, leaving poor Ant to freeze! Although that said the radio has just told me there will be snow! Yikes... guess we will be working our way through our log store!

We have also almost ordered a kitchen, and decided to attempt to fit the units ourselves, hopefully this wont be a disaster, and will somewhat offset the costs of our rather nice new oven... we realised in the process that living with Misty and his Rangemaster had spoiled us forever... nothing else would do! There shall be many feasts.

We now have (some) tiles on the roof

Old tiles, new Velux

New tiles... sort of finished brick work

Plaster boarded ceiling, last views of old old boiler

More plaster boarding

Ceiling skimmed by John... our legendary plasterer... slightly controversially we opted to use our own plasterer (much to the annoyance of the builders)... however John does a fantabulous job, and is hilarious at the same time. His rendition of MJ's Annie is something not to be missed... he loves to sing (LOTS), admire his own work... and motor cross. We love him!

Sun falling on tulips in our nice fireplace.
Ant and I have been together for 4 years... who would have thought 4 years have passed since Cambodge and the FCC.

Doors are in!

More progress! Doors are now in... and some insulation.. and some plasterboard. We are still pondering kitchens (wooden work surfaces or laminate - apparently, according to the Geer, as I am so clumsy I probably can't be trusted with expensive wooden surfaces so laminate may be the best... but mmm well wood does look very very nice), ovens (to rangemaster or not to rangemaster)... flooring... lighting... boilers (to take advantage of boiler scrapage scheme or not)... argh. My mind is like a DIY/Kitchen shop. I think we were supposed to decide a lot of this, this weekend, but we haven't really got that far!

From the outside... still a mess... still no roof... but it has potential!

Taking a break fro DIY up at the allotment. Have sourced some free wood from an allotting neighbour with a large supply. Plan is to use it to build a raspberry cage to protect our 6 new raspberry plants from savage birds.

Crocuses growing in the broken sink, salvaged from an abandoned allotment.
Its broken recycled-ness seems to fit in at the allotment where any thing that can be used in any way, is. Our "shed" (The Ginger Villa) is made of old doors... and our "water butt" is made of an old water tank. Our neighbour has a scarecrow made of bits of old bike... and a water harvesting device which includes a TV remote (random) and a long long sheet of salvaged corrugated iron.

So long mini people.
Hils and I say goodbye to the lovely Richardson's as they move to the Solomon Islands... very very far far away :o(
... but we do look forward to updates from the beach...

Knock through... 2

The house is a dustbowl... even after being hoovered with the uber powerful Meile... as I type I am chocking on nasty dust, and looking through a dusty haze at various bits of furniture, electrical items and veg from the vegi box... all covered in dust!
2nd wall is out tho, doors and windows boarded up until tomorrow when they should be fitted. Props still up whilst cement etc. hardens. Wires still dangling gloriously! Its quite exciting to see it all opened up. Photos don't really do the space justice!

Velux and beyond

what a mess

Knocked through...

Today the rest of the beams went in and the internal wall came down... 1 down and 1 to go - the exterior wall still needs to come down too so that the house and the extension are joined together.
The props remain until they redo the brickwork removed to put the beams in. Hopefully something will happen to the electrics too... lots of health and safety hazards to navigate!

Looking the other way

A hole in the roof

One beam in - propped up with metal props... and there is a hole in the roof!
House is now dusty and cold (central heating seems to be permanently disconnected too - although this was not something the builders mentioned)... and possibly wet if it rains!

new name...

Today I officially have a new name. This is somewhat exciting and somewhat strange. By happy coincidence my passport became full of exotic visas and I married a Geer at around the same time. I did want to stay a Telford forever, not particularly for any feminist reasons but more because I like my name very much, am quite attached to it really, and I am mostly known as telfy...
As a side note I also think it is much better than Geer - sorry Geer... but it is :O)

However, I can see there are some advantages to having the same name as ones husband, and seeing as Ant wont change his name I have now become Telford Geer (Lady)... which amuses me with its vaguely aristocratic undertones.
No hyphon between Telford and Geer so I can be either or depending on how I feel. How exciting!

Evidence attached... the photo is fairly horrific... I look like a washed out drug user... with the obligatory passport bird pecking the right side of my head. Nice.

15 March

Toilet resting by garden wall

Where once there was a toilet and a wall and a ceiling there is now a velux! How exciting...

Roof in utility area comes out...

Wires and heating pipes from the boiler all need to be untangled and hidden somehow... something our lovely builder did not budget for... which is annoying seeing as one would assume that with a boiler come heating pipes... and these are likely to go from boiler into rest of the house... and given the pipes went up into the ceiling one should have perhaps assumed they would then need moving when the ceiling was removed... we even gave him the opportunity to look in the loft space... hmmm. Displeasing. New roof installed in the extension. We will keep the ceilings vaulted so it shall be quite grand (well for a Victorian terrace)... perhaps we need a chandelier... darling...

View from the exterior. It is coming along!

Ellen pays a minibreak to London... from LA... en route to Kathmandu... via London and Belfast.

Jacob Zuma also paid a visit to Londres. Unlike Ellen he got flags.

Higledipigledy house

Q: The microwave lives in the...
A: The Lounge

Q: The kitchen cupboards live in the...
A: Office

Q: The new exterior doors live in the...
A: Kitchen

After a busy weekends work...

It's coming along now... roof is going on this week!

More progress... no rain this week... might even have a roof next week!

Brickwork commences...

Work on the extension slowly starts to take shape with some "conservation" approved bricks!