Mystery Tank

This bit of work was completed a while ago so I thought I'd share with you pictures of the Mystery Tank under our front garden.  It is MASSIVE!  (About 10 ft cubed.)  It pre-dates the 1951 house, and was full of soil and debris (old carpets, wheelbarrows, rolls of barbed wire, bits of pipe etc, etc decades of rubbish).  Sean's men had a heck of a job cleaning it out but it's now ready to be turned into a water storage unit for use in the new house, eg for toilet flushing (although Hannah's suggestion of creating a shark tank is far more imaginative!).  Adrian's idea of a mechanic's inspection pit (it will be underneath the new garage) was also tempting ...

Any other suggestions???

Awning upgrade

Now, I don't want anyone getting jealous, but we now have a HUGE Ebay bargain winter-proof awning  which we put up on Sunday, to replace the flimsy old one which came with the caravan.  It's the whole length of the caravan and doubles our available porch space - which now also houses the remainder of the kitchen units we will be re-using in the garage, plus the old gas cooker we have for sale, AND our dishwasher (not yet plumbed in, but it's tempting!).  Can you tell I'm excited?! 

Over the weekend Adrian (ably assisted by Emma until the dust got in her eyes) cleared up all of the ceiling rubble, involving six runs to the tip!  Even though this was hard work Adrian was pleased to have saved the cost of a skip!

 

On this last day of September today we woke up to a massive rain shower but everywhere in the awning is thankfully completely dry. Alan and Pat ploughed on in the rain, and then the sun came out beautifully for the rest of the day. On the local news we were told this is our first rain for 24 days, indeed nationally this September is apparently the driest since records began in 1909.  How lucky are we?

Adrian is in Japan again this week.  He's just been Skyping to check progress. I have had my first experience of negotiating with tradesmen, phoning up sawmills for quotes for soft wood.  I thought my queries were taking ages to get replies, and numerous chasing phone calls, but Alan tells me this is completely normal.  I was pleased to negotiate an improved delivery time by five days - as long as it turns up! 

I will finish this post with an updated picture of our toilet (still in use) - plenty of fresh air!!!

Roofless

Well, this is the end of Bridleways as we knew it - no more bungalow, no roof, no ceilings - it feels a bit sad to see the shell that was our home. 

Monday 22 Sept ...

 Thursday 25 Sept ...

 

 The exciting bit is obviously to come.  The SIPS wall panels are finally being constructed off-site - after Adrian's numerous corrections to the 'final' drawings - hopefully being delivered at the end of October.  But right now it feels a bit sad to see the wreckage.  Our house insurance company reassures me that we are still covered despite our current living arrangements (although I haven't had the heart to tell Adrian that our beautiful Garden Room is classed as an outhouse!).

 

In the meantime this week, Adrian has had an overnight work trip to Prague, ordered and collected an oak front door off Ebay from Essex, confirmed measurements and finalised our window order to be delivered in November, and numerous other decisions made on a daily basis.  I've mostly been busy doing mum stuff and part-time work stuff, plus researching gas meter moving and keeping in touch with the South Downs National Park planning office.  More photos soon ...

Week Six: Demolition Days

Alan and Pat's second week on the job and lots of rubble about!  A combination of tiles gradually being taken off the roof (some saved for use on the Garden Room); a chimney being demolished; half of the back wall being removed; the old toilet and bathroom being knocked into one room; and the old kitchen/hall doorway being knocked out to open up the new hallway ...

 

This will be our new kitchen

 

This will be the entrance hall

 

This will be the downstairs bathroom

(the washing machine is very helpfully plumbed in for the duration of the build)

One of Emma's friends came to play yesterday and, on seeing inside the half-demolished house, said: "I can't believe that was your old bedroom - what did you go and do that for?"  Emma's grumpy reply: "I didn't"!  Hopefully she'll come round, in time ...

Happy Campers

You will tell from my last post that we finally had to say goodbye to the old kitchen, so all meals are now prepared in the caravan - apart from the dinners which have so kindly been donated by some lovely, lovely friends taking pity on us.  Thanks to: The Kersleys for being the first to invite us round for a lovely dinner; Kate, for both a delicious shepherd's pie and chicken curry; The Coles for having us round for a yummy roast dinner (and letting the girls use your bath!); and our neighbour Pat who popped a blackberry and apple crumble (my favourite!) over the garden fence one evening!  We really are well equipped in our lovely van, but we'll never turn down the offer of a home-cooked meal with friends.  It's the washing up that proves trickiest in our tiny sink.  But I've devised a system to accommodate shifting everything round at various points of the day, due to the fact that one work surface is used for both the draining board, the kettle & toaster, and preparing packed lunches!

 You can see that the awning now contains our old fridge/freezer, much bigger than the tiny caravan one.  This makes planning meals much easier.  Still lots of sorting out to do though.  One day at a time.

 We've also had to abandon the old bathroom after the radiators were drained and the boiler failed to continue heating the hot water tank.  But, it has to be said, the caravan shower is much more than the trickle I feared and even washing hair is not too arduous, as long as you're not too slow and the warm water supply turns tepid.  Thankfully the hot water can replenish itself in less than 10 minutes, but we generally aim for no more than two people showering per morning/evening.  A bit of planning involved.  Thank goodness we can still use the house toilet when possible, but I've become quite adept at emptying the caravan one down the house drain (about every 3-4 days).  Nice.  New rule: you must tell a grown-up when the 'toilet full' light turns on!

It's lovely how the girls are really excited to be planning the design of their own new bedrooms.  I heard Emma recently turn the page of a Homebuilding magazine and exclaim: "Ooooo - cushions!" as something pretty took her fancy!

We Have Scaffolding!

Just three days after Findon builders Alan and Pat have started on our project, they have achieved more than Sean and his ground works crew managed in a whole month! 

We now have scaffolding, ready for the roof to come off;

the parquet flooring is up and stored ready to be reused;

the kitchen cupboards are all out, and moved to the Rectory garage to be reused in the new utility room; a new dining room window has been knocked out; the kitchen pantry has been demolished, to make way for the hallway staircase; two new doorways have been knocked through from the old kitchen/new hallway to the new kitchen/old lounge and dining room; the fireplace has been knocked out ready to be rebuilt as a recessed cooker; holes have been made in the outer wall for repositioned gas and electricity meters; two window openings have been enlarged on the inside, ready for bigger windows.  The list goes on .... !

Hannah started telling me today about something in our old house.  "Not our old house, but this one before we knocked it down"!  This is her first day at school last week, leaving the garden room.

 

In case you're wondering, No, Sean has not quite finished his tasks.  All the trenches, drains and soakaways are done but the main thing incomplete is cleaning out the unexpectedly HUGE concrete mystery tank under our front garden.  It is our intention to use it as rainwater harvesting storage, but it turns out to be at least 10 feet deep and 3m cubed (sorry to mix my measuring units!), and needs to be thoroughly cleaned and lined.  One poor man has spent hours at the bottom of this pit shovelling sludge into a bucket (their pump is apparently broken) while another poor guy at the top of the ladder pulls up bucket after bucket tipped into a huge black pile. It reminds me of the Magic Porridge Pot story, but hopefully the end is in sight. "Just a few more hours should do it.  We'll be back Monday."  Now, why don't I believe them???

 

And on that happy note, I'll sign off for today.  Maybe by the next time I write I might even have put away all the kitchen items which are currently cluttering up the caravan awning?

Back to School

The girls are doing a great job of finding new homes for all their belongings, and devising new routines for getting ready for school in a caravan.  Emma went back today into Year 5, Hannah starts Year 8 tomorrow. (Her last day of the holidays was spent poorly in bed with a streaming cold, poor thing).

You can see that Pickle is quite at home in his new environment. (I caught him licking a discarded packet of crisps in the builders' trailer in the front garden this evening - yuk!)

Weird question, but does anyone else measure the passing weeks by the number of loo rolls used by your family?  Well, maybe it's just me (!), but I can report that the groundworks builders (not turned up at all today, Sean unwell) have been with us well into the second loo roll - and that includes us on holiday for 2 1/2 weeks. 

Adrian returns from Japan tomorrow and will be most disappointed at the amount of mess everywhere and unfinished work.  I'm afraid I could hold my tongue no longer and told Sean his organisation of this project was farcical - woops!  He promises he'll be back tomorrow to 'finish things off' (heard that one before!).  I asked him, 'yes, but actually finished?'  At least we still owe him lots of money so he has good reason to complete the job.  Lovely bloke if you don't have a deadline, but a bit stressful if you do.

Storage

The groundworks still hasn't finished.  Grrrr.  Poor Sean has been taken ill with a throat infection but there are many hours of agreed work still to do that he just doesn't seem to calculate.  We've had to postpone the scaffolding due to be delivered tomorrow ready for Alan to start taking the roof off on Monday.  He's understandably not happy.  We just want Sean to finish and go away!

There are a few recent pictures I've been saving, starting with the first evening we returned from America ... the last night sleeping in the house ...

  This is Adrian's cleverly built canoe and ladder rack.

 This is our almost-full 100m2 storage unit in Worthing.

This is Hannah on her laptop in an emptied bedroom before Adrian managed to get the phone line/internet access up to the garden room.

The caravan awning is a welcome addition, housing shoe rack, laundry bins and - eventually - the fridge freezer, and kitchen equipment that can be outside!

Realised today when arriving at work that I still had my trousers rolled up above my ankles to avoid the mud ... bit embarrassing!

Did I mention that Adrian had finally put the cat flap in the garden room, reluctantly cutting a hole in his beautiful woodwork? Cat management is much easier now!

Mud and Rubble

The Groundworks Builders are STILL here ... a good week after they should have finished.  Adrian is in Japan for five days so I am in charge of making sure the long list of outstanding tasks is completed asap - before the scaffolding is delivered on Thursday.  The list includes: completing digging and laying drains; digging up tree stumps; finishing emptying the huge mystery underground tank in the front garden (to be used for rainwater harvesting), and connect it to pipes; level the ground where the extension patio is to go; smooth out a slope from the back garden to the driveway; remove all debris and litter ... TIDY UP!  Sean is ever so cheery - he "likes to be optimistic", but we've suggested he's a little more "realistic" with his time frames.

This groundworks delay has somewhat hampered my final emptying of the house contents - I just can't park my car in the driveway during daylight hours to load it up with all the remaining boxes ... many of which are too heavy for me to lift anyway.  And traipsing up and down the back garden with final boxes for the caravan and garden room is a muddy business. We have promised Alan - the next builder - that we will be completely out of the house by Monday, ready for him to take the roof off.  I fear some of Sean's "optimism" has rubbed off as I'm delusionally saying "it'll be fine", when in reality I know it is nigh on impossible! The girls go back to school on Thursday (Emma) and Friday (Hannah), but I am working on Wednesday and Friday so the available hours remaining for house clearance are pretty few.  What will be will be ...

This is what the place looks like at the moment ... a challenge for tidy control-freaks like Adrian and me, but only a taster of what is to come, I'm sure!