They are taking down the defunct chimney as I type (9am)... hammering and drilling out the bricks and chucking them down, clanging against the scaffolding tower, crashing to the ground, flying in a loose arc over the half-dozen cups stacked on a pile of bricks after the first 'arriving on site' coffee-tea run at 7.30am. They like starting early, and clocking off around 4pm, which suits us too.
Thank heaven for the sound-proofing qualities of double glazing, I say. And also thank heavens that our 90-year-old neighbours are both a bit deaf now. It won't go on for ever; they are only taking down the lower part, as far as the bedroom windows. I took this picture at close of play yesterday.
At the bottom is the retaining wall for the patio, which is at a higher level than the ground. There will be two broad, shallow steps down to the right - the net wall, running out of shot to the right is the retaining wall for them. Further back is the wall for the extension, coming out around ten feet from the house and running most of the width. We stopped short of the boundary wall so that we didn't disturb our neighbour's property.
The roof, a mix of opening glass panels and solid panel, will slope down towards the garden from just below the bedroom windows, hence the chimney activity. When these houses were built, in the 1950s, most 'modern' houses had a coal stove in the kitchen for heating water, something like this;
 |
| https://www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-boiler.htm |
I can just remember one in the corner of the kitchen of my first childhood home. When we moved to a larger house in the 1960s my mother INSISTED on full, oil-fired central heating!
The other big task left before the actual extension is delivered, as far as I know, is moving the soil pipe. At the moment it just clips the corner of the back door frame, which will become the door from the old kitchen to the new kitchen. I can't remember exactly what they settled on; I have a feeling it is going to be directed towards the edge of the end wall and then boxed in.
The current French windows will be taken out and left as an open archway into the living room part of the extension. There will be very similar French windows opening onto the new patio.
The current kitchen will become a downstairs shower room/loo opening off a utility room
Well, that's the plan, the dream, the vision....
At the moment the hup! people (for that's the name of the company making the extension want to deliver everything on Monday... hmmm. There's a slight tension in the air....
......
Ring on the door bell... what now....
'I've come to deliver the glass for your roof?...eight panels?... about 1.5 m by 1 m?...'
What!!!!
Three telephone calls later, and he's driving back to wherever he came from, with the glass still loaded. He's at least a week early!
And so life continues...
Thump! Crash! Clang! Rrrrrrr!
We had an Ideal boiler in my childhood. I don't think the church put central heating in the Manse till the mid 1970s
ReplyDeleteThe Edwardian house we lived in as pupils at boarding school didn't have central heating, just a small gas fire mounted over the original coal fire. My first dormitory was in the original main bedroom, big enough for 5 narrow beds, each with a chest of drawers. We FROZE in Winter, in fact our face flannels froze overnight!
DeleteSounds as if everything is going to plan, we'll except the tried early delivery of glass. Focus on the end results rather than the mess today.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, the dream, the vision...
DeleteLuckily they are a great team of builders.
Id be spent managing a renovation.
ReplyDeleteI was last night... baled out of book club!
DeleteIt's good to see the progress. It's going to be lovely.
ReplyDeleteAt the dustiest, noisiest moments I hold tight to those thoughts!
DeleteOur old Edwardian house in London didn't have central heating just proper fire places in downstairs rooms which we used oh the mess! There were also blocked off fireplaces in three of the bedrooms. The box room didn't warrant a fire. We had supplementary oil filled radiators in the bedrooms. We moved down to the Sussex coast in 2000. It was a joy to have central heating after years of coal/log fires although I loved the sight and sound of flames and the smell too I don't miss the mess. Hang on in there it will be worth it all eventually. Regards Sue H
ReplyDeleteWe had an open log fire in our second, centrally heated house growing up. All my married life we've had just a gas fire in the living room until this house.
DeleteI'd love to have a real fire but am happy to settle for a real-effect fire!
I am so looking forward to the new living space. It's beginning to take shape.
I don't think that I could bear living in that amount of chaos. I think that I'd rather move house to somewhere it had already been done.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents had a coal stove in the kitchen up to the seventies, which had it's positives but was hard work, and my grandmother was insistent on going electric when they moved to the inherited house.
Their hot water, and that for my uncle who inherited the house, was from the back boiler behind the coal fire in the living room until around 2011. It would have driven me scatty!
I was reflecting that my parents went through this experience three times! Early 1960s, then twice in Cornwall 1970s and 1980s.... and all the time living in the same space. These were whole house alterations, not just a single storey rear extension which is tame by comparison.
DeleteIs Hup a German company/ I felt i had heard of them. It must seem as though you are up to your ears in work, taking down, putting up, but there will be a day when its finished and you can heave a sigh of relief!
ReplyDeleteI think you are thinking of Hofhaus which is German. I saw them on Grand Ideas. This is a company called hup! all lower case and with !
DeleteSigh of relief every evening when they clock off!
and this too shall pass!
ReplyDeleteI keep telling myself this!
DeleteIt sounds very chaotic but it really is getting done. If you can hang on a few more weeks it will all be worth it.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking to the future through a thick veil of dust and noise!
DeleteIt sounds like a lot of work. The results should be lovely though
ReplyDeleteI think this is going to ve the worst day, and we have survived!
Delete