21st January 2018

Another productive week by John and his team. During this week they have managed to get the new flooring down in what will be the master bedroom and bathroom and get the stud walls in place for the bathroom, master bedroom and bedrooms 2 and 3. It really is starting to look a bit different now and it’s clear to see layouts and room sizes which are a lot better than I had in my mind. The new bathroom that is going to be upstairs and the master bedroom are a lot bigger than I thought they would be. Bedroom 2 is a reasonable size and bedroom 3 is the smallest but still enough room for a single bed, wardrobe and small cabinet.

Being able to walk everywhere upstairs without having to balance on beams makes a huge difference. John has also strengthened the ceiling rafters in the bedrooms with the studs and plans to beef them up a bit as there is a 30mm bow in them. He has rectified this but wants to add some extra support. He has also discovered a water leak from a rogue tile on the roof which he will sort next week. We uncovered loads of spare tiles when we chopped the garden down last year so one or two of them will come in handy.

So our task for this weekend was to make a start on the first fix wiring for upstairs. I know where the consumer unit is going to go so that’s where we started. I decided to put the upstairs lighting ring in first and that all went pretty smoothly. The hardest part really was crawling around on the roof rafters for getting the cable runs in. What was great was we decided the positions of the lights, it was down to us and we took the advice of Spock and put them all in the centres of the bedrooms. Spock’s thought on that are that they are ideal if people want to add a ceiling fan.

The upstairs sockets were a bit more challenging, not really difficult in any way, just awkward getting cables routed where we needed them. We are in a lovely position really as there are no ceilings on any level yet so the upstairs sockets were all wired from downstairs above what will eventually be the ceiling. The stop point for the day was to get the upstairs socket ring in and we did that although we didn’t leave until 6.30 by which time it was pitch black and baltic.

Sharon spent a lot of the day tidying up upstairs and helping me pulling cables and fetching and carrying whilst I was hanging from the roof etc..

We both left last night absolutely knackered, came home, had a bath, had tea and were in bed by 9.

We set off with good intentions this morning meeting Spock an Denise for breakfast at 8 with a view to going up for a couple of hours, Sharon to tidy the kitchen, me to get the upstairs light switching cable runs in place. However, it was so cold and we were both still a bit tired so we had breakfast, went up with Spock and Denise to show them how we were getting on, and then we came home. I’m working in Kent this week so have to go tonight and won’t be home till the end of the week so we thought bugger it. We have a few jobs to do at home today and then I’m off.

So it’s progressing nicely, and there’s plenty for us to do next weekend.Read more