Well, one week of the build in and so much seems to have happened. The morning our build started I actually found I had butterflies and driving home from work I felt really excited. In the space of a week we have gone from reasonable normality to having no sink or working toilet downstairs and the kitchen contents having moved to the dining room!
Initially the builders are focusing on building the rear single storey extension and new oak porch. Day one began with them removing the raised bed on the patio and large shrubs / brambles.
Day two and the front porch was dismantled to leave it like this:
Removal of the rear patio continued and large amounts of soil was dug up to create the space for the extension foundations. Lots of builders were on site and the children really loved watching the diggers and dumper truck whizzing past the living room window. Biggest topic of questions from them was about the Portaloo (and each time one of the builders went in there they would ask me if they were doing a poo or a wee!) 🙂
Day 4 and hardcore was put down where the extension floor will sit, we had a visit from the building inspector, a brick supplier arrived so we could chose the colour of bricks for the porch and the kitchen was part boarded up.
The kitchen needed to be part boarded to enable the builders to start work on dismantling one area of the kitchen where the sink and washing machine currently sat. This area will form part of the new extension. Our sink will be temporarily moved to enable us to wash up in the interim. Emptying out the larder cupboard and I’m realising how much useless Tupperware with non matching lids we have!
Day 4 ended with the 2 larders and coal store being dismantled, lots of banging and this space looked like this.
Friday morning and as week one came to a close the builders were up on the roof, beginning to dismantle the current structure.
Final day of week one and the kitchen and boiler cupboard roof are being taken off. When standing at the old sink, there is now nothing between you and the sky above. The footings are ready for concrete next week as will be the same for the porch. Decisions to make next week are on the window style and how these should open, there is a magnitude of ways a window can open. We also need to consider where the radiators will go, we’ve chosen anthracite chunky old school rads.
So that’s week one done! Looking forward to what next week brings (except for the 6:15am skip delivery) – we’ve really enjoyed this week, it’s been super exciting and we all love that we’re creating our dream home. Can’t wait for this lovely house to move forward and get the TLC it deserves. Oh and incase you’re wondering – we are still living in it!
If you want to keep up to date with day to day build activity you can follow along on my instagram stories, or say hi on Facebook! I’d love to hear from anyone else who might be going through a similar renovation.
That’s a lot of hard work, wow! Excited to see what the end result will be. Good luck!