January 2004

Well, who'd have thought that it would be 2004 and I would still be waffling on about the house. I bet you all thought it would be very finished by now - in fact you have probably given up following this website due to how long it is all taking (or not taking as the case is).

The first entry on this site was in October 2002 - goodness, how scary is that.

January got off to a fairly productive start. The roof trusses arrived and were put in place. The roof is fairly technical, the local council do not really like agreeing to a flat roof on an extension so we have gone for a double pitch. It will look lovely when it is done and obviously won't need the maintenance that a flat roof would but of course it is more difficult to actually put altogether!

The two pitches were separate trusses and they all had to be fixed together once in place. It was very very strange looking up and seeing them there.

January also saw the knocking through of the original wall upstairs. It was very strange to be able to stand outside the back door and look through straight up into our bedroom! I was quite surprised at how quickly the wall was knocked down. Of course, all the rubble that is knocked out is now on the front drive again. The wall that was removed was load bearing so acro props were put in upstairs to hold the A-frame up (ie the roof!) and downstairs the props were holding up the floor upstairs.

	Looking upstairs into what was originally Lauren's bedroom and also into our bedroom.
The acroprops upstairs holding the roof up and also you can see one downstairs holding the ceiling (and of course indirectly the roof).

The slating on the kitchen roof was also finished in January. We are very impressed with the finished look of the roof.

A pillar was constructed between the lounge and the dining room. This holds one of the dining room beams. It also has the door frame fixed to it.

The French doors have been getting a few coats of stain. This is a very time consuming job but well worth it as they are looking stunning. The kitchen is being used as a stain room!

January - a conclusion

January on the whole was a good month - builders were on site most of the time which was a great improvement after December. Alot was achieved and perhaps it feels like we are finally getting somewhere (deja vu - I'm sure I've said that before). Just before Christmas the general idea was that it would be finished by the middle of February - ha ha ha ha, mmm not likely.......