Another week and the flat is now starting to take tangible form… Caine, David and Leroy worked their little butts off to haul, lift and fit the plasterboard into place. You can see pictures of Caine and Leroy in action on The Plaster Board set of photos to be found in the LINK section on the right hand side.
The plaster has nearly completed the living room, kitchen and bathroom… basically all the new walls that went up earlier this week have now been covered. It is now for David and I to prep the rest of the flat. This weekend we will be at the flat as much as possible, scoring, steaming and scrapping the wallpaper from the hallway and the two bedrooms. Although finding a great technique and removing more wallpaper than I thought was likely I have managed to scuff the skin off my little finger. Oh the woes of manual labour.
On a not about the flat note, I won tickets to a Mark Knopfler concert at the Royal Albert Hall and I managed to drag David along on Wednesday this week just gone. It was very good, he played Romeo & Juliet, Sultans of Swing, So Far Away, Calling Elvis, Money For Nothing and lots of note Dire Straits songs. It was a very enjoyable evening out - memories of driving to the Hunter Valley and looking at the countryside came flooding back. Dad you would have loved it, and probably fit in a little better as most of the audience was around your age. :o)
Anyway enough for now, I will update the picture set tomorrow as I am sure we can get some more pictures then. Do let me know how these updates are working out for you it would be lovely to hear from you all.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Before the Plaster Board
Day 25 of owning our new flat and we are now set to put the plasterboard walls up - with the Plasterer coming on Wednesday to start his work.
David and I spent most of Saturday removing the remainder of the rubbish from the second room. This involved bagging it up, maneuvering it into the lift, lugging it across the landing of the first floor to a balcony where we hauled it over the railing and into an ideally placed big metal wheelie bin and then back up again for more. Ben will know this only too well. But we manged to clear the whole room, including lifting the sick coloured carpet and scrapping off the perished rubber flooring which had turned to dust. I was covered in green dust, in my ears, nose and anywhere it could land, my glasses completely fogged, and all I could taste was foul perished rubber dust.
Home for a shower and sleep before getting straight back into it on Sunday morning. Thankfully today we had some more help - this time in the form of Suzi who, despite putting a whole in one side of the plaster board wall we had intended on keeping, was a fantastic little helper and a demon with a screw driver. Sunday was filled with the wonderfully fiddly job of removing the skirting board and dismantling the wardrobes. Find the screw - dig it out of years of paint build up and god knows what else, use all your mite to twist and turn it, until you have the very satisfying pleasure of having the damn thing out. The wardrobe in the main bedroom was particularly stubborn but, job done, just as the sun was setting... then it was off to the pub down the road (The Lighthouse) for a well deserved meal and a refreshing cider. Nice pub with good grub too.
The flat is now ready for the next stage - this is where it will start to look more like a flat and less like a building site.
Today I am trying something new by attaching a link to the new set of photos at the top of this blog bit. Just click on the heading. I have also attached them on the right hand side LINK section under 'Building Works'.
More updates to follow.
David and I spent most of Saturday removing the remainder of the rubbish from the second room. This involved bagging it up, maneuvering it into the lift, lugging it across the landing of the first floor to a balcony where we hauled it over the railing and into an ideally placed big metal wheelie bin and then back up again for more. Ben will know this only too well. But we manged to clear the whole room, including lifting the sick coloured carpet and scrapping off the perished rubber flooring which had turned to dust. I was covered in green dust, in my ears, nose and anywhere it could land, my glasses completely fogged, and all I could taste was foul perished rubber dust.
Home for a shower and sleep before getting straight back into it on Sunday morning. Thankfully today we had some more help - this time in the form of Suzi who, despite putting a whole in one side of the plaster board wall we had intended on keeping, was a fantastic little helper and a demon with a screw driver. Sunday was filled with the wonderfully fiddly job of removing the skirting board and dismantling the wardrobes. Find the screw - dig it out of years of paint build up and god knows what else, use all your mite to twist and turn it, until you have the very satisfying pleasure of having the damn thing out. The wardrobe in the main bedroom was particularly stubborn but, job done, just as the sun was setting... then it was off to the pub down the road (The Lighthouse) for a well deserved meal and a refreshing cider. Nice pub with good grub too.
The flat is now ready for the next stage - this is where it will start to look more like a flat and less like a building site.
Today I am trying something new by attaching a link to the new set of photos at the top of this blog bit. Just click on the heading. I have also attached them on the right hand side LINK section under 'Building Works'.
More updates to follow.
Working on the flat
David and I have been working on the flat with help from the boys Caine (Builder), Stephen (Electrician) & Andrew (Plumber) not to mention our lovely friend Ben who kindly offered his valuable hands to lift rubbish - and believe me this was no mean feat as our whole second room was filled will one kind of building waste or another.
Its starting to take shape and looks less like a building site... walls have been knocked down and new ones put up - Caine has built us a masterpiece of a shower with Andrew slogging his guts out to get the new pipes in before flying off to Egypt for a holiday adventure.
David and I finished off the remainder of the rubbish removal today and Stephen started wiring up the new lighting for the bathroom, hall way and living room, through the false ceiling Caine put in... Ryan you would be very proud, we are having a false ceiling with down lights in the living room/kitchen and the bathroom.
I will up date this with more photos tomorrow as we stupidly didn't take our camera with us today... but it is in the bag to take tomorrow so more pictures will be had then.
Meanwhile, I know you all feel a bit out of touch at home as I understand it is not easy to relate to a building project when you have never seen it before. So I will try to update this as much as possible and take lots of pictures to keep you as best informed as I can.
I attach a map of the area where the house is in the LINKS section to the right - the flat is where the big red arrow is pointing.
Email me if you would like the exact address.
As you can see we are very close to Battersea Park which is just on the south side of the Thames - see the Battersea Park map in LINKS for perspective.
If you walk across the river you will end up in Chelsea, I will most likely do any high street shopping along the Kings Road and then if i walk a little further, down the famous fashion street Sloane Street - it will take me to Knightsbridge and altogether it will probably only take about 45 minutes to walk to work - this is a guess as i have not yet tried but only another 5 weeks of work on the house and we should be in.
For now, you should be able to find the pictures in the LINKS section called "The Flat" or there is a slide show at the bottom of this page which should link to my photos if you double click the picture.
Would love to hear any comments you might have. x
Its starting to take shape and looks less like a building site... walls have been knocked down and new ones put up - Caine has built us a masterpiece of a shower with Andrew slogging his guts out to get the new pipes in before flying off to Egypt for a holiday adventure.
David and I finished off the remainder of the rubbish removal today and Stephen started wiring up the new lighting for the bathroom, hall way and living room, through the false ceiling Caine put in... Ryan you would be very proud, we are having a false ceiling with down lights in the living room/kitchen and the bathroom.
I will up date this with more photos tomorrow as we stupidly didn't take our camera with us today... but it is in the bag to take tomorrow so more pictures will be had then.
Meanwhile, I know you all feel a bit out of touch at home as I understand it is not easy to relate to a building project when you have never seen it before. So I will try to update this as much as possible and take lots of pictures to keep you as best informed as I can.
I attach a map of the area where the house is in the LINKS section to the right - the flat is where the big red arrow is pointing.
Email me if you would like the exact address.
As you can see we are very close to Battersea Park which is just on the south side of the Thames - see the Battersea Park map in LINKS for perspective.
If you walk across the river you will end up in Chelsea, I will most likely do any high street shopping along the Kings Road and then if i walk a little further, down the famous fashion street Sloane Street - it will take me to Knightsbridge and altogether it will probably only take about 45 minutes to walk to work - this is a guess as i have not yet tried but only another 5 weeks of work on the house and we should be in.
For now, you should be able to find the pictures in the LINKS section called "The Flat" or there is a slide show at the bottom of this page which should link to my photos if you double click the picture.
Would love to hear any comments you might have. x
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