Zinc nearly finished

The zinc is nearly complete and the sun is surprisingly out so here are a couple of photos

Wet screed going down

An important deadline was hit today with the wet screed going down on the ground and basement.  We need to wait 2 months for it to dry so it was importatn to get it down as soon as possible. Thursday was spent pegging and taping down the pipes and sorting out heating after lots of scare stories about floating pipes and freezing weather breaking the screed.

Pipes all ready
Screed going in, has to be 20mm or more below the windo to leave space for tiling.

Final tamping down, looked really weird later when all the water sat on the surface, just like a swimming pool.

Windows in and underfloor heating going down

Glass in the windows so getting drier. All ground and basement pipes down ready for testing and screed on Friday.

A photo tour

Across the atrium to the kitchen	the view from the front door
Looking up from behind the kitchen	The view from the terrace

Scaffold gone off the back

The plan was for all the scaffold to go today but ......

Glass going in

How heavy is glass

We had hoped to fit some Windows before measuring for the big window, but as glass is being delayed we calculated the load and got 13 svelte builders to stand on the beam. The beach did move but only 1mm.

Glass !

Yesterday we got frames today the first pieces of glass.

Zinc Appearing

How many builders does it take to put up a chimney

Helen's ensuite

Needs a lock

Roof shape

With the boarding and gutter on Robert and our bedrooms you can now see the roof shape, it looks just like the models.

Sloping roof going on

First signs of a sloping roof going on over Helen bedroom.

Flat roof on

The flat roof over the centre of the house is nearly on foot the second time. All on last week but because of a problem with vents had to come off again much to everyone's frustration.

Window holes

First bits of roof

The first signs of a roof going on, the post and line are the sloping roof.

First bits of gardening

Richard transferred come bamboo from home and overnight the seed have come up in the lawn.
The last photo is ten days later.

Guess whose bedroom

Rear facade and Windows holes appear

Robert's bedroom Windows all in and the first signs of a roof pitch

Going up in the world

Got back from Wales to see the house going up in the world with first floor joists going in.

Steels

We came ask from Wales for the night to see the steels go in first thing Friday morning, a really great family day.

Busy onsite

Diggers back onsite filling all the soil back in and squashing it down aswell as brickies working on the side walls.

Last high level photo

As the rain has stopped we took the cover of our pile of soil. This is the view from the top which should be the last high level photo before filling back in. The ground floor layout is clear to see.

Richard at the front door

The house is starting to appear out of the ground and with the basement roof/terrace we are gettinhg the view.

Garden Taking Shape

Maybe garden is not quite the right description but the mounds have been flattened so it takes less imagination to believe it will one day be a garden.

Chicken heaven to be

The basement is starting to be hidden

More concrete

More concrete going in at the back of the basement.

Basement terrace taking shape.

With all the basement walls up we produced a design for the retaining walls for the basement terrace. It is frightening how thick walls need to get for 2.8 metres high.

Waterproofing again

A new type of waterproofing,  first you paint on the glue (richard) wait for it to go black then hang it like wallpaper. Then it gets messy with a gluppy putty to seal all the joints.

My life in a hole

I was working on the waterproofing when I wondered what the noise was, looked round the corner, inches from the bucket.  We have spent a lot of time in the bottom of the hole behind the basement walls worryning about every detail of the waterproofing. It is odd to think this will all be filled in behind a hopefully dry basement a distant memory.