Confession time..!

Well I have to confess it's been 50 days since I last blogged!! Where on earth did that time go? 
I do have a plethora of excuses: The most recent of them was Man flu;(click the link for a giggle!) yes I was struck down by that terrible virus that usually only men get!!! seriously though it has been horrible and I have felt so incredibly frustrated to have had my work flow cut short as well as other appointments.

Another reason I couldn't blog was the internet - we use a dongle on Orange network and usually it's brilliant - I'm able to stream videos and surf to my heart's content but suddenly it has stopped working and we get an intermittent signal, I can use 3G on my phone but I can't blog from my phone. 
BT were supposed to install our telephone line on 4th Feb and guess what? they didn't and we are still waiting!! So "normal" internet (although i'm told round here it's not great) will hopefully be installed soon..



So onto the house progress:
Upstairs is nearly finished, it's almost all painted with only small areas of painting and woodwork to do. It's taken some doing and painting new plaster has been a challenge. I've had to dilute the paint for it's initial "piss coat" (a term I am informed is used in the trade as it's 'weak as piss'!!!) some rooms have had 4 coats. 

We opted to paint everywhere white, the look we want lends itself to that and it's clean. I have however chosen Cornforth white from Farrow & Ball to use in the hall stairs and landing - as this is such an enormous height I guess 
we won't repaint it easily in the near future unlike other normal height rooms.







We have skirting board and architrave pinned in place upstairs and are just waiting for the doors to be hung.

The family bathroom is tiled and fitted out and is only waiting for the shower door. The guest ensuite needs tiling but has toilet, sink and shower installed - in fact we have 2 working toilets in the house!
Our master bedroom ensuite needs tiling and a lot of work yet..

The dressing room space continues to excite me! I feel so lucky to have a great walk in wardrobe space and so we've decide to emphasise the 'secret' element and we are going to hang a mirror as a door.. watch this space


The stairs have been altered and now fit the space properly and we await balustrade spindles and handrails etc





Downstairs has been a hive of activity, Rob our electrician has finished putting sockets and switches in place ready and pandering to my every silly whim :-@




The underfloor heating has been put in - Richard and Paul spent 1 and 1/2 days wrestling with a giant reel of pipe, got in a massive tangle and sent the air blue in the process, but its done! 

The floor was screeded on Friday and Monday and the plasterers George, Mark, Darren, Tom and Dan left after doing a fantastic job!! So now the downstairs is ready for painting...







Outside the brickwork is finished and we are waiting for the cladding to arrive which should be this week - I have always joked with Paul the builder that once he's outside fitting the cladding it'll snow! I do hope not!

We went to Ikea and bought the kitchen early Feb which is being delivered tomorrow - we've gone for the hi gloss white. They relaunched their kitchen range the day we went (that was planned! Click this link to have a look) The drawers light up on opening and there are drawers within a drawer features as well as subtle details which make it a bit different. We've chosen all pan drawers mostly including the island. We hope to create more of a bespoke look on a budget and have bought nice Siemens and Neff appliances and we are having a 12mm quartz worktop so hopefully it'll have a WOW factor. 


Another reason for choosing white was based on the open plan living thing - although right now it looks an enormous space; by the time there are sofas, dining table etc it could potentially look quite full so we decided a white kitchen would 'recede' as such. Heres hoping...
We have bought hi gloss units in dark grey for the utility room with a walnut worktop - the dogs will sleep in here so white wouldn't be so practical. 

I've chosen (finally) sockets and switches, white for upstairs and brushed stainless steel for downstairs. We have some lights as you know but we are still working on the white downlights - because I want square and not round its proving to be a little difficult! 

And so that brings you up to date with our self build progress: we are still poor but loving it, exhausted but determined. 

My challenge this week is to finish painting and I'm also about to make a headboard wish me luck!! 

I can only promise to try and blog again soon...

Happy New Year!

A very blustery start to 2014! As we are currently living in the studio there's a tree above us that has been creaking and bending heavily in the high winds we're having at the moment!! I do go to sleep wondering if Im going to have to be rescued by firemen the next day ...oh no?! that was just a dream then...!!!

All is well with Maple Barn I'm happy to report. We are definitely not on schedule BUT through no fault of ours. We have found that in order to meet schedules it would take miracles! Hanging around for the building society and all the red tape that goes along with it, is where the time gets swallowed up - I would certainly say that if we did it again (never by the way!!) we'd need a lot more of a cash flow. We are 'paid' by the building society in arrears  so have to find the money to pay/buy things up front than it all gets paid off when the lump sum arrives - very tricky to say the least! 

We aren't starving yet though and had a thoroughly nice Christmas spent with my parents and our children. I must say rather selfishly that its nice to be able to concentrate again and not be distracted by all the Christmas paraphernalia. I did have a ceremonial burning of all the Christmas cards! But next year will be spectacular.....

Back to the house; we are well underway with all the plaster-boarding. Upstairs is nearly finished (probably today) and the plasterers are in tomorrow! That means in real terms that in a weeks time I could potentially start painting upstairs and bathrooms will get tiled and fitted out (oh god I am sooooo excited!!!!) Downstairs all the first fix plumbing is done and lighting plans underway: This is the tricky bit for me, I know exactly what I want but the cost is humungous so I'm working really hard to find cheaper equivalents; it's possible, just time consuming. For example I quite fancied a Moooi light for one of the bedrooms (really I didn't know they had changed the picture to a naked man holding the light..;-)click on the link!!) so its around £350.00 and I just looked on ebay and found a much cheaper version (and granted it isn't exactly the same) for £26.99!! bargain!

We have also been very inspired by our friends house who have been doing a Georgian house renovation in Alcester. They are furniture designers and have impeccable unattainable taste but they have been very clever with some of the things they've put in their house. Flooring from B&Q that looks every bit as good as Karndean/Amtico but is less than half the price! Guess what we'll be putting in the bathrooms? We spent New Year's eve and day with them and as we'd both moved out of our homes at the same time (Dec 2012 we lived opposite one another) it was a poignant New year! They had most certainly achieved their goal and it was nice to see familiar things like pictures and plates etc - sounds weird but I miss that stuff - I am looking forward to unpacking my belongings that I haven't seen now for over a year..

Anyway we have a new deadline (only moved it twice!) and we think realistically we will be in proper by Easter - we have to have a goal!

Heres another gorgeous Moooi chandelier, for the hall perhaps?...

I always say I'll blog again soon but life's so hectic so this time I'll try (honestly!) back soon!

Windows and High Winds!

Another couple of weeks has passed with such changeable weather - but on the whole we have been lucky. I think Paul has been wet through, nearly blown away and frozen solid all at once!

We have had an exciting two weeks as the windows have been fitted! Here is the first one to arrive. Its quite difficult to see in the photos as they are grey but once the scaffold comes down next week we'll get a much better view inside and out and we'll be able to open the doors. The funniest thing is the dogs have been used to running through the open space and suddenly they can't get anywhere!

 

We have all the first fix electrics in now and thought I'd give you a peek at our dining lights! They will be above the dining table, evenly spaced of course! They are Tom Dixon Beat Lights. I think they will look very cool - they have a gold/copper hammered finish on the inside and are hi gloss white on the outside.

All the velux windows are in and are producing a lovely light into the hallway..

One of the things I've noticed here is the beautiful sky - I'm not sure why as we did have sky at our last house!!! All my photographs seem to show amazing colour and cloud formation. Followed by fabulous sunsets

Across the Midlands on Thursday we had gale force winds up to 60 mile per hour! Paul decided it may be an idea to place a tarpaulin across the gable end to prevent any accidents :-/

The gable end window has been damaged and we are waiting to hear when this will go in? It's frustrating but it happens; this is where weeks can be lost and the build is set behind schedule...


The next stage in progress is the plaster boarding of the internal walls. It's finally looking like we have actual rooms and it's all coming together. I can finally visualise where furniture will be now. Lots of lovely roof angles and spaces..

The front door: We are having a painted front door to match the colour of the windows, I found this one (left) on a fabulous web site called Urban Front but they are in excess of £6000! Our good friends Richard and Dinah have a contact and we have had a similar one made 80% cheaper! (It doesn't have any side windows yet and so we'll have to build this in) I'm now looking for big chunky handles and a long door handle like the pic..

 
We had a real giggle last weekend at the local village quiz. We've made some nice friends here and have joined the choir (!!) and we are off to lots of organised do's over the next few weeks.

We invited our friends Melanie & David over and ended up coming last!! Obviously this was a tactical manoeuvre NOT!!! It was a bit of a surprise to find I'd been mentioned in the local newsletter ;-@. I like that we were excused for being in a tent - would we have done any better if we were in a caravan LOL! We have to make sure we do much better next year....

And so I'll sign off again and hope to blog about more exciting progress soon. One of the most commonly asked questions now is "when will you be in?" or "will you be in for Christmas?" The decision to not try and be in for Christmas was the best one we've made! The pressure just for a couple of days was too much and we now feel much happier working at an achievable pace with a plan to finish or at least be in by the end of January ... 

Ciao for now...Wendi xx 

What a week...

Phew, what a few weeks! ....

We've been working non stop this last week; Richard has been doing crazy ammounts of driving all over the country and getting up at stupid o'clock! 
I've been working with the electricians doing first fix - that was so much tougher than I'd imagined. Knowing where your furniture is going to be so you can work out the lamps, positioning beds for bedside sockets and lights switches and the whole time conforming to building regs.

I've had to map out the ceilings for spot lights working out where the light would work as task lighting or mood lighting, putting sockets and switches in the right places, thinking which way a door is opening... Phew!! 
We have ended up with 45 double plug sockets! Not counted the light switches yet! - now to choose what covers? Brushed stainless? White? Oh well more research....!

So apart from electricians on site we closed the road for the big sewer connection! 
The contractors came out on Tuesday and we managed  to bring the village to a halt whilst a skip was being removed from another street! But that was nothing compared with Wednesday..
 the contractor cut through a main electric cable in the road and cut off all the residents!! He actually blew a hole in his digger bucket and frankly is lucky to be alive.
Western Power responded very quickly and all was restored in an hour and a half. Only one irate neighbour  which all things considered wasn't bad!!





We've had a bit of a find - we have a secret room! sounds nuts I know and fairly hard to explain: The plans (see photo below) show ground floor connecting to the garage via the utility room and the upstairs plan only goes as far as the lounge therefore the utility room was either going to be vaulted or a floor put in thus making us a very nice dressing room! I must say I'm delighted!! Finally I have a place for all those shoes.. :-)

 

Our roof has progressed rapidly and we are thrilled with how it looks. Dreadnoughts rep (the company who make the clay tiles) came out and wants to photograph and put us in their advertising!

As you can see we've had some gorgeous but bitterly cold days 

 

And so finally and most excitingly (I know thats not a word!!)we've moved into the textile studio!!

We collected our furniture from our "temporary" storage at HB Group (friends Richard and Dinah's contract furniture company www.hbgroup.co.uk) 

We had earmarked a few key pieces last December when we moved out of our previous house; namely our bed, a wardrobe, a couple of desks, a few chairs - enough to set up a little home from home!

It is however taking a while to get everything connected - we have a fully function loo LUXURY!!! A functioning washing machine and dishwasher DOUBLE LUXURY!!! but as yet no working taps or shower.. we had to run the gauntlet this morning and shower in the caravan then run back up!!

I must say Sunday morning lie in; in a proper bed was fabulous!

I even managed to make a simple chicken roast dinner amongst the chaos in my new mini oven/rotisserie!! LOL! 

Hugo and Richard wrestling with "those" wardrobes!!

room with a view...

So much has happened will have to try and blog more frequently as its flying by now... did I say the stairs came today???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back as soon as I can muster the strength!

Wendi

xxx

Really Fast Progress...

Finally I'm able to do some more blogging - it's incredible where time flies off to? I honestly thought I would have so much time on my hands over this last few months but in fact its been the opposite! 

I guess when we are always 'counting down' to one event or another it possibly makes everything go faster? I don't know..!

Anyway - our house was "delivered" and the team started to erect on Monday 30th September; its now 38 days later and the roof tiles are going on! Amazing progress.

In this time we have had the electricity & the water connected, a feat in itself.

The studio has taken shape and I must say I am totally thrilled with it - its going to be an amazing space to work in. We are finishing the flooring this weekend and still have quite a way to go but at least its warm and weather proof. As you can see it took 4 guys to carry the bifold doors into position!!!

The house "kit" went up extremely fast initially with 2 guys on site: Rich and Kyle and joined later by Mick, Greg & Pete. They've done a fantastic job and we are extremely pleased with the product.

The funniest thing was a hidden room we didn't know about - sounds mad doesn't it? But the utility room is a connecting room to the garage and there's no bedrooms above that side of the house and nothing on the drawings so we discovered a space above the utility which has now been promoted to a walk-in wardrobe!!

Here's the first floor finished with a promise of good weather for the next day..

Second floor master bedroom walls go in - you can just see the size and shape of our bedroom window; it's enormous!!!

A double rainbow for luck?

The only hard hat on site is used to store nails and screws!!!

The Roof panels are on..

Oh and did I mention the mud??? This is what site has been looking like with all the rain we've had! Its been awful for Richard who has to go to work in a suit and shiny shoes and for the dogs who are permanently licking their paws :-(

The rear elevation with waterproof membrane and battening ready for tiles

 

We do have some very nosey

"neigh" bours...sorry couldn't resist!! These are the two horses from the paddock at the back of the garden

Now we have tiles on the roof - I am so chuffed as its looking fabulous and as I mentioned only 38 days ago we were looking at foundations

Roof close up! And the beautiful valley tiles - I couldn't resist the patterns here!

And so with the progress rate I will endeavour to come back soon with all the latest photos, keep looking and visit us if you can

Wendi x