Our New House–Plumbing

Over to the house early this morning, getting a lift with Chris and Paul, who both live in our village. They came to collect my new bath which has been sitting in the garage since it was delivered, and my hubby was getting a bit fed up with it taking up so much space!

This is my only post for today, because there is nothing new to report on my ARTHaven. We are waiting for the electrician to come next week.

The first thing I noticed on arrival was progress on the roof. The first of three photos shows the roof first thing in the morning…

At lunch time…

and late afternoon when we were leaving:

As you can see, great progress has been made in one day, and the tiling is now almost finished. The front is finished but they are not taking the scaffolding away till next week, apparently – perhaps they are waiting until the whole job is done.

You will notice on the first picture that there is a window over the back door. Although this does make more light in the back passageway/utility room, it looks a bit odd over the white door. In the second photo you can see that this has been replaced by a white panel which looks better, but the main purpose for this is so that the flue from the new boiler can exit here.

Still outside, some further work has been done to prepare for the new door into the annexe sitting room. They can’t complete the job until the door and window arrive.

Going inside, the first thing I noticed was that the new boiler is in!

Behind it, you can see the old door into the annexe kitchen has now been blocked off. The quickest access into the annexe for the moment is now through the airing cupboard!

This is a modern combi boiler which doesn’t require a hot water tank as it heats only the water that you use. It’s very compact – considerably smaller than the monster that’s been taken out! All the controls for the hot water and central heating, including the timer, are all on the front of the boiler. This is much simpler than the system we are used to at present.

Here is the blocked-off doorway from the annexe kitchen side – you can see that holes have been drilled through for the pipework.

Today I met Jamie, the plumber, for the first time. He is a real craftsman, like the others on the team (definitely meeting Andy’s “exacting standards”!) Here he is, soldering up some pipework.

You can see what a beautiful job he is making of it, on this picture which shows the pipework beneath the boiler.

The beginning of the flue from the boiler. This will eventually extend to the back door and exit through the new white panel above the door.

Here are some waste pipes being formed. They remind me of a screen saver I once had on the computer, called (wait for it…) pipes.

Here is Jamie connecting up the pipes in the annexe kitchen.

The next photo shows the pipes completed. He has done such a beautiful job. I complimented him on it, and remarked that I’d noticed that he had used his level to get them absolutely straight and parallel, even though they were all going to be hidden behind the plasterboard. I said this was a mark of real craftsmanship, and he said that he couldn’t bear to think of someone many years hence pulling away the plasterboard to replace the boiler, and turning away in disgust at shoddy workmanship! He wants them to say, “Look at this beautiful plumbing!” Like with the cathedral architects of old, when people centuries later climb up and examine the work closely, they are amazed, and touch the craftsmanship of history!

Going through into the main kitchen, all the cornices are now up on the units, and more or less everything is now in.

Much of Chris’s time this afternoon was spent drilling a hole through the wall into the chimney – a nasty, dusty, noisy job on a very hot day. The previous owner of the house had an cooker hood which just recycled the air through a filter, but since the original chimney of the kitchen is immediately behind that wall, we agreed that it would be a much more sensible solution to do a proper job and have it extracting to the outside.

Wait till you see what a beautiful extractor we are having!

The annexe bath has been removed since my last visit.

There will be a shower tray occupying the whole space left by the bath, so that if Mum becomes more infirm, there will be room for a carer to be in there with her.

This is the main bedroom, now temporarily converted into Paul’s workshop! This is all the equipment he needs to work on the en-suite bathroom. I am glad that I thought of closing the mirror doors the other day, to keep the dust out – I have already put some books and things in there.

The doorway into the en-suite bathroom has now been formed. Propped across is a piece of plasterboard in the bathroom.

Paul has started boarding up the bathroom. The doors on the landing no longer function, and the room is being lined with plasterboard in readiness for tiling.

There is a lot of stuff on the landing, including some strips of plastic, which Andy explained was arch bead, which he is demonstrating over the other bathroom door.

Here is Paul working in the bathroom – and this is my famous arch being made!! The floorboards are up in preparation for plumbing.

Before I had time to grab the camera, my bath was disappearing up the stairs! I could hardly ask them to wait for me, as it was heavy and unwieldy, so I just managed to catch it before it disappeared!

Here, Paul and Chris are unpacking the bath. They put it in my hubby’s study for the time being, and Paul needed to decide how it was to be placed in relation to the tap and the wall, once it eventually goes into the bathroom.

Now the fun began. Of course, as soon as the bath was unpacked, Andy had to get in!!

Of course, once he was in the bath, Paul decided he needed a wash! Grabbing the top end, this left Chris with the other end, and he said “I’m not washing those smelly feet”!!!

They eventually managed to get serious again (well, just a bit!), at least, enough to discuss the tap and where it should go in relation to the bath.

Being a very lazy person, I said I wanted the tap placed so that I could reach it with my foot while lying in the bath, so that I can add more hot water without having to sit up! Here I am testing it.

Finally, here’s me getting really comfy in my new bath!! Paul is measuring it, not me! It looks as if I’m getting measured for my coffin…

I am going over again on Friday, and by then, more progress will have been made on my lovely new bathroom (my “girlie bathroom” as my hubby calls it!) and before long, the bath will be in! Lovely to see it in the flesh for the first time today.

Andy gave me and Chris a lift back to the village, and for the first time I experienced Andy’s mad Greek driving!!! He said that the Italians are civilised drivers compared with the Greeks! It always takes us about half an hour between our village and the new house, but tonight we did it in 20 minutes!