Our New House–Completing the Garage Framework

I was expecting to see a dramatic change in the garage today, since our visit on Wednesday, and I was not disappointed. The whole of the studwork frame was up and work had begun on the roof structure.

Here is Paul working on the roof, attaching the roof timbers.

The garage timber frame complete. You can see various temporary braces which will be removed as the panels are added as these will provide extra rigidity.

My hubby’s man cave is massive!

Work on the garage has now ceased until next week when the panel materials will be delivered. It is now time for Paul to go all out on the en-suite bathroom. This job had to be abandoned a while back because attention had to be focused on completing the annexe in advance of the arrival of Mum’s furniture. It’s been like doing a jigsaw puzzle, juggling all the different jobs to fit in with the time frame and everything else that’s been going on.

Paul collected the shower tray for the en-suite bathroom today. This is the nearest I’m getting to an actual wetroom because it is not possible to lower the floor sufficiently for the drainage, but this large shower tray (the same as the one in the annexe bathroom) will cover virtually the whole floor in the further part of the bathroom which contains the shower and the loo.

Again, it has arrived with its startlingly bright blue protective film – I was really worried when I saw the one for the annexe as I thought Mum would really have preferred a white shower tray to a blue one!

Here is the floor being prepared to receive the tray. Last time we were at the house, Paul, had added the battens on the side of the joists to support the floor pieces, and here they are being inserted, levelling out the surface.

Finally, the shower tray installed.

A slight panic today when I realised that they had not brought any electrics in for my bathroom cabinet – Tim the electrician is going to have to come back to see to that. I had mentioned at the beginning that this cabinet had lights and a shaver point, but this had been overlooked. I am really glad I remembered to look to see whether Tim had done any wiring for it before the tiles went up!

Chris helped Paul with the installation of the shower tray, but he said there isn’t much he can do to help him now, because the space is so small that they’d be falling over each other. He will probably not be there on Monday – possibly Andy will not be there either, as he will only just have got back from holiday the previous day. Only a week to go from then until our moving day, so it will be all hands to the pump once Andy is back.

My job today was to clean out the cupboards in the annexe kitchen and begin to unpack Mum’s kitchen boxes and install her stuff. The silicone still had to be added around the worktops, and a loose piece of plinth needed fixing, which Chris was able to see to, and while he was doing this, I unpacked a couple more boxes upstairs and brought a few more things into my new ARTHaven, and then I set to work in Mum’s kitchen. Lots of dust everywhere and I washed out all the drawers and cupboards.

Mum had a dozen banana boxes of kitchen stuff and I thought it would never go in… However, once I started unpacking things, I could see that it would eventually all go in OK. I didn’t manage to complete the tidying away, but at least I’ve emptied all her boxes now. By the time Chris said it was time to go, I had pretty well run out of steam anyway, and the rest can be done on Monday.

Here is Chris cleaning the floor. After washing it down it looks a great deal better than before, and I told Chris that I’d got some special floor washing stuff that seals and shines it, so that should finish it nicely. Chris also put the lampshade up, that had been in what is now becoming the airing cupboard.

A very busy day for one and all today.

My hubby and I may go over on Saturday. He wants to paint the edges of the garden steps white, in an effort to save Mum from tripping on them, and I want to paint the rather inadequately-painted red lower walls of the entrance lobby. There is plenty of red paint left over from the front door and I think it would smarten it up, and continue the red theme as one enters the front door.

On the home front, when Chris dropped me home this afternoon, I see my hubby has cleared the final things out of our understairs cupboard. He has now come home and tells me he’s done quite a bit more besides. Yesterday he completed the removal of boxes and suitcases from the loft – mostly empty boxes that various things like printers and TV equipment had come in, that we’d kept ready for our next move. Of course, one gets rid of stuff over the years and forgets the boxes that are still in the loft, and getting them out was like walking through a history of our life in this house! Yesterday I took down some small wooden shelves from the upstairs loo, which are going in various places in the new house, and the curtain poles for the bed drapes in the spare bedroom – these metal poles will go in the annexe sitting room because one of the brackets for the old wooden pole has gone missing.

Mum had two electric kettles in her old house – one that wouldn’t switch on, and the other that wouldn’t switch off! We managed to persuade her to get rid of them both, and she was supposed to be having my kitchen kettle, as I no longer need it, with the instant boiling water tap in my new kitchen. However, a few weeks ago my kettle bit the dust and started fusing everything in the house, so that has also gone to the great kettle graveyard in the sky, and I’ve had to buy Mum a new one. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to find a simple, ordinary, traditional kettle suitable for a 92-year-old to whom a jug kettle would be like an alien species… Eventually I found a very nice Russell Hobbs one that looks like a cross between a conventional kettle and a jug kettle – it’s quite small (only 1 litre capacity) so won’t take up too much room in her small kitchen, and I think she’ll get to grips with it! Also, in the course of getting rid of lots of her stuff from the old house and putting the rest into storage, her ironing board seems to have gone missing so I’ve had to get her another one – this came today from Ebay.

My ongoing gripe with Parcel Force is set to come to an end tomorrow (although I have learnt with them never to count chickens or parcels till they hatch…) with the arrival of the utility room tap. All week they have consistently ignored my messages about which days I would be out, and have attempted to deliver the parcel on just such occasions, and then informing me I’d have to pick it up from the depot. I pointed out that it was their mistake, and there was no way we were taking a 50-mile round trip to Exeter when we’re about to move house and have more than enough to do, and they had better deliver it on Wednesday or else… Of course, no parcel yesterday. My hubby said they phoned today and said it would be delivered tomorrow. It had better be. Andy will be back next week and will need to crack on and finish the utility room, and can’t plumb in the sink without it. Andy’s hate-hate relationship with B&Q looks like Forever Friends compared with how I feel about Parcel Force at the moment!!