Languishing in a winter wonderland

Picture postcard or what?
Nice to be in and settled, Sal came home on the 15th Dec and it has been covered in snow all that time.
We had our new settees delivered yesterday and was I glad to see the back of the old ones!!
We should have had the old TV on a cardboard box in the photo too!

The last post from Bahrain

Thought I would end with a picture of Sally and I visiting the Ahmed Al Fatah mosque,they have open days for non muslims to have a tour during the 'Eid' holiday. The women visitors have to don the abaya and scarf before entering and they have a changing room and a row of various sizes! If we had known this earlier we could have worn our own!!
I don't know when I will be updating this blog again so I hope you have enjoyed it, whoever you are.

More greetings from a hot country

The sun has gone in now so I thught I would do an update.
A few more pictures, one of our lovely solid wood washbasin stand made by Sally's dad and the stairs, now that they have been stained.
The colours in the rooms don't look good on the blog - so you will have to come and visit to see them.

Greetings from Bahrain

Well, I moved in on the 1st of Nov-with a lot of help from Di and Jim. My mum and dad came over 2 days later and helped me clear out the workshop and my log piles from the old house (we do keep a load of rubbish!) and Sally's parents popped in just before I headed off for the sun.
There are a few bits inside the house that need finishing and as you can see from the pic the entrance needs tarring (I left on Wed and they were coming on Thurs to put the final surface down)
I can't explain how fab it is to be in a warm, draught free house. We eventually have a land line and Sky+ and hopefully by the time I get home we will have the gear to set up broadband.
I am just waiting for the sun to come out and then heading for the roof to sit round the pool and get a tan.......

2 days to go

In a rush-the lovely Horse Chestnut is in, just needs oiling, as usual it looks better in the flesh.

Fab shed

Moving in 6 days time......no pressure.
Could be living in the shed!!

Outside painting nearly done

Look back to the post on the 8th of May for a comparison.

The shed

I'm almost as excited with the shed as I am with the rest of the house.
Look at the size of it.......!
7x3 metres of heaven.

I'm nearly in

Well my notice to quit my old house is in and I will be moved in by Sat 31st Oct.
The whole in the wall is where the chimney breast is going to be. Fab colour......
We nearly have power to all areas, the painters have finished upstairs, but still have to stain the stairs and finish oiling the doors, the plumber has started and will be finished by next Friday.
We don't have running water yet but all the pumps are in, again it all hangs on the plumber.
Our new address is:-
Barran Caltunn Cottage
Glencruitten
Oban
Argyll
PA34 4QB
Talk Talk assures me we will have a phone line by the 20th of this month, but of course we are in the hands of bl**dy BT Openreach so I am not banking on it.

Cracking on

Very busy at the moment, so just a quick update.
As you can see the stairs are in, we have power to some of the house, the interior doors are all hung, the plumber eventually comes back tomorrow to fit all the sanitary ware and the painters are cracking on.
I have given notice on the old house, so whatever happens I wll be out of here by the end of this month!

Which view do you prefer?

Give me green fields and cows any day!

This is one view from my flat in Bahrain, the building site next door makes ours seem insignificant in comparison!

The last month has been a bit frustrating over here, as school hasn't really got started. First it was delayed by a week, then we were ordered to stay closed after the holiday following the end of Ramadan. It's all 'precautionary measures' to prevent swine flu spreading. (Althought they prefer to call it H1N1 over here, can't think why!) We still have a week before we partially re-open. In the meantime staff still have to go in, so there is a lot of thumb twiddling going on!

And it's all the more frustrating as I know Sam is working like a trojan, dealing with all the building issues by herself. At least her ticket is booked for a very relaxing 2 weeks in the sun when it's all finished!

Nearly tea time

A brief taster of the kitchen, still no electricity but it should be soon.
I think the kitchen is gorgeous and when have you ever heard me get excited about a kitchen?

Sewage plant almost done.

Lots of digging activity, as you can see.
The drains are nearly done and the trench for the electricity cable is dug.
Kitchen is in and looks fab-must use Sallys camera though for inside shots, might even do a video......

Celebrity on site

As you can see the sewage plant arrived at 9am this morning, it was delivered by none other than Doddie Weir! (Scottish international rugby player for those of you not into sport).
I have been speaking to him on a few occasions but didn't think it could really be him - he is so tall I could hardly reach up to shake his hand!
He still looks as fit as when he was playing rugby, but has moved on to septic tanks now!

Tea anyone?

Well a bit premature I know.
Won't be long now.

Getting close now

As you can see the roughcasting is nearly done, scaffolding has been packed away and the hesh fencing will be coming down soon.
The flooring is down in all the rooms except the bathrooms. So hopefully the kitchen, the interior doors, skirting and facsias will be done by the middle of next week!
There could be trouble ahead with the drains though.........If you remember we hit rock with the foundations and we will no doubt hit rock again.

Floor down

Solid oak floor is laid in the living room!
My camera is great for outside shots but not so good inside-anyway trust me- it looks gorgeous!

Block work finished

Finally, we have had a few dry(ish) days and the outside stuff is getting done, so much so that we now have a skip on site to start tidying up.
Hopefully we are getting Ronnie (the man with a JCB) back to bury the amoured cable for the electricity, dig a hole for the sewage plant and find the BT cover plate.
We are all set to get the big switch on next Wed and I can send the generator back!

Cills and mullions revealed

As you can see the blockwork has started to creep up and the cills and mullions fitted to the back of the house. It hasn't exactly been good weather lately for brick work-just been pouring down for a couple of weeks.
More interior shots on the next post.....

We nearly have electrickery!

If you look very closely (or open photo in another programme) you can see the pole on the right is the source and the pole on the left belongs to us (together with 2 more out of sight).
You may just see they have strung some wire between the two of them.
Solid wood flooring arrives next week.......

Another taster

I have my back against the kitchen door frame, the stairs will be to my right and the front porch to my left.
This is the front room, which is 'L' shaped, Sal is standing where the wood burning stove is going to be. It looks smaller in the picture than it actually is!
The rooms have all changed in size (in our minds) as the house is getting built, the kitchen is much bigger than we imagined, as is the front room.

Plasterboard - done

Exactly 2 months since we had a slab of cement.
The 'first fix' is done, which means the whole of the interior is all plasterboarded out, the cables are all poking through where they should be and the pipework for the plumbing is all in the right place!
This shot is upstairs, looking from the main bedroom with the en suite on the right, then the hole where the stairs will come up, followed by the office/third bedroom at the end.
The Ames taping (of the joints in the plasterboard) and a lash of undercoat is next by the painter and at the same time the sparky is in putting in all the back boxes for all the power points/sockets.
Then it is all the flooring and then the kitchen to be fitted....Wow, that's enough for one post I think!

Roof finished and fond farewells.

Well that is the slating finished and doesn't it look fabulous. We had a meeting with the Electricity Board men today, finally they are starting soon, it has only taken over 4 months since we handed over a rather large cheque.
The telegraph poles are being delivered next week and they will be erected the following week. We are getting to the point where we can't get things done without power, such as the sewage plant and the water supply.
Sally is off to Bahrain in 10 days time so this is her saying goodbye to her parents as they are sailing to Ireland for a family wedding today and won't see her until she comes back for Xmas.

Roof nearly done

We were going to wait until all the slating had been finished, but certain members of the family are getting impatient because they are sick of seeing Duncan on the back roof.
So, as you can see he is a day off finishing and the utility end of the house has been painted white as well as the chimney pots and dormers.
The ceilings have been plastered, so now we just need the interior wall panels fitting and then there will be some inside photos.

Duncan the slater does his bit.

Chimney pots are on and the stacks have been rough casted before the slater started so that the concrete does not stain the lovely slates.
The dormer windows are back in at the front now the leadwork has been finished.
Most of the pipework and electric cabling has been done inside, so the interior panels can now be fitted to the upstairs and the plasterboard arrives next week.
We are getting there.

Guess who?

Does anyone recognise this vagrant?
Answers on a postcard please.........
I am open to bribes if this person doesn't want his identity revealing.

Lead work done

The plumber has been busy doing the leadwork round the chimneys, dormers and front porch. He has also got some of the guttering in place (a bit difficult to spot I think) The electrician has got wires hanging out all over the place inside.
Finally, the slater is starting on Monday! How exciting is all that?

Painting started.

I don't know if you can see the difference, but the soffits and fascias (the exposed wooden parts of the roof) have now been painted the same colour as the windows and doors-which really sets it off.
The red car is my mum and dads and mum is just visible!

Things are moving on

Blockwork is creeping up and up, this is the gable end by the utility room. The painter is hopefully going to do the fascias and soffits next week. Meanwhile the joiner, electrician and plumber are all starting next week too!

Cute kittens

Nothing much happening at the plot, so here is a picture of two most important additions to the build.
These two have my name on them and are living at the local cat rescue place and will be ready in 3 weeks, but will we be ready for them?

Wind and water tight

So here we are, 2 weeks after the picture of me sat on the concrete in the front room. We now have both front and back doors on and a set of keys to keep the window lickers away!!
Plumber, electrician and more block work to come.

Toilets R Us

I had to put this on.
I hope that every builder, rambler, dosser and nosey parker is using this toilet as it is costing £38 per week.

We have water again.

Thank goodness they can get on with the blockwork again. We also have all the velux windows in at the back of the house too. Cills and mullions are here and ready to be fitted. For those of you who don't know what they are (I didn't a year ago) you will have to wait and see.....

Dry as a bone

Velux windows are now in at the back of the house and one dormer window is in at the front.
The builders have used all the water in our 2500 ltr storage tank and it can't be filled easily without electricity and we are still waiting for SSEB to get a grip on that....I have already done one run with 50 ltrs in jerry cans but that doesn't last them long.

Blockwork starts

How do you like our gorgeous windows and doors? Note the cat flap, all we need now is some kittens.

Another action packed week ahead.

The carpenter reckons it will be wind and water tight by Friday and by the way they are cracking on I believe them.

Still growing!

A different view for a change from the back of the house.

Nice wheels

Thought I would add a different perspective by putting my bike in the picture-just in case anyone was geting bored with this house building lark (we're not).

Getting bigger.

Great weather for building a house (very quickly). The weather is always like this
up in these parts - as you know.

2 working days later

What can I say....don't blink you might miss something.

Just sat sitting

Here I am sat in the living room......

Flat pack home

How difficult can it be to put this lot together?
We manage ok with Ikea stuff!
This is most of the kit being stored at a local haulage firm as it could not be transported straight to the plot as it would not go under two 13 ft bridges-so it has to be transferred onto smaller trucks.

Blockwork begins

It's great to go away for a week and see such a difference on returning!
We can now walk around the ground floor - it seems so small! Yet it seemed huge when it was just a trench.
They are due to start work on the kit this week, so keep watching...

Foundations afoot

I have never been so pleased to see the great British workman leaning on his shovel watching another one up to his knees in concrete!
Things are definitely on the move now, we are now waiting for the chippy to come back from his Croatian holiday and get cracked on next week.
Keep watching......

Foundations hit rock bottom

A lot has happened since the last post, but not as quickly as we want it to! The NHBC inspector was on holiday, so that delayed digging the foundations. They can't lay any concrete until he has seen them, and it's not good for them to be left for too long. So he came yesterday, but while they were digging them (the photo is the first dig!) they hit rock on one corner.

Now it's okay to build on rock, and it's okay to build on softer stuff, but it's not so good to have to bridge across the two. And so an engineer is required, to give his verdict on how the foundations should be laid. And they can't get an engineer out until Monday at the earliest. Can you see how frustrating it is?!

The kit is due to arrive next week, just as the joiner goes on holiday... But he's back on the 15th, and promises to put 4 people on the job so it should start to look like a house within days (or hours, but is that being too hopeful?!).

Elsewhere the water system is as installed as it can be at this stage. Our source is a natural spring about 50m from the house. This has been dug out and built up, and the water is then pumped up to a storage tank in the hill above. This will gravity-feed down to the house, where it will go through a filtration process to make it drinkable. Drinking water on tap, now there's a novelty!

...........and now it's gone!

Spot the difference!
Don't leave it too long before your next look, I can see a midsummer night's party happening.

Here we go..........

I know this blog has been very boring lately, but we have been stuck in 'red tape' regarding our Building Warrants.....But we now have approval and will be starting to knock the old cottage down soon and getting the foundations laid.
This picture could be the last one of the old place and is a front view.
Updates will be a lot more regular from now onwards.
We are sooooooo excited!!