Speaking of which, the reason we visited the house was because we were on our way to Ludlow to hand deliver the invoice to our other plasterer who now owes us back. When we got to Ludlow we bumped into a random stranger who asked if we were lost (we were doing a U-turn). I told him who I was after and he immediately asked me "does he owe you money?" How co-incidental, seems this isn't the first time the guy has pulled a trick like he did with us, oh well, four weeks and i can send a small claims court order to the nice man!
Mullins the plumbers have been doing an outstanding job. So far, in a week they have...
Plumbed the oil tank in
Installed the kitchen pipes
Installed an outside tap
Connected the blue water pipe from outside
Installed the upstairs bathroom bath, shower, basin and toilet
Installed the cloakroom toilet
Installed the boiler
Installed the utility room waste
And a whole host of other small little jobs. They are clean, conscientious, tidy, practical, polite and worth every penny so far! They also have some amazing tools!
I have been up there quite a bit recently to get work done to allow the trades to get their jobs done. I managed to paint a few walls with colour before the radiators were put on but a few bare plaster walls remain with nice shiny radiators affixed. The bathroom was completely painted before anything was fitted which is a bonus for us later and the cloakroom and utility were given their final coats of paint prior to anything being fitted. Unfortunately there are quite a few marks on the walls now, especially in the cramped cloakroom where a load pf plumbing was installed, but i'd rather touch a few small marks up than try and paint around a load of stuff.
Sam and I were up there the other night to get some tiles laid in order for the boiler to be installed on tiles. We we're pretty green when it came to floor tiles but with a bitumen paint layer followed by a latex screed layer we had a good base to go on. Sam applied a bond layer to the screed and we set about mixing the powdered quick set tile adhesive. It goes off quite quickly and we flapped around a bit just laying the first tile but we soon got back in to the swing of things and before long had a few down. We were also misled by a dodgy tile that seems to be a bit thinner than the others, or its neighbour is a bit thick, one or the other. This caused a minor panic but we soon realised that with a bit of grout they'll all be fine.
I went back the next night to get the rest of the cloakroom and utility done which was a tough job as i had to cut large notches out of two of the tiles where they went round a wall. All in all we are quite pleased with the tiles so far and we should make some good progress with the kitchen floor this weekend. We might even get to build some of the cabinets soon so that the plumbers can install the sinks and dishwasher, woo hoo!
On the outside more ground works have occurred. Our neighbours John and Jean who own the barn, and in fact who we bought then house from, have done quite a lot to their barn and the boundary with our house. They will be building a nice wall and fence along our driveway at a cost of £4,000 to them (phew). John also used his digger again to move a load of our hard standing material onto the track down to the fence so that number two has decent access for all the 16 tonne loads of stone that he is currently having delivered.
So, all in all a great deal has been done, at quite a pace. I even managed to dig two small trenches the other day and plant some Kimber bred french climbing and runner bean seeds. After all, we wouldn't want to be living there during bean season with none growing would we?
Onto some photos then...
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