MOVING DATE

We have a moving date😀😀😀😀😍😍😍😍😍

On the 27th June Andy is moving home, 2 years and 10months exactly since he walked out to go to his operation. Whilst life is never going to be the same, it's changed beyond recognition in some senses and yet it's the same in other senses, we are looking forward to being reunited together and to working out family life together. 

17 - No more problems; hopefully!

As I write this blog I'm hoping to be able to declare that we are now problem free. Well, at least 'major problem' free. We now have concrete flooring down in the old part of the house and also we have the floor coverings down too - mostly😂

When the concrete was put in it was levelled off with the lounge but as it meets the extension it has to slope slightly but you can't slope laminate flooring so we've had to creatively think how to solve that one as the flooring in the bedroom and hallway is luxury vinyl. We are now waiting for the finishing touches, such as skirting boards to be put on, and the 'snagging' list to be looked at.

16 - Yet more problems!!😁😩😕

The builders have started the process of digging out the floorboards and making entry points into the new parts from the old parts but, as always it seems, there is another problem with unforeseen costs involved to us. Basically the flooring was wooden with space underneath before the concrete bottom and in the spaces were electrical wiring and pipes for the radiator. The mains water pipe sits obstructively in the new entrance between old and new. In short this needs dealing with before concrete can go in.

In some ways I'm frustrated and in other ways I feel a bit like "C'est la vie" we seem to be getting used to mishaps along the way. One of the builders remarked today about us having had one of the highest number of skips on a build such as ours!!

The old destroyed kitchen showing the various pipes and wires in amongst the rubble! 

15a - kitchen picture

The kitchen is now a little further along and a bit cluttered too!!

15 - Kitchen picture.

So, this is the kitchen starting to take shape. The gap where the clothes horse is situated is the

Gap that is too small, but big enough for a new cupboard that I've ordered.

14 - More problems, more solutions!

I wrote in earlier posts (12 & 8c) about knocking the back wall down and leaving a great big opening between the old house and new house which has now been done and looks fabulous. I'm so pleased with what it's done for that whole room. I will post pictures of it soon - promise!

As a result of some of the changes we've made as we've been going along, some necessary and some creative, it turned out the kitchen measurements weren't as accurate as they were when we ordered the kitchen, so as the kitchen fitters were measuring up they discovered that the units wouldn't all fit in, this isn't the fault of the kitchen store, more my fault or 'just how it goes'. Anyway, basically, we had a 400mm cupboard to fit in a gap of 370mm because pipe work I hadn't accounted for and plasterboard has taken 50mm of space it wasn't supposed too! The issue was resolved by buying a 300mm cupboard instead and finding a convenient space for the 400mm.

The kitchen is in the middle of being fitted now and it'll look amazing. I feel like I must be getting old as I'm looking forward to organising the kitchen and putting everything where I want it to go and then changing it a few times to find the perfect way - and then changing it again!!

The big thing now for Andy and I is choosing the colour..........

Pictures to follow.

13 - GOOD NEWS, FANTASTIC NEWS!!

So the good news is that we have enough money to go ahead with the more expensive option of completely concreting the floor in the old kitchen/diner. 

This means we don't have to worry in the long term about the floor and it being capable of taking Andy's wheelchair weight - phew!

Thankyou to everyone who donated, it really is much appreciated.

12 - BAD NEWS!

We've had some bad news as a result of starting the 'knocking through' process. The builders were pulling my washing machine out of its space in order to start building a pillar there when they looked at the flooring and it looked in a bad way. 

We investigated further by pulling up the Lino in the kitchen and found plywood stuck on top of the floorboards in squares, which the builder says doesn't look good, looked dodgy. Underneath these plywood squares the floor is a wooden floor (because of the age of the house) and it turns out these are rotten. The house was treated for woodworm years before we bought it and the builder couldn't say whether it was still active but the upshot is the floor needs replacing.

The builder has quoted for 2 options, one being to concrete completely or to concrete the worst area and treat and replace the other area but the costs of this are unexpected and not included in our plans so it will be quite a hit to us. The cost is anywhere between £3.5- £5k. It needs doing though as the floor isn't suitable to carry the heavy amount of people traffic that it will need to and it's also where we are knocking through to connect the bedroom to the main house and the very act of that will affect the rotten floorboards and cause problems anyway. We have no choice. 

As a result of this I'm asking; if you can help with any of these costs we hadn't known about that would be hugely appreciated, we can't bring Andy home until this is complete as it wouldn't be safe to him or the staff or the family to be walking/moving around a rotten floor. 

The fundraising page is www.gofundme.com/blaggy 

11 - underfloor heating.

So this shows our bedroom with underfloor heating in place with the next step to be putting screed on top and then concrete.

10 - Front door

This is the view of the front of the house, we now have glass in the front door and panels too so it matches the other front door. Please excuse the trash style at the front though, it's still a work in progress! 

9 - Internal pictures.

This is the view of the wet room and downstairs cloakroom beyond that.

This is the view of the kitchen with the utility room knocked down!

8c - The internals - structural engineer

And lastly I move on to something I didn't mention in 8a - a structural engineer. Now that the extension is almost weatherproof it has gone very dark in the extension but it has also gone very dark in the kitchen/diner. We now have to have lights on all the time so we can see and this got me thinking about this in the long term and I wasn't keen on what I was visualising, so I thought;
 'What if we take the back wall down as it'll let light through from the kitchen'

I mooted the idea with the parents and they also thought it a good idea and as there is nothing in the new kitchen against that wall we decided to speak to the builders to see what costs would be involved. To our surprise the cost isn't huge, certainly its manageable and less than we thought so my dad has now spoken to a structural engineer friend of his who is also coming round Monday to discuss this with me and the contractor too, but it looks likely we will take down the existing back wall of our house which will open up the whole downstairs pretty much. in affect we will be dual aspect front and back as we are also putting a door into the party wall of the lounge and kitchen. In affect we will have pretty much a completely new downstairs by the time its all done!

8b - The internals - plumbing.

The plumber will need me to make decisions on what type of toilet we want in the wet room and what type of hand basin is going in, he will also want my thoughts on where I want the manifold - to do with the underfloor heating- to go and the siting of the new boiler.
They also want us to ship out for a couple of days so they can take it all out and install it in one go thus lessening the affects on us. Except they want to do it during the weekdays, which will be a bit more interesting getting the kids to school on time!
It'll be exciting to have a new heating system in place though, one that might actually have some heating effect as our current one is over 15 years old!

8a - The internals - electrics

So the head contractor rings me up this week and asks my availability next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as he wants to discuss electrics and plumbing as the electrician is starting Tuesday and the plumber on Wednesday and he also wants to start the internal walls layout. I said that I was working all those days!! aghhhh.

So Monday afternoon, after work, I'm meeting with the electrician and head contractor to talk electrics. This is good,  as we are now moving towards the internal side of things taking place but its also scary because the decisions I make now affect the layout of our bedroom quite considerably.
"Why so?" I hear you ask, as it's only plug sockets and lights.
Well, Andy has a lot of equipment that needs to be plugged in either constantly or almost constantly and they require their own plug socket, this would include:

• Specialised air pressure mattress for the bed - to protect Andy's skin as he can't turn himself, it rolls air through the mattress which relieves the pressure on Andy's body
• Ventilator - supports Andy's breathing overnight allowing his body to rest more.
• Humidifier - warms the air pushed through the vent. 

These 3 are vital and need their own plug all the time, but then there is the:

• Overnight feed pump - Andy has a supplement overnight to ensure he's met his nutritional needs, it goes on in the small hours so it acts a breakfast replacement.
• Suction machine - is used to pull up secretions off Andy's chest when he is unable to cough it up and should remain fully charged at all times
• Nebuliser - Is used to loosen secretions on Andy's chest, Andy has a neb through the night so that would need its own plug to reduce staff disturbance. 

That's 6 items already and we haven't even discussed machinery such as the physio vest that is used daily to keep Andy's chest clear and cough assist machine which is used daily to force Andy to cough, thus helping to clear his chest. Also, something called a Niagara board, which is for massaging out Andy's hands and arms which help him keep the range of movement he has. I'm sure there's other things too that I'm forgetting but this doesn't include our own personal stuff such as charging phones or a radio/telly. Hmmmm.

7 - going on up!

On the left side of the picture you can see the joists and rafters and then on the right hand side, correspondingly, you can see the roof tiles in place!

6c - Taking shape

The inside view of the extension. The utility room is partially down, one reason for it not being knocked down properly was because it has a burglar alarm attached to the door so that had to be sorted so as not to cause issues with the rest of the system!
The joists and rafters are up completely apart from the gable end that is by the neighbours as they have to brick it first and then put those joists in. They are bricking from inside the extension rather than outside the extension because otherwise they would have to go into the neighbours property.

6b - Taking shape

Clockwise from top:

1) Front entrance with view of the joists and rafters
2 + 3) views of the back with outside skin and joists and rafters.

6a - Taking shape.

From top clockwise: 

1) View from the back garden - this wall will be our bedroom and the kitchen walls.

2) View to the front from the back - this will be our bedroom, wet room, w/c and a hallway.

3) View from the front - front door and w/c window (tricky to see as its hidden by black sheeting!)

4) View of the back with outside bricks on

5) View of the kitchen space.

5 - personal swimming pool

How much rain have we had lately!!! Crikey, it's been driving me nuts because it holds the building work up. Here is our own swimming pool, although it's not really very safe, haha.

I kinda like the irony of the tropical picture background and our wet swimming extension!!

4 - Damproof course and concrete!

As it says in the title!!!

3 - first lay of bricks

So this picture shows the shape of the extension with the first level of breeze blogs up. At this point of the build we still have our utility room up. it turned out that having the utility room up wasn't a big problem for the builders to work around until the rafters were being put in!
Nathan proudly showing me around it.

2 - The beginning of the build - foundations!

In this picture is the start of the build: digging trenches, putting in the concrete, laying the pipes for toilets and the shower and the layer of bricks before the damp course goes in.

This is the 2nd week of November 2015.

1 - The builders have arrived!

A friend of ours held a fundraising event in his coffeeshop in Cheltenham using the hashtag #letsgetandyhome and I thought it was brilliant, and I also thought, 'why didn't I think of that!'
So it inspired me to create a blog that is dedicated to the build under that name so this is why you and I are here on "lets get Andy home".

We live in a standard 1940's 3 bed semi detached house. We are fortunate to have a sizeable driveway that could fit 4 or 5 cars on and a good sized garden. This is where we are going to extend, on the side of the house wrapping around the back.

This is where you can keep up-to-date with it all.