The garage starts to take shape....

Week 10 has seen more progress on the Garage. The steel was carefully set up ready for the cement to be poured, completing the foundations for the garage and retaining walls.

In between cement and blocks arriving the steps and walls to the back parking area are getting done.

Just when I thought the week was going well, ahead with my blog and feeling pleased with myself - this happened!! My screen just froze, I quickly turned off the computer, praying when I switched it back on it would be fine. Unfortunately this was not to be, as this is what I got. On to good old google I went to find out how I could get this fixed. Thinking my nearest Apple shop would be in Exeter, it was such a pleasent surprise to find out that we had an approved Apple vendor just a few miles away from us in Newquay. Wasting no time at all,voff we went the same day. Unfortunately, (to be honest I wasn't surprised) it was very sick indeed, the main board had blown. Quite a few hundred pounds and what will be quite a few weeks now, due to coronovirus closing all unessential shops, until I get it back.

While Paul was laying out the blocks for the garage walls, Jim got busy knocking down one of the few remaining walls. This really starts to give us an idea how wonderfully open the kitchen/dining/family room will be. In the third picture, the corner with the small windows and door in it, is still to come down, which will open it up even further. Can't wait to see this room all clear. Once all the rubble has gone we will start to mark out where the kitchen will go and get an even better idea of the space we have to work with.

The blocks arrived and the garage walls are well underway. So nice to see something going back together, as it felt like we have been demolishing and digging forever.

Still amazed by the size and scale of the garage. The walls will be coming up above the edge of the hole, levelling the garden. Once this is finished though, you won't really know the garage is there from the house.

This week we finally ordered our doors and windows. Ours will be in matt black (the sliding doors in the photo below are in matt black), all aliminium, coastal proofed. The middle picture is the same as our back door. The third picture shows the sliding doors we are having. We will have a 4800m run in the kitchen/family room and a 6000m in the upstairs living room, 3 large doors in each run. In the large window's/doors we have also included solar powered integral blinds. Next step is the survey, but given what is going on in the world not sure when that will be now. Once the survey is done we pay a further 60% and they go into manufacture. The aliminium comes from Belgium but everything else is manufactured in the UK.

I must say that given how much we are spending on windows and doors the customer service from all the window companies that have quoted has been appalling. Even the company we have gone with has not been outstanding. If we were not on it, able to understand the quotes and confident enough to question information provided, there could have been some significant items missing down the road which would then result in surprise cost increases. Having said that, we have been up to their show room three times through this process and are very comfortable that the quality of manufacture, installation and longevity of warrenties were they best out of all those we have looked at.

The week ended with the corners of the garage being set out ready for the big build and concrete next week, fingers crossed.

That's it for this week, see you next time......