The back garden now looks like we are installing an Olympic size swimming pool....

Here we are at the end of Week 2 of our "little" renovation and what a week its been. Lot's of progress, running around, making decisions (I am guessing these are the easy ones 🤔), oh and the odd gas leak!

Bathrooms

Our week started with a trip to a local bathroom company to walk through the original bathroom layouts designed by our Architect and tweak the layouts where necessary to achieve the look and feel we want for each of the bathrooms. The bungalow currently has 5 bedrooms (4 doubles and a single) with 1.5 baths. We plan to reduce the number of bedrooms to 4 kings, all with their own bathroom. On the ground floor we will have the main master and a guest room and then another master and guest room upstairs. Our children are grown up and left home but that has not stopped them from already claiming the upstairs bedrooms as their own. We decided to go for two master bedrooms to future proof the property and allow us to have a choice of being either up or downstairs.

Below is a snap shot of the original bathroom designs (click the arrow to flip through). These will change slightly as we have now tweaked both masters, moving the bath and sinks around, and I think we will probably end up with a free standing bath in the downstairs master. The down stairs guest bathroom is a very generous size with a lovely big window letting in lots of light so we have not made any changes to this one. In the upstairs guest bathroom we will move the wall over by about a foot to allow us to increase the size of the shower. The bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs will have slopping ceilings so positioning of the everything will be even more important.

We will also have a downstairs guest toilet which is very generous in size. The plan is to do something fancy in here. I will keep you posted as I come up with idea's.

Garage

Much to the guys irritation the garage isn't quite down yet. The mains electricity connection is attached to the piece of wall that is still standing on the left hand side in the photo below. If you look closely you can also see the cable that connects it to the house. It appears that back in 1950 this was an accepted practice. We need Western Electrical Distribution to come and move it and much to all our frustration they are unable to come out for another 6 to 8 weeks. To rub salt in the wounds they also charge £940 for the pleasure of running 8 metres of cable in a ditch that will have already been dug by Paul and his team.

Lighting and Windows

We didn't visit site on Wednesday as we travelled up to Taunton to complete the Lighting Design with @lumination.co.uk and then stopped off at Exeter on the way back to visit one of the window companies @aspect-windows.com that have provided us with a quote.

Both visit's were really worthwhile. Thinking through and noting the positions and type of lighting on a drawing will really help the electrian and builders price up and then work through efficiently when we get to the point for first and second fix.

The windows are such an important part of the build and after the building work and roof the next most expensive item. So with this in mind we have collected several quotes and are now in the process of visiting each company so we can see, feel and test the quality and aesthetics of their products. On this first visit, it was so good to have the opportunity to see a set of large sliding doors. We will have two sets in our new design, one 6 metres wide and the other 4.8 metres so it was super to see the expanse of glass and light we will be able to achieve in our rooms. Another key part of our visit was to ensure the spec being priced was accurate and that the overall cost was still within our budget. The next thing to need our consideration will be how we manage privacy on these large expanses of glass. More to come on Lighting, windows and window coverings in future blogs.

What a difference a curved corner can make to a space!

This outcome really does demonstrate the benefits of us being able to visit site daily, particularly at this stage, when things are moving very quickly. The original conversation had nothing to do with the shape of this corner, it started over whether the existing gas pipe was all plastic, as seen, as it comes out of the house or does it change to metal, as seen, going up the old wall and in through the garden to the main connection on the road.

A little bit of digging revealed that the metal pipe was in fact empty and redundant. While standing, looking and discussing, it also became apparent that the wall was bowing and really needed to come down and be rebuilt. Ironically, just before this conversation, Tim and I had been having our daily walk around and had been saying how the gap between the wall and the house was a bit of a "pinch point". So, there it was, a perfect opportunity had presented itself, while the team were still digging the foundations for the retaining wall, we were able to make the decision there and then to take down the wall, removing the corner and in doing so, getting rid of the offending "pinch point".

Gas Leak!

Isn't it typical! If something is going to go wrong, it will always do so as the client walks around the corner, and that is exactly what happend the following day. We had planned to meet a Kitchen Designer on site Thursday morning and as we hadn't been to site the day before, we arrived a little earlier and headed straight to the new corner to admire the finished results. As we approached we could hear a pretty load hissing noise and then taking just a few steps further the strong smell of gas hit us!! The guys had accidentally hit the pipe while digging the foundations for the retaining wall. Paul, who I think I have mentioned before is our site "Chief", was spitting feathers, "this" he lamented "is the first gas pipe I have hit in 20+ years". Luckily for us, and as we are quickly learning, Paul is always prepared and was already running back with a clamp in hand, quickly sealing the leak until the Gas Board could be called to fix it later that day. Once the crisis was over, we had a good laugh, these things happen, every cloud has a silver lining, we now have piece of mind that the gas board has checked the pipe before we cover it back up.

Strip Out

Amongst all this, let's not forget all that has also been achieved inside the bungalow. This week has seen the ceilings and insulation come down, the pipes and other plumbing equipment removed including all the raidiators.

Well that's it for Week 2. Week 3, because of the weather, apparently it's going to be wet again, we will likely see much more activity happen inside the bungalow. Hopefully in the dry spots we will be able to get the wall back up between us and our neighbours. Meanwhile, Tim and I will be out in search of exterior and interior tiles amoungst other things. Until Week 3's blog, have a fabulous week.