Rip it Up

We've reached the much-anticipated November 28th - I say 'anticipated' because it's now week 16 and we expected the house to be finished and ready for flooring. The house isn't finished but John Lewis are doing the flooring and the date couldn't be altered, so today we put the house on lock down for a week and gave them the site managers' keys. Last night I dreamt they sent three fitters who all lit cigarettes in my house and blew the smoke into my face. I'm clearly living on the edge.

We're laying Amtico flooring downstairs and because the foundations are new, most of the floor has to be damp-proofed and re-screeded with a self-levelling compound before they can lay the planks. New concrete dries at a rate of about an inch a month, which means we have only four inches of dry concrete under the kitchen (if you think that's bad, go visit the Hoover Dam - it's still not quite set in the middle after all these decades). The damp-proofing adds £1,000 to the cost of the work but the alternative is to wait for the concrete to dry and there's no way I can live without a floor for that length of time.

I sort of dreaded this happening before the house was finished because it means you can't walk on the floors - trades can't come in to do their jobs, and neither can we. More to the point, the floor costs an arm and a leg. It's not designed for muddy boots or scratchy equipment. The man from John Lewis says we have to cover it up, good style.

We are now fully painted, with the exception of one window reveal (which has been repeatedly overlooked) and the glossing in the master bedroom, which is also inexplicably missing. We have no internal doors (well, we do have internal doors, they are just lying on the floor in packets) and though the glass hob has been replaced, it's been fitted in such a way that we can no longer close the top pan drawer. Each solution seems to bring a new problem.

The family bathroom has now been plumbed in, in fact the bath has been full of water since last Friday, which we think is designed to make the bath heavier and hence the sealant set firmer but we don't really know since the plumbers didn't mention it before they left. The ensuite is incomplete after the tiler once again miscalculated the number of tiles required (we need 32 extra....). We're really hoping the tiles turn up this week, but as they're coming from Spain, it's not as though we can go and get them ourselves.

The Tyrolean render is complete and looks amazing. One of the broken windows for the porch has now been replaced but not the other. The bricks on the porch have come loose, the chimney needs pointing, the cowl replacing. The drains need connecting.

Today our patio and driveway people turned up to rip the ground apart, which is a joy to watch because the previous owner had a thin layer of tarmac poured over the top of her concrete drive and it broke up into grit which was then constantly trod into the house. The back of the property is causing a headache because it slopes upwards and westwards, which requires some sort of retaining wall to stop it all collapsing onto the new patio. Who will build the wall? What will it be made of? The house bricks aren't designed for that job. Terry the patio man doesn't know - he does patios and drives. I hope he does them well because I've been looking forward to this part of the job since we first bought the house. Watch this space.

Granite

The granite worktops were fitted last Friday. It's called 'Bianco Sardo' and the main thing about it is that it's not black. The man who fitted the granite said it's not a popular choice of colour because 'people are boring - they prefer black.' We had black granite in our last house and it drove me round the bend trying to get rid of the streaks. I'd like to bet that these people choosing black granite haven't tried to keep the bloody thing clean and do any actual cooking.

You'll see there's no cooking hob yet. We do have one, but it's sitting on the floor in a box because somewhere along the way it's been smashed and it's taped up and waiting to go back to the shop. We also have a huge breakfast bar, which is designed so I can seat the children without resorting to plastic table cloths for my nice table. I'm tired of sharing my dinner with seven shades of glitter and smears of mashed potato. Children are dirty little buggers. On reflection, I might just put a lock on the door.

Itchy

Another week, another 'scratch coat' for the rendered elevation. The house must be itchy as hell judging by the amount of scratching that's gone on in the last two weeks. Just as I think it's getting it's tyrolean finish, the plasterers bugger off.

We were away at the weekend - friend's 40th birthday - an unavoidable absence but one which led to all manner of small disasters such as the tiler setting off the burglar alarm early in the morning (a 'man' disaster - 'man made,' in this case by the man who fitted the alarm and decided to drop by and randomly set it while we were away. Dr B knew he'd set it but didn't bat an eyelid when I warned him somebody would set it off. That's man disasters for you).

The oak frame was finally fitted into the porch, but not before two panes of glass had been shattered and some oak beading lost for good measure. Still, it looks lovely, or I think it will when it's finished.

Today I pitched up after the school run, armed and dangerous in my paint-spattered old jeans, a look I've come to enjoy, especially when I have to nip to the shop or the bank and wonder whether people think I'm a real workie (I'm brilliant at wiping my painty hands on these jeans but ought to learn to smoke fags if I want to be taken seriously). There had been more minor disasters over the last few days - the quartz for the 'open vanity' had to be taken back to the granite company because the drain holes were too small for the taps, and thank God we have Urban on the case because Jimmy the driver picked them up early this morning and returned them fixed shortly afterwards (our builders had nothing to do with the ordering or cutting of the quartz - some builders would have told us to sort the bloody thing out ourselves and it's heavy stuff).

The problem with the quartz had set the tiler back three days. The en-suite bathroom ought to have been tiled by Sunday evening but the plumber hadn't hung those steel brackets so the tiler couldn't tile around them (the plumber looks exactly like Stephen Merchant. I keep expecting Ricky Gervais to turn up with a spanner). When the plumber came to hang them yesterday the problem with the tap holes was noticed. Today there were more problems when the tiler pitched up to finish the job and decided to leave because the plumber was fitting the sinks. 'There are pipes in the wrong place' said the tiler as I arrived at the house. 'I was here until seven o'clock Sunday evening fitting that bathroom floor and now it's got to come up.' He wasn't happy - two tiles had to come off the bathroom - one from the wall and one from the floor. We only had one spare wall tile.

'Can it be done without knackering the other tiles?' I asked. He looked doubtful. 'You don't look confident,' I said. 'Can you do it?'

'The plumber will have to do it. He's the one who screwed up.'

I've come to the conclusion that trades don't always like each other - not on a personal basis, but a sort of 'plumbers don't like tilers' sort of thing. Electricians don't seem to like plasterers either, which is hardly surprising when you consider how often they must come back and find their cables have been plastered over - I'm amazed more actual fights don't break out.

The plumber had his own story - the pipes had been positioned before the sanitary ware had arrived on site - a 'best guess' was all he could make, which does make you wonder why the tiling gets done before the second fix plumbing but there's my female brain up to it's old tricks again. Now I know my Harris fencing from my architraves, I might offer myself as co-ordination facilitator to Carl the Builder, though I suspect my hair would fall out with the stress of it all.

Anyway, the plumber did remove the tiles and it was all fine. And then there was the matter of the wall-hung basin, which was hung for a person of about 7 foot tall (which the plumber happens to be). 'Can it be lowered? I asked him. 'We're not all as tall as you - my kids could never reach that sink.'

'If you'd wanted a childrens' bathroom, you should have said.'

'It's a family bathroom. That implies children. It doesn't mean a childrens' bathroom.' Actually I wanted to punch him on the arm for the last comment but managed to contain myself.

The unit was duly lowered by the plumber's mates. 'Is that better?' they asked.

'Yes, that's great. Didn't you think it was too high?' I asked. They both nodded. 'We positioned it for the cabinet without realising the sink was so tall. We were sure it was in the wrong place so we thought we'd wait and see if you mentioned it before we fixed it properly to the wall.'

Childrens' bathroom indeed. It looks lovely by the way, or like everything else, 'it will when it's finished.'

Slap of Paint

'If you had a trade, what would it be?'

Dr B and I have been painting rooms together for the last three days, which is the most quality time (and conversation) we've had since August. Our conversations usually centre around measuring things and ordering things and worrying that something might not have been done. You might notice from the picture that those white rainwater gutters are on a road to nowhere - they drain right onto the site of the new driveway rather than into an actual drain - that's the sort of thing that's been keeping me awake at night and it's the sort of thing I notice and then start conversations about. I'm a renovation bore.

'I'd be a painter and decorator' I replied. 'Except I can't hang wallpaper and I don't like ceilings or gloss paint, so I'd be quite niche - I'd just paint walls. It's a quiet job so you can hear the radio.'

Dr B tells me he'd be a joiner because you get to see the project at the beginning and end stages of a job. Personally I'm happy for him to stay working in hospitals, where he doesn't come home covered in sawdust or plaster or gloss paint. Given the shenanigans when he took the radiators off, I don't think he'll be giving up his day job anytime soon.

We've been working alongide a team of professional decorators this week; they're painting one half of the house and we're doing the other. One of them is a bit 'slapdash' with his brush, which has been annoying me for days but came to something of a head this afternoon as I noticed he'd daubed white paint on the new kitchen units whilst walking past them to wash his brushes, and not a little splash but a bloody great dollop of the stuff. 'He's got cataracts,' explained Dr B as I was scrubbing at the unit with a damp cloth. 'He's waiting for an operation.'

'I don't think he can see,' I replied. 'His white paint is all over the place.' I decided not to mention it to his boss - he's a nice old guy who brings a flask and a newspaper and I'm a sucker for these 'salt of the earth' types. 'Can't you get him fixed a bit sooner - like tomorrow?.' Dr B thought not. I'll have to watch him like a hawk.

The house has been transformed in the last few days - incredible what a splash (quite literally) of white paint can do. Every room has now had at least one coat and six rooms are totally finished. The plasterers arrived with their scaffolding to begin rendering part of the front elevation - the brown layer in the photograph is the 'scratch coat,' (more new terminology) and has to dry out before the proper render can be applied. Meanwhile the tilers have started work on the family bathroom, running short of tiles by the end of the first day and realising they'd miscalculated, which left us in a spin and saw Dr B hotfooting over to Altrincham, where the tile supplier happened to have some leftovers from a job tiling the science labs at Manchester University. Of course, this suggests that my bathroom has the air of a science laboratory. Not sure whether this is a compliment or not.

Paint

Beginning of week 15 and I finally have a few days off work. Will the joiner (who I am too polite to call 'Billy the Screw') has been chipping away at architraving (arcs) and skirting boards (skirts) and spent all of today constructing a new bannister for the staircase, which makes the place look more like a house than ever.

The curtain fabric arrived from John Lewis; it was such a heavy roll that I almost fell over trying to get it into my car but managed to get it to Linda the curtain lady in one piece, even remembering to rip open the wrapper on her doorstep and check they'd sent the right stuff. The old dresser has been collected by the french polisher, new bedstead delivered, cooker hood ventilated and the bifold doors have been replaced after the originals turned out to have been victims of an admin error (ie, not the right ones).

This morning I hit the painting after the school/nursery run, though it was 11am before I got around to opening the tin of 'Antique Cream' because there was the small matter of transporting one of the shower screens upstairs, which Will and our project manager managed by the skin of their teeth with about 10mm headspace to spare. And then there was the coving to paint and the industrial vacuum cleaner to receive, which needed a 'transformer' to reduce the power output and save me from frying myself quite by accident (I've tried it by the way - it makes a huge scary noise that leaves me shaking in the corner of the room but doesn't seem to have any more actual power than my own hoover at home).

Tonight we have one bedroom nearly painted and there's a man at the house fitting up a burglar alarm. Tomorrow more paint. And more paint after that.

Utility. For storing your crap.

The utility room is about twice the size of the first kitchen we ever owned. I jokingly said to Dr B that we'd be okay the next time we fitted a kitchen because we could use the utility as a temporary one, but I don't think he saw the funny side.

The best things about the utility room are the mop/brush/ironing board cupboard and the 'charging shelf', which is a shelf inside a cupboard and incorporates a double socket for the purposes of charging things up - you know, like your camera or your screwdriver. No more arguments about wires all over the place - those cupboards could save marriages in the modern, technological age.

The empty housing at the front of the first photo is supposed to house our washer and dryer. It looks narrow to me but the fitter assured me that all washing machines are the same width. You know me, I always need something to worry myself about.

Fitted Kitchen. Fitted.

It was with some trepidation that I watched the kitchen fitters unwrap the painted oak doors, since we had agonised for so long over the colour, as you know. It's only now the units are in I'm finally confident of that 'Elephant's Breath' and I'm pleased to say that it looks exactly like that 'putty' larder unit in Marks and Spencer.

The first photo shows the contrasting oak island unit which will house our hob, contrasting units being all the rage these days. You can also see the door to the utility room and the corner of the door to the playroom, partly obscured by that massive box containing a shower cubicle, which nobody seems to want to risk taking upstairs. Nothing works yet, of course and there are no worktops - the granite company are coming back with them next week.

The bottom picture shows the two ovens and the top of the dishwasher in it's cupboard. The oven on the right is also a microwave but as it's smaller than the single oven on the left, you have to buy a warming drawer to sit underneath it if you want them to look right sitting side by side. I have all sorts of fanciful ideas about warming plates and proving poppyseed bread but really I know it's just Seimens' way of makig a bit more money out of you.