And then the real work began...

On the 1st (ish) of November the builders began. After a slight delay to the start we were anxious for them to get started as we were under the impression that all the planned work would be compete by Christmas.


The first job was to knock down the chimney breast on the roof - (fyi we have no pictures of the roof changes as frankly it was too cold to go up there) they removed the chimney from the roof and from the second bedroom on the first floor.  The bedroom had quite a large chimney with built in wardrobes on either side that dominated the room and made it fairly tricky to come up with a decent place to fit a double bed. As we had spent our first 4/5 weeks living in this room with damp walls and peeling wall paper it was a relieve to see it change. We literally went to work with it in its usual state and came home to the picture on the left. Very exciting.


The second task was to take down the 'out-building'. For some reason I can't find a picture to illiterate this but essentially it was an oversized shed at the end of the patio garden. It took up 70% of the outside space, was only half tiled so not waterproof and generally didn't make any sense at all. This also came down very quickly and while generating an extreme amount of mess it was a telling sign of the space we had available to us.


As this came down two things became apparent. The first was that removing all of the rubbish, dirt and rubble from the house was going to be a complete pain. We are positioned on a pedestrian only road and although we are near to the main road - it is very different to just throwing everything into a skip outside the front door. The first saturday after the work began, myself mum, Dave and the builders spent a couple of hours walking the bags of rubbish and dirt from the house to the top of the road ready to be collected. It is fairly unbelievable the amount of rubbish that came from inside where we were living...and this was only the beginning! Secretly thought - it was good to feel a part of the bit changed and carrying big bits of wood up the road was surprisingly satisfying.


The second was that we were going to have to move ourselves completely out of the living rom as soon as possible. It was not going to work for us to be living downstairs while the work was taking place and this was never more apparent than when we came home to find a cement mixer and wheel barrow in the living room. We needed to relocate completely to the newly finished bedroom and this included all of the furniture. Soon we were surrounded by everything we owned that did not fit in the cellar including a large TV, desk, three chests of drawers and a desk....as well as everything else you would normally find in a bedroom. We are now living in one room, eating, sleeping, relaxing and revising (Dave) in about 4x5m!! I suppose...it is all part of the adventure!!