Everybody needs good neighbours!

After a little while away from the site, due to the snow holding us back and the temperature being below 3°. The brick layers were back on site putting up the last few blocks. The windows look amazing with the detailing, a feature I believe it is called.

It is just amazing actually walking through the house and imagining where all the furniture will go.

A place for our car on bricks.

All four of us new Junction Road tenants had a little trip up there on Saturday, before Christmas shopping to have a little look round. We have found the perfect spot just down the side of Sabrina and Keiran’s place to put the Ford Cortina on bricks. We are really hoping our new neighbours will appreciate the plans for our new gardens. We know we are moving to a nicer area just not sure we have the etiquette for all that yet.


Next to come the roof!

Up stairs

So the brick work has been steaming ahead and I cannot believe for the first time the houses seem like real homes. We have electricity in and meters.



Has been a little cold over the past week and apparently you cannot lay bricks if it is less than 3° probably because the sand is frozen solid and the water. Les and the boys have been working really hard. We have upstairs and scaffolding. Apart from the weather and Nicolas fractured wrist not much seems to be holding the build back at the moment. So mum and Mark are off sunning themselves on their cruise while we freeze and wait for the temperature to pick up.

Autumn Shopping

A tree at the front of the site

 

It looks like autumn is here and things are getting wet and cold; which is no real issue for people who pop down to the building site once a week. I would hate to be a builder at this time of year getting wet and cold. The houses are really taking form with brick work actually going up around the outside.

We also have all the pipes and tubes and things that happen underground in. The drive has been covered in hardcore so is ready for a lovely new place to park our cars.

Soon to come the upper floor! So exciting! The joys of being a well brought up female are to send the boys up to the site and explain we need to work, at home and then spend the whole day browsing the internet for floor tiles and furniture. Looking at sites like NEXT and Laura Ashley. Just Nicola and Sabrina doing what mum taught us to do well.


We are wondering who is living in our houses already as we keep finding random objects. Last month we found a single brand new shoe. This week somebody left us their left over saturday night takeaway looks like they had a good night out. I won't tell you what other things we found!

 

Thinking about shopping

So the latest update. Things on site are still moving along a lot of underground work has gone on pipes, wires and other such things. We have taken down some of the hedge and trees on one side at the front of the site to run the pipes underneath.

The lads have been insulating our homes over the weekend. Hopefully this will be keeping us toasty warm next winter and saving us lots of money on the central heating. I am really looking forward to the laying of the under floor heating system and from the research I’ve done its eco-friendly and energy saving. So more money for shopping I think!


Talking about shopping, it seems to be all I can think about, but I keep getting told I cannot buy any furniture until we have a house to put it in. So I have been researching key essentials that will be needed before we move in. We are hoping to have pocket doors between the kitchen diner and lounge.


What is a pocket door? - A pocket door is a system of building a counter frame which is then integrated with stud wall construction, either timber or metal. The pocket door counter frame creates an envelope the same width as the finished wall for the door to slide into, thus hiding the door within the wall cavity.


So during my research project about pocket doors I found loads of nice pictures and expensive prices! Coming from a sci-fi loving family the best had to be Star Trek pocket doors the clip I found on You Tube which was great. Think we will be opting for the regular kind though that you push into the wall yourself.

MOVING ON UP!

Everybody has commenting on how quick things seem to be moving along after reading the blog.

Well nobody is more shocked about the progress of the building than us. We have been at work at week and dropped by this Friday evening to see how the block and brick are coming along.

The site now looks like two houses you can walk in the rooms. You can begin to think about where the furniture is going. In all it is really amazing. They told me the block work would go up quickly I didn't think they meant this quickly. It seemed like we were forever digging in the dirt and now we have houses.

Still lots to do with more drainage, sewage, water, gas and electricity all being connected. I wonder what everybody will make of these pictures!

I am really getting into this blogging lark to. Although I'm not the best writer in the world, I am thoroughly enjoying looking at the stats behind the blog. We have had 500 readers so far including 7 from America, 2 from Canada and 4 from Australia. Amazing really how interesting dirt, bricks and building can be. Perhaps it is just the site of us in tatty clothes and work boots that keeps drawing the readers in.

Floor in

There was no building work on site this weekend! The Wrights went away to Bournemouth. Mark and Les went to the Isle of Man.


 We popped by on Saturday to see our site and the floor is in. It is amazing how quick things are moving now.



The imaginary downstairs toilet



Its not behind

Sabrina and Keirans House

Busy, busy, busy! This weekend Stephen went down to the site to move hardcore around the brick work. We are nearly up to the floor level. Les the bricklayer has been working very hard. From now on its up, up, up! After we have put in the floor.

The current features of the houses include holes in the brick work well we have to have somewhere for our waste to flow. Not long now until the first poo will flow through those.

The Wright Place

Although the weather has not been great over the past few weeks and it is muddy and squelchy, its like wading through can’t remember what it reminds me of.


Mark has been saying he has gotten so wet the water was running down the back of his trousers where he has a gutter in his butt crack. This is useful as it might save us some money when it comes to buying pipes for the rain water from the roof.