Holiday Pics!

We're on holiday! I'm sitting in the lounge of a hotel that has internet, so that I can access e-mails, etc. and find out what's happening on site (sad, really, I suppose, as I should be by the pool on a sun lounger, reading the latest Dan Brown novel, but instead, I'm agog to see the latest pictures Jon has sent, one or two of which I will attach to this post).

According to Jon, "Gary has reached the top of the second lift and the first floor steels have been fitted. Gary was meticulous in the positioning of the padstones, the concrete pads that the steels sit on. Where they normally allow a 10-20mm tolerance, they are actually close to millimetre perfect on both height and lateral position. This will result in a very flat structural first floor, which is not necessarily critical, as the level is always corrected in the screed, but it's better practice as it avoids shallow areas in the screed, which could potentially lead to cracking."

All the scaffolding has been lifted to within 750mm of first floor slab to avoid the fitters falling from a height. Osborne insisted that all the rooms were swept to allow for airbags to be inflated on the ground floor, to act as a fall arrest for the floor fitters.

Scaling the Dizzy Heights

I recently took a fellow interior designer friend around the site and under Jon's supervision, we scaled the scaffolding and walked around the property, looking down into the rooms. Both internal and external walls are going up fast now. By the time we get back from our summer holiday, no doubt we'll see a huge difference. The first floor will be in!

We've Turned A Corner!

The quoins (corners of the building that stand out from the rest of the brickwork) are going up. Gary, the head brickie, spent an afternoon of his spare time, drawing out the design of the quoins, to ensure that long bricks met with short bricks and vice versa, as you can see from the photograph.

Frame structures, showing where the windows will eventually go in, have been installed, so that brickwork can be erected around the framework, thus leaving the openings for the windows.

The fireplace in the hallway has posed an interesting dilemma. Because the house is on three storeys, we've been told by Osborne's technical architect that on no account can we have a gas/open fire. We've been advised that our only option is to go for a glass-fronted fireplace. I didn't like the sound of that and so Paul and I spoke to Yemisi, our architect, the borough council, and my main fireplace supplier, for confirmation. Whilst it is not illegal to install a gas fire, it would be inadvisable. A certain amount of time has to be allowed for anyone on the top floor to be able to vacate the house safely, in the event of a fire. So there is it. Jon, our Project Manager, called me to say that he had spoken to one of Osborne Developments' suppliers, Marble Hill Fireplaces, and that his contact there, Robert, had been extremely helpful and had convinced Jon that glass was the way to go - in an extremely stylish manner!

I called Marble Hill, got in the car and drove to Twickenham, to the company's showroom. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of the cheap, tacky, glass front I had envisaged, the fireplaces looked smart and very classy, at home both in a modern as well as a traditional surround. I left Robert, feeling that we wouldn't, after all, have to compromise on either looks or safety. Of course, these things come at a cost! (Well, there's a surprise!) Robert has since sent over a quote to Andy who, I understand, took a sharp intake of breath on reading the quote. I don't know what the costings are yet, but will obviously get my supplier to do a comparative quote.

There seems to be a building bug going around! My mate, Jane Blake, who has moved to the USA with her family, is doing a new build which looks amazing! Like me, she's keeping a blog of the process. Interesting how the film, Julie and Julia, has brought out the bloggers in all of us!

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a problem working out how to get photos properly positioned on the blog! And I don't know what half the buttons and gizmos are for. I will have to spend some time working it all out, but am so busy at the moment trying to keep clients happy, as well as involvement with our build.

Other friends, the Tates, just down the road in Wraysbury, are also building. They're roughly at the same stage as us at the moment and we've visited each other's sites to look at progress and swap stories.

We had an update meeting on Friday, just before Andy left to go on holiday. Stone sills are just going in now. The staircase design still needs to be finalised and Andy said he would get detailed drawings drawn up, so that we can get exact costings for the stone and balustrading.

I walked around the rooms with Paul, imagining the finished product. Funny how some days the space looks small and then other days it looks much larger! We were told this would happen.

We went over to a showhouse at the weekend, which is a little smaller than our build, but looked positively huge to us!

Rising Damp - I Don't Think So!

Concrete slabs now laid, with SVP's (soil vent pipes) and drain pipes in position.

Steve is taking no chances with the damp proofing course. The builders have put in 3 DPC's at different levels, which is great news for us. It's another indication of a good quality build.

Three steels have been erected, so we can now see how high the ground floor ceilings are going to be. The builders are also beginning to position the internal blockwork, delineating the layout of the rooms. The build is slowly starting to come alive!

Framework shows where the windows and doors will be and the bricks are laid around these, so that later on the actual windows and doors can be installed in these spaces.

Off To A Good Start!

Looks like it's going to be a good, solid build. Foundations are 1.8m deep. External brickwork will be 4" thick, with a 4" cavity and 6" thick internal block work. Engineering bricks are used in some areas, rather than concrete bricks, as they can take more load.

The Bricks

Our budget didn't allow for the brick we wanted. I drove to various parts of the country, looking at houses built in different bricks. In the end, I kept coming back to the one we'd liked all along. It's called Old Clamp Blend by the York Handmade Company and we'd driven past a house nearby early on and taken a great liking to it.

Not knowing what the brick was, I took a gamble and wrote a letter to the owner of the house, asking if they could tell me. It was the start of a friendship, borne out of mutual interests, which I hope will endure over time.

The owners couldn't have been more helpful. I was invited round, given a tour of their beautiful home, coffee and lots of information on the suppliers they used, as they had built the house themselves.

So, decision made. Over budget already, even before we start! However, Paul and I agreed that the exterior is as important as the interior - it's the first indication a person has, driving up to the house, of the quality of the build, so it has to be right. I can see I'm going to be my own worst client! Somewhere along the line, I will have to come in under budget on other choices, to get back on track.