Gone tomorrow...

Well that'll be that then! 

Guys were here at 8 as usual.  David has taken today and tomorrow off work and I am so glad he did.

Reminded the foreman, Johnny, that a friend wants to take whatever can be salvaged from the kitchen for her daughter.   

They set about dismantling the old kitchen just after 8.30am and by 1pm the fridge freezer was moved to the hall, the kitchen was all out (without any damage to the units and with the granite intact :-) the larder cupboard had been demolished, the bit of the ceiling that was lowered was gone, the tiles were off the wall behind the aga and they'd knocked the first part of the hole through to the garden room and inserted the acro props.   It's a bit unsettling knowing the upstairs of your house is resting on these props!

As ever, when taking old houses to bits, there were a few surprises.  Unexpected pipes and wires that need further investigating and the discovery that the wall they need to cut into to form the new kitchen door is actually sold brick and not the thermalite block they thought it was.  Hmmm....it's going to be even messier than we thought!

Alan thinks our makeshift kitchen in the hall is hilarious but he wasn't too chuffed with the noises coming from the kitchen.  Lots of drilling, sawing, cutting and hammering.  It sounded like a demented dental surgery at one point.  He ended up going out with Kirsten and getting a well overdue hair cut.  Yay :-)

David and I ensconced ourselves in the living room amongst all the plastic sheeting and drank coffee and ate homemade cookies.

Now that they've knocked through my sadness from last night has gone and excitement has taken its place.  I know they've been here for months, but today feels like the first day.  I suppose it is sort of, the first day of the final phase.

When the job started in May, this point seemed like a long way off.  It was daylight by 4.30am and didn't get dark till 10pm and autumn/winter/Christmas seemed a long way off.  Now we are here and Christmas is poking its head over the horizon and it feels good to know we are on the home straight (fingers crossed!) 

Our next progress meeting with the builder, architect and QS is this Friday.  It will be an interesting one as Johnny the foreman has pre-warned us there are a few little unexpected things that need looked at and decisions made, but he says they're not "life threatening" so hopefully simple (and cost effective) solutions can be found.

Internal access to the kitchen is now blocked off so to access the utility room to use the washing machine, we have to go out the front door, round the side of the house and in the back door.  As the step hasn't been formed yet at the new back door, there's a bit of a hole there, so David is in charge of taking the washing, putting it on and collecting it.  He's house trained though so it's not a problem :-)

We are so tired from sitting about doing nothing all day that we've decided it's fish suppers for tea.  Might even push the boat out and have a picked onion with it.  We're worth it ;-))

Happy Monday Peeps.  Missing days below if you are interested :-))

Friday
Saturday
Sunday  (and the before shot to this one ;-))