Getting ready for the builder

After years of dreaming, planning, researching and visiting suppliers work finally starts in four days on Monday 23 July. When our builder Ken confirmed the start date about three weeks ago we realised we still had a huge amount to do. Hence no blog for the past few weeks!

We’ve had two priorities. First clearing the garages and green house which will be knocked down to make way for the new extension. The red brick 1970s garages and the white framed greenhouse tacked on the back are a bit of an eyesore and we’ll be pleased to see them go. However, they have provided fantastic storage for many years and there’s been a lot to get through. I’m a real hoarder and find it difficult to get rid of anything. It’s doubly difficult when we don’t know yet what we’ll need in our newly configured home. So, although I have thrown some stuff out, it’s not much and we are storing everything else until I have more time to sift through things.

As the weather has been so dry one of the advantages has been using the garden as swing space. The greenhouse is now empty with only the tomato and aubergine plants left to move at the last minute. As it’s been so hot I’m sure they’ll be fine outside. That will probably be the cue for it to turn cold and start raining!

The second priority has been the early building decisions we have to make. We met up with Ken last week to go through the order of works. I was surprised that the site will probably be cleared and ready to start the foundations in a couple of days. Drainage and utilities will have to be run across our lawn as there’s nothing there at the moment. The base for the floor will be a couple of weeks, then the walls and they’ll get to the roof in about five weeks.

We’ve decided on concrete flooring with underfloor heating and sliding doors along the side of the extension looking out onto the garden – where the current greenhouse is. Ken needs to know what he has to lay underneath the concrete floor and to what depth. We also need the precise measurements of the track for the sliding doors so this can be blocked out when the concrete is poured. We want the floor inside to extend outside for a metre and the door track to be set into the floor so it’s all on one level. This needs to be spot on to work. With these questions ringing in our ears we headed off to the Midlands to visit the company we propose using for the floor. Yet more decisions, what type of grey and finish do we want?!

It’s one thing looking in magazines for design ideas and creating mood boards, it’s quite different when you’re trying to pin down the actual product and supplier you want and booking it all in to fit with the build.

We’ve found exhibitions really useful, particularly the Listed Property Owners’ Club annual show. We joined the Club shortly after we bought our house and it has been invaluable with advice on what to do with a listed property. In addition to the show there’s a bi-monthly magazine and helpline which we have made good use of.

The other exhibition which has given us some good ideas and helped us source a number of suppliers is the Homebuilding & Renovating Show run by the publishers of Homebuilding and Renovation Magazine. They hold eight shows a year across the country and we’ve found talking to the exhibitors the most useful thing for us. In Surrey a couple of weeks ago a kitchen supplier explained how important it was to plan in all the utilities now so everything is in the right place when we come to install our dream kitchen. It was obvious as soon as he explained it, we had thought we’d get to the kitchen once the extension was built and not for another three months. We suddenly realised we’d have to come up with the plan pretty quickly. So we’re now talking to kitchen designers and should have the plan in place by the time Ken needs decisions from us on where to put the pipes and ducts which will be part of building the base for the floor.

Another source of information we only discovered a couple of weeks ago from a friend is the National Self Build & Renovation Centre. This is a fixed site exhibition in Swindon just off junction 16 of the M4. It is open Tuesday to Sunday and is free to visit. In addition to numerous suppliers who have stands where you can request information there are two houses you can walk round – one a new build and one a 1920s house where you can see the various stages of renovation and follow progress with an audio guide. It was fascinating.

I won’t be providing audio updates but I will continue blogging. Next update after project day 1 on Monday.