We have gas – well almost

Finally, after six months of negotiating and planning, our gas supplier Cadent arrived last week to dig up the road, our drive and, as it turned out, the village green to install our new gas supply. With metres of safety barriers and traffic lights on the only road through the village we are not the most popular people at the moment!

We did make sure we warned all our neighbours first so, thankfully, we are still on speaking terms. And at least they didn’t have to close the whole road which had been an option at one point.

The team were very considerate and kept checking in with us, particularly when they had to cut off our existing gas supply a day earlier than scheduled. They were concerned that we would be without gas until the new supply was connected. We knew this was going to happen and had planned for it although, as I know now, nothing goes to plan.

We had expected our new kitchen to be up and running long before the gas team arrived. We had disconnected our oven and microwave in the old kitchen ready to be moved and wired up which, along with the new gas hob in place ready for our plumber to connect the pipework, would have given us fully functioning cooking facilities. Neither has happened.

Our plumber has a dodgy knee so won’t be on site for a couple of weeks to make the final gas connection. Although installation of the new kitchen started at the end of April, and was only meant to take a few days, there was a problem with the liquid metal finish on the doors. We want them to look like an old metal cabinet we found in a salvage yard a few years ago which gave us the design theme and will be part of the finished kitchen. The sample they prepared was perfect but when it came to doing it at scale the intended speckles of rust turned into big blotches of orange. They agreed with us it didn’t look right and went away to work out a different approach. They came back last week to take the doors to finish them off in their workshop. No news yet as to when they’ll be back to complete the job and get our ovens in and up and running.

In the meantime all we have is one electric hot plate. We are managing to do all our cooking on that although the range of meals is turning out to be very limited. It’s a good thing we have a number of local pubs that do good food!

Although we’re heading into summer it is chilly with no gas central heating. At the moment the two warmest rooms are the bathrooms with electric underfloor heating. The infrared mirror panel in the old bathroom is working very well reassuring us that infrared panels are definitely the right long term solution for the old house. At the moment we’re resorting to using our log burner to keep the temperature up in the main living rooms along with the electric emersion for hot water.

Better news, the sliding door company finally came back to replace the two glass panels which had bowed. They now move more smoothly although they forgot to bring the trim to finish off between the frame and the concrete floor so yet more phone calls to try to get them back to do that. Hopefully this will be easier to organise as it won’t need six men to carry and fit which was the case with the glass panels. One thing we discovered from the guys as they were replacing the glass was how best to remove the remains of sticky tape and builders dirt – Zep Commercial Multi-Task Wipes which are not caustic and yet successfully tackle the grime. A very useful tip particularly as one of the features we wanted most is the feeling of seamless transition between the inside and outside.

One issue I hadn’t really thought about is how obvious all the weeds and overgrown shrubs now look in the garden. It’s been a building site for nearly a year now and needs urgent attention to get it back to looking half-way decent. With small windows in the old house it wasn’t so visible and you could avoid looking at the worst bits. No escape now with the whole side onto the garden a glass wall.

We have made all the design decisions on the utility room next to the kitchen. Although there is a door between the two rooms we do want it to complement the kitchen design as well as be it’s own space. We also wanted a more economical solution than the hand built approach in the kitchen so have gone for a local kitchen company recommended by our builder.

We’ve gone for pale blue painted doors, plain white carcases, a black granite worktop and a butler’s sink for all the big messy jobs. With the units ordered and the installation date in the diary it will be interesting to see which room is finished first – the kitchen or utility!

With the last main jobs the gas connection, kitchen and utility rooms our focus is moving to the finishing touches. All the internal doors are in and handles on so no danger now of accidently shutting ourselves into a cupboard and unable to get out.

M made use of the bank holiday weekend to replace the newspaper on the ensuite bathroom window with an opaque plastic film from a local DIY store. It gives us our privacy and looks just like frosted glass for a fraction of the cost.

We also need a cabinet for storage and headed off to a salvage fair at the weekend to see if we could find something. I found UK Fairs – a guide to fairs, auctions and centres throughout the UK – through a blog and as Knebworth is just down the road from us we thought we’d give it a go. Nothing was quite right but it gave us some ideas for both the house and garden and it was a nice day out.

We’re also getting quotes for shutters for the ensuite and bedroom windows and blinds for the sliding doors. One challenge with the size of the doors, 2.3m for each panel, is our options are limited. We do need blinds though to limit the sun during the day as it’s south facing and already warming up and that’s without any heating!

It’s hard to believe that I gave up full-time work a year ago to manage this project. I thought we’d be done by Christmas (last year!) and we’re now heading into month 11 with no clear end date in sight. We’ve never set ourselves a hard deadline so we have been quite relaxed about the delays. However, we do need the new build finished before 15 July when the next phase – restoration of the main living rooms in the old house – starts as we’ve been using these rooms for storage and swing space during the building work. They have to be cleared before the next set of builders arrive. The cliff hanger ‘Grand Designs’ moment approaches!