Sanding the floor, glacier style

One of our friends had offered to sand the concrete as it is a bubbly and wavy mess, with lots of cracks, holes and raised pebbles. Not quite up to date to current conrete casting tbh (far from it). He does this for a boss, but wasn't scheduled to work today so he passed by to help us out.
Our contractor scoffed at the idea, didn't think it would be easy at all to sand the concrete, but he did not take into account the industrial model sander our friend brought with him (it didn't look like much, but the sander had some serious big cutter teeth discs)

Like a glacier went over a rock bed, excellent, he really knows his job well. I need to bring up a large level tomorrow and go over the floor and see which areas need levelling before we can put down the flooring.

We stripped back the old stairsway up to the attic.....removed all the bits of carpet, and about 5 kilos of staples, nails and dirt. Will be sanded tomorrow.

Slow but steady, we are getting there.

I have the power! (sort of)

We had the electrician visit us today and all the sockets and switches have now been fitted. 1 UTP port was extremely annoying and had both of us scratching our heads trying to sort out the error code we kept getting for a good 30 minutes of fitting and refitting the socket. And then it just worked...all hail the Omnissah?

We should be able to put in the floor in the weekend of 1-2nd, maybe even get the desk upstairs, maaaaybe I can get the computer and assorted equipment set up....but I'm not pushing my luck.

And now we will look at some shocking socket pics.

And the electrical sunscreen/anti theft thingamajig is now operational as well.

Meanwhile.....I've started a 10 week pain management course to see if I can raise my energy levels. Can't say too much about it, but it is a group of 40-60 year olds that have the same issues as I do. Very tiring though.....

The end is nigh....part 2 :)

Plaster is done, doors are done, most of the work on the stairs is done. Now everything has to dry before we can continue. The weather is ok for the coming time (well, a bit much for early January, I'm seeing flowers and trees starting to blossom) so it should dry quick enough....I hope.

Plastered

After several delays the guys pulled a 14 hour day (and they weren't happy with that, words were exchanged), but the result shows.

 But when people get tired they make mistakes....(to be fair... they had been instructed to remove the door before plastering, then didn't).
.

Tomorrow they will be back to cross the t's and dot the i's (and fix the hole).

Currently no idea when the electrical work will be done, or when the walls are fully dry. We are aiming to paint the lot first before the final piping and heater is put in. All plans have been crossed out now as my pain management course will start on the 20th so I'll be out 3 days a week for the next 10 weeks, so work will have to be done in the weekends. Not by me though, I'll be the mess cook :)

Ready for render

 The main work is finished, and the renderer will be here tomorrow and on monday. Next week the electrical work will be finished when the render has dried for a few days, the doors to the storage spaces will be installed, and I need to get some prep work done for painting....everything. When that is done the radiator will be installed and we can put down the floor.

And this is how it looks now, fancy new door as well. But.....when the floor is done, I must install a door stop, else it slams right into the roof if it swings open too far. Don't want that.....

 Opening nicely moved to the middle. Hatch will be made after the renderer is done.

And here we run into a tiny issue that changes a lot.....  to create a bit more space, we had the old railing taken apart, and the floor extended a bit over the staircase. Then re used what we could of the old railing. Plus we had the cables and pipes and what not covered with panels to keep everything clean etc.

All well and good looking but....we created a choke point that is 70cm's and the plasterboard won't be too keen on having a sofa rammed into it. So I dropped that idea.

Now, no sink and no (sleeping)sofa makes for a lousy guestroom, so for all I care a gaming table is back on the menu. :)

The end is nigh....

Some more miscommunications on tuesday means a few more changes, and delays. But we are getting there.....
Storage space underneath the dormer. This needs insulation, and they had no added it yet, but did close it up :( The rest looks ok,

Large amount of space, with the right door in the wrong place, but I will live with that.

 Side room coming along nicely, new heater fitted, quite a bit smaller with some nice features.

 Today, wednesday, the electrical wiring is almost done, the top of the stairs bit has been covered over and the railing reinstalled, but lots more to do tomorrow.

 This hole should have been in the middle. Oh well.

Got wood?

A lot of progress was made yesterday. But....a bit miffed that they somehow had interpreted the sink in the wall next to the door as the sink being in the middle of the outer wall facing our neighbours. I got the option to place it, but at an added cost, and with the piping etc on the outsde of the wall. Yeah, nah, not. So we cancelled that feature (and diverted the funds to another part of the house that needs new piping). On the plus side it frees up space for a printer cabinet and all of the paperwork we have at home so that can leave the living room.

Anyhoo.....I think I have the laminate and soundproofing sorted for a much lower cost than estimated, picked up a TV for cheap and next week is going to be busy with electrical and plumbing and finishing up.


We are seriously stressed out to. Change isn't my thing, so spent half a day today doing volunteering work at a kids tournament to cool down. Only sprained ankles, and none too serious, but it was nice to be outside.

One size does not fit all

SPent Jan 1st with Kim dressed up as Breaking Bad characters, just for some protection against the itchy fibres. And it worked. A solid 4 hours job, stripping the roof etc of all of the old insulation, and I was ready for the sweet embrace of death afterwards. No fun at all.....but it is done.

Now the team is manually hauling up all the stuff they need, by hand, to the attic, poor sods. At least it is pretty cold outside so cooling down isn't a problem.