Thoroughly plastered

It's been quite a while since I last reported, and our loft room is practically ready to be decorated and fitted out.  Here's a reminder of how it was (i.e., in the process of being plastered by those craftsmen, Mike and John.)

Drying out nicely

And all the while, Andy had been keeping a step ahead with preparing the stairwell for them...

Stairwell boarded

Andy constructed a form for the stairs – we'd been
wondering how they were going to deal with them.

Over the next couple of days, Mike and John chased Andy (at a snail's pace) downstairs. And I had the essential job of keeping everyone going with tea.

Starting to plaster the stairwell

The first-floor landing de-artexed – hurray!

First pass at the underside of the stairs

And then finished – note the spindles!

Done!

And almost ready for decorating. 

If you're preparing to get the plasterers in, just one thing: don't bother dusting just before they arrive; while they're there; for umpteen days thereafter. You just have to learn to live with the fact that, no matter how diligently they cover stuff with dust-sheets, that plaster dust will get everywhere.

 

Getting plastered

Day 1 of plastering
The plasterers were on the doorstep just after 7.30am, as promised. They work non-stop!  They started with  the dressing-room ...

and the entrance to the bedroom.

In the main part of the bedroom they also plastered the angles where the wall meets the ceiling.

Day 2
More of much the same, to be honest...

Day 3
... was bedroom ceiling day. 

Day 4, and the plaster was 'going off' well.   

  

And that's where the plasterers have had to leave it, for now. They had run out of bits they could plaster, as there was some fixing to be done in the bathroom, and the second-floor landing and stairway aren't quite ready for them. They'll be back next Wednesday to pick up where they had to leave off. 

And meanwhile, the plaster has carried on going off.  The weather this weekend has been perfect for having the windows wide open to encourage the process.

Boarded!

Tomorrow the plasterers arrive to begin their 5-day (estimated) plaster-thon!  I have been told to expect them pretty early – apparently, they like to start at about 7.30am.

Mike and Rich have been busy over the past couple of weeks, getting the insulation in place and the boards up. They certainly work hard!

Gable window

The frames for the partition walls started going up at the start of last week...

Sarah behind bars in the bathroom

... and we started to get a better idea of how the space will look when it's completed. Now that the partition walls have been insulated and boarded, we're ready for the plasterers. I have the cups, teabags, sugar and milk on standby. 

Towards the bathroom and dressing-room

Showing the landing walls taking shape

And with walls!

They're going to need quite a bit of plaster, too.

Floors

It turns out we have a rather massive area to carpet here. We've always been keen on replacing the green shag-pile carpet in the hall and on the stairs and landing, but until now haven't really had a good excuse to do so (for reasons of cost, not liking it was just not excuse enough)!  With the stairs now extended, we pretty much have to. Oh-dear-how-sad. But our hall is a good size, and our landing... well, it has the same footprint as the hall. (When we had the house surveyed before we bought it, we were amused by the surveyor's assessment of the landing as a 'profligate use of space'; he evidently wasn't impressed, but we rather like it.) So, we have all that to re-carpet, and then the new stairs, the second-floor landing (which is small but perfectly serviceable), the bedroom and the dressing-room. In all, it amounts to over 100 square metres of carpet. Which is, apparently, roughly equivalent to the carpeted area of an average 4-bed new-build.  How frightening!

However, last weekend we managed to find a carpet that we're happy with – in what I shall call 'bearable beige', because I haven't a clue about the (almost certainly) daft name by which this colour variation is otherwise known. It's beige. At the pinkish end of the beige spectrum, I guess. A nice enough, very safe, goes-with-almost-anything colour. And 80% wool, and a decent quality. And it's even a bit of a bargain. Even so – and especially with the cost of the underlay added in – it all adds up!

But we still felt we could then splash out on a nice bit of LVT flooring from Gerflor. There's a 4-week delay on it, but we've realised that it's going to be quite a while before we can 'move in' upstairs, anyway, because we'll have to wait a lot longer for the curtains: rather stupidly, we didn't think to get ahead with those, and they'll need to be made to measure.  Of which, more anon.

Weather-tight

The great big gable window went in this afternoon, just as the lovely weather we've been enjoying was beginning to turn. The timing was excellent.

Work in progress

It took just a few hours (although it did mean that the fitters didn't leave till getting on for 6pm) for them to finish preparing the aperture and get the window fitted.

Done!

The doors open inward and have a 'stay' that will prevent them from opening so far that they hit the plasterwork. The railings will be fitted later.

And, talking of plasterwork, we're nearly ready for the plasterers. Over the past week, Mike (Andy has been on holiday this week, enjoying some of his children's school holidays with them) has been toiling away, finishing the installation of the Celotex insulation... 

A lot of Celotex; a lot of work

and topping that with plywood panels for the walls... and space-age foil-blanket insulation for the ceiling slopes.

As Sarah commented, the loft room is now a conspiracy-theorist's haven. Foil everywhere.

So, fairly soon, the plasterboard will go up. Everything is happening so fast now! There will be many decisions to be made very soon.       

Our windows on the world

Today was an exciting day in the loft; more exciting, to my mind, even than the day the steels went in.

Malcolm was up the scaffolding at the back before 8am, tiling the gable, and Andy and Mike arrived not long after.  By about 8.45, there were some large holes in our roof.

Lovely daylight!

Andy and Mike indulged us as we stuck our heads through the holes and ooh-ed and ah-ed – and generally got in their way for a few minutes.

Something to look at while we're brushing our teeth

And then a massive delivery of plasterboard and insulation arrived. The lorry only just fitted through the pinch-point on the drive.

There was so much going on, and it was barely 9am. 

By the end of what must have felt like a very long day for Andy and Mike, all of the velux windows were in, and Malcolm had completed the best part of one side of the gable roof. Behold!

  

The insulation panels are light, but cumbersome, and they had to be carried, singly, from the drive, through the hall and all the way up the stairs.  And after them, the several sacks of plaster. 

But the stack of plasterboard is under wraps on the drive tonight – they have saved it for tomorrow, when they hope to have a helping hand.

More plans and some deliveries

I'm not sure where I had got the notion that the gable windows were expected last week.  It was a bit silly of me to have thought it, really, because I wasn't aware of the measurements having been taken, although we had (what seems like ages ago) talked about the basic design.  Perhaps it was wishful thinking, because now that the stairwell is open to the roof, we are definitely aware of the open gable. The aperture is covered with plastic, and roughly boarded over before Andy and Mike go home at the end of their day, so it's watertight and pigeon-proof, but the house has been feeling decidedly chilly of an evening...  Anyway, it was the windows man who was expected last week, not the windows. And he got held up on some other job and couldn't make it here till Saturday morning.  But once he got up to the loft, it became evident that we were a man short: we really needed Malcolm or Andy there, too, because Ian and I didn't know enough about what was required. I'm happy to report that the measurements have since been taken (yesterday evening) and the design discussed and agreed. It will be nice and simple: four tall panes of equal width; the two middle panes being an inward-opening door, while the two outer are fixed.  We can't wait, but I suspect we will have to exercise a little patience!

Meanwhile, there has been considerable progress with the bathroom. Tony from City Plumbing came out last week to see the proposed layout of the walls and take measurements. And we visited the showroom again on Saturday morning to see his plans and choose our suite and fittings. It's far too easy to spend huge amounts of money on a bathroom! However, we managed to keep our heads and not go over the top. Mostly.

There'll be a decent-sized bath for me, set a bit away from the wall (because of the sloping ceiling); Ian's snazzy quadrant shower will be to the left as you enter the bathroom, with the basin and cabinet between it and the bath.  The loo occupies the area under the large Velux, to take advantage of the extra head-height that the Velux offers (not to mention a very nice view!), and there'll be a heated towel rail behind the door. And today Chris (the plumber) came back to do the first fix of the plumbing.

Pipes and stuff

Yes, I agree: it's hard to get excited about that, really. But I am!

Andy and Mike carried on preparing the access hatches for our now somewhat reduced storage space.

Frame for hatch to storage space in the eaves

The one pictured above is going to be especially useful, as it goes out over our current bedroom, which has a gable window, so there's definitely somewhere for all those Christmas decorations. Phew!

And the Velux windows arrived this morning and had to be lugged upstairs by the long-suffering Andy and Mike (who, apparently, spent a good deal of yesterday carrying awkward and heavy loads up ten flights of stairs in Ocean Village – and without cups of tea to fortify them! I could tell they were glad to be back here today).

A heavy load of Velux windows

Tomorrow's jobs include making a start on fitting the windows. I think there will be some tiling on the gable, too.

A landmark event today: Phoebe, our rescue cat, has been very distressed by our disappearing into the loft, but she's been uncharacteristically anxious about actually venturing up after us. She just sits at the foot of the stairs, right down in the hall, and miaows at us. But when Sarah and I went up there this afternoon, it was more than she could bear: she finally gave up her anxious and noisy vigil, and risked the new staircase. Now we have to make sure she doesn't take to going and hiding herself in cosy insulation in the unboarded sections of the eaves!

Stairs

While we disappeared for a short holiday, Andy and Mike were mostly redeployed at another big job the firm is working on down at Ocean Village, but they still had time to lay the floor and put in the ceiling joists over a couple of days. So when we got back we were straight up that ladder and examining progress.

It's so good to be able to wander around freely up there 

From the gable towards where the bed will be

Ian with one foot in the dressing-room and one in the bathroom

Over the weekend, we were up and down that ladder several times, trying to work out where we want the partition walls and where the bathroom fixtures will best fit.  Still not really worked that out, although we did make a useful trip to City Plumbing in Millbrook on Saturday.

This morning, Andy and Mike were on the doorstep bright and early, and Andy spent some time talking through the positioning of the walls, Velux windows and radiators with me and Ian before the stairs were delivered and Ian headed off for work. 

stair bits

Dust sheets went down on the landing, the stairs and the hall floor. Then came lots of noise as they sawed through the stairwell ceiling. By the time the chaps stopped for their lunch, the stairs were beginning their ascent....

At about 4.15, Andy tapped on the dining-room door and asked to borrow me for a moment. He wanted me to be the guinea-pig! 

All the way to the top! (Hurray! No more ladder!)

     

Taking shape

Ian's week away slipped by, and suddenly he was back – and so were the offspring. When the latter were last at home, we were in a frenzy of loft-clearing prior to the start of work, and all they'd had to go on were photos and the earlier posts in this blog. So they – and Ian – were eager to see the progress for themselves.
The room is starting to take shape...

Looking into the corner of what will be our bedroom, at the gable end

  

The bathroom will be to the right; the dressing-room to the left

But it was clear that the main attraction was the temporary balcony afforded by the scaffolding.

and the view, which I believe I have probably mentioned, once or twice.

In the week that followed the mass return, Andy and Mike got on and finished laying the new wooden joists. And the carpenter who's building the staircase visited again to finalise the position of the top-floor landing (which Andy needed to know, for the joists and floor).
We're at the point where we have to make some decisions. Always tricky! (For example, we did think about having glass walls in our little eyrie, but we've decided against it.) So we've confirmed how many lights and sockets we want – that sort of thing. We also decided to change the two pendant lights on the first-floor landing for four recessed lights. Might as well get that sorted out now, while there's no difficulty in pulling up the floor of our nice, new loft room! 

Ian and Andy check the plans