Work gets underway

Work has begun in earnest today: scaffolding is now up at the back of the house; Andy is clumping about in the loft, sawing away bits of the wooden joists to make way for the steel joists that have now been ordered. Andy could have done with the scaffolding yesterday, when he had to shin up and down a ladder to feed umpteen lengths of wood in through the hole he had (deliberately!) made in the roof.

Tomorrow should see the padstones going in on the south elevation; the ones on the north elevation, possibly on Thursday, weather permitting.  In both cases, Andy needs to site the foot of his trusty ladder over the boundary. Fortunately for us, we have nice neighbours, and this is going to be very important in a week or so's time, when the crane arrives with the steel and wood, because the men will be making a fairly sizeable hole in the roof to the north elevation, and then borrowing our north-side neighbours' airspace to lift the massive lengths of steel and wood up to the hole!
I haven't yet explained just what we're planning for the loft space, other than mentioning the view we expect to gain.  The view is, of course, the main thing.  And Ian and I feel we deserve it!  The original owner/builder of the house made some odd design decisions: for example, the two principal bedrooms are at the front of the house, enjoying an incomparable view of the road and the houses opposite, whereas the two smaller bedrooms look out onto the meadow.  This lovely view they share with the 11' x 11' bathroom (which is bigger than the smallest of the bedrooms, incidentally).  At least, they sort of share it: the bathroom window being glazed with obscure glass, the view is hardly exploited.  Anyway, my point is: while we've had the benefit of a nice, big bedroom with ensuite shower-room, we have not been spoiled by the vista from our window.
So here's the plan: master bedroom, ensuite bathroom and dressing-room.  The internal walls shown on the plan are just an indication; when the floor is down, Malcolm will get us up there and make us decide on the exact layout. This is some way off, of course.  

Fancy, eh?  Have you spotted the width of the window? We started out assuming we'd just have Velux windows throughout, but then someone wondered how much more it would cost to put a gable in for the bedroom area, and although the answer is that it costs a fair bit more, the gains to be made in terms of the view and the usable floor-space are immense.
When we were first considering our options – before we'd decided between the snazzy glass extension downstairs and the luxurious loft conversion – we looked into a couple of local firms for the latter. We warmed to Malcolm Charrett of Charrett & Sons right away and have not gone off him yet!  He's been recommended by quite a few people, including one of Ian's colleagues, which is reassuring.  Before we made a final decision, he also arranged for us to go and see a conversion his firm did a few years ago in Otterbourne. The layout, which includes a massive gable window, is not dissimilar to what we are hoping to achieve here. And the finish is excellent. All bodes well.