Building, Home, Loft Conversion, Project, Property, Renovation
comments 19

The Loft Extension – Wk 6/7

Firstly, i’d just like to apologise for the radio silence over the last week. I think it’s fair to say, this loft conversion is starting to get to me. Like, properly. It’s not the mess, dirt, cold, the fact I can’t walk down the hall without banging my knee on a boxed toilet or the plastic floor covering that crackles when you trot over it. No, not these things.

giphy

It’s the fact I can’t actually sit down for more than 10 minutes at a time and concentrate on ANYTHING as our front door is moving continuously with various trades coming in and out. I’ve never made so many cups of tea. I’ve also never got through so many bags of sugar. They’re all “two sugar” guys. Two!

giphy1

The other thing my busy mind is struggling with, is the continual trouble shooting. Overall, i’m a negative, pessimistic person. I focus entirely on worst case scenarios which makes me really good at project management.

How does that help?

I combat anything that might go wrong before it actually does by trying to put something in place for every eventuality. Control. Freak. Yep. “Prevention is cheaper than the cure” and all that jazz. But this means you work sooo much harder than you actually have to sometimes.

bathroom-vent

Bathroom vent needed moving after being positioned wrongly. The same day I forced myself to take a day off  as I was feeling a bit ropey. **sigh**

I shouldn’t be PM’ing this project at all, we’re paying for someone else to do that. But…. they’re not me. And I don’t trust ’em. With good reason though at this point, because a couple of things have slipped through the net when i’ve forced myself not to take over. Or ya know, when i’ve had to actually had to go out to work. So at this point, i’m the unofficial project manager. Otherwise things aint going to work out as planned. And to us, it’s really important it does go to plan, especially given the hours we’ve put into the planning. It’s our home. It’s my job. And the added pressure is, it’s online for all to see. No hiding here peeps.

aluminium-windows-fitted

The windows we ordered were fitted last week. All good. They’re great and they make the space. The rest of the dormer was tiled this week but needs sorting above the windows as you can actually see them from the inside. One for the snagging list.

velux-window-fitted

Our Velux window went in yesterday which made a massive difference to the light levels up there. I wanted to go a size up but the hubbster reigned me in. No fun.

dsc04569

I think once the landing space has the flooring down, been boarded and skimmed and the additional storage built in, the window size will make more sense. We shall see who was right in due course.

It’s me btw, we should have gone bigger.

loft-studwork

The bedroom floor is down and stud work up for the wall between our landing, bathroom and bedroom. Our first fix wiring is getting done as I type so we’ve now located the lights, switches and sockets. Oh and the joiner has just arrived to make a start on the pocket door into our bathroom.

What pocket door?

loft-floor-plan-adjusted

The one we decided last week to add to the bathroom.

The space is so tight in there we’ve reclaimed 80cm square of floor space by having the door slide into the wall. It’s cost us about an extra £300 but it will mean the door won’t swing onto the radiator and allows us to step out of the shower onto a bathmat. Simple pleasures. Worth every penny in my opinion. Hopefully our joiner will be able to fit it ok.

opening-for-staircase

We were due the staircase last week. I think you can see from this pic, that we don’t have it yet. It’s taken longer than expected to make…. which means I’ve become a ladder ninja over the last fortnight. Up and down like lightning I am. You’d be impressed.

So, to end this week’s instalment of life at Making Spaces HQ, i’ll show you some more items that have been delivered since my last post.

It’s like Christmas up in here. So many boxes of goodies but we can’t open em yet. Eeee!

Thanks for letting me share all this stuff with you on here. It actually really helps to exorcise some of these building work demons i’m fighting. It’s probably really useful for people out there too, the ones that are thinking of having building work done at home. It also means I don’t have to relay everything to my folks who are eagerly awaiting updates at all times **waves**.

Right, it’s time to make a round of brews. No rest for the wicked. Have a lovely bonfire weekend one and all.

19 Comments

  1. Lesley says

    Yep standard trades brew ‘tea with 2 luv’, ‘black coffee with no sugar’! Whose that? Oh the Building Inspector!
    Can you tell me where you have got your afghan rug from please.

    • Ha. We do have a black coffee no sugar. That’s the joiner. The Afghan was from trendcarpet.co.uk. I’ll be writing more about that soon enough no doubt!

  2. Hang in there – it’ll feel like it’s moving quicker from here on.
    BTW, is your bedroom radiator a vertical one? It looks a bit small in your drawing, no? (I have radiators on the brain cos we just replaced a few of ours!)

  3. I could only imagine how stressful this must be! (It would be doing my head in) And I totally get having to be the ‘unofficial’ project manager because I’d be the EXACT same with not trusting someone is going to do it to MY standards.

    Also THIS OH MY GOD THIS: “I combat anything that might go wrong before it actually does by trying to put something in place for every eventuality. Control. Freak. Yep. “Prevention is cheaper than the cure” and all that jazz. But this means you work sooo much harder than you actually have to sometimes.” >>> This is so me and it makes Wayne absolutely freaking crazy!! Hahaha!

    Chin up chuck, you’re almost there!! xx

    • Thank you! I don’t know if it’s an “interiors thing”, a personality thing, the fact that my dad is a joiner and his attention to detail is second to none…. but the having to be on top of everything is so tiring isn’t it? Luckily, Pete has been around for a couple of days of late, which is the only way I could get this blog post up yesterday. We’re past the half way point now and everyone keeps telling me it will fly from now on, but energy levels are at an all time low. Bring on 2017!xx

  4. Chin up, the pain will be over soon and you have the best fun decorating it and making it into your dream space. Builders do always have 2 sugars, it is true. In fact there should be a builders firm called ‘Milk and 2 sugars and we all vanish at 4pm’…..

    • Haha. You’re not wrong. And thanks for the good vibes. I’m hoping that this time next month i’m able to action all this pent up energy and start doing my thing!!

  5. Oh Karen, you’re on the home strait. I hated having work done on our bathroom so can’t even begin to imagine the disruption a loft conversion causes. It must be so hard for you to let go of the reins given that it’s your actual job as well as your home. Will so be worth it though. It’s going to look gorgeous

  6. I’m TOTALLY the same! We bicker about this kind of stuff too, and I’m definitely a worrier by nature. Means you can never switch off so it’s exhausting. But you’re doing an amazing job and it’l all be done before you know it 🙂 x

  7. I feel your pain Karen. I hate mess, dirt, disruption and feeling out of control too! It will be worth it in the end. Keep telling yourself that. x

  8. I’m impressed with the progress, even though it must be a nightmare to live through all the disruption and the endless cups of sugary tea making!! Hang in there, I know it’s going to be fabulous! X

  9. Despite the couple of issues, it looks like it’s coming on a treat. Love the addition of the pocket door. It completely makes sense. Hang on in there …. in a couple of months, you might have drank a whole lot of gin to get you through it all, but it will have been well worth it.

  10. katy615 says

    Keep your eye on the light at the end of the tunnel – it will look amazing! Your plans look great and the bits you have picked out already. I’m very excited to see the end result (hope it’s not too stressful until then) x

  11. Angela Power says

    I love what you’ve done here Karen…and I feel your pain too! Your words about your need to project manage the project managing had me laughing out loud in recognition. We had a garage rebuild with loft room over the top, last year. The times when I didn’t check in with my builder each morning to make sure what he was planning to do was actually what we wanted and then having another talk at the end of each day to view the progress…well those were the days when the plans went awry and I regretted letting my control freakery have a day off. Having found your blog from a link on the Houzz comments page I just want to say that it looks like all your efforts and talents have borne beautiful fruit. That’s one lush development!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.