New House, New Home

Our house...

2008-04-19T09:51:00.006+01:00

I guess the price you pay for two quick updates last month, is the 6 week wait for the next one !

Well, we've not been sitting around doing nothing in those weeks ! We've signed everything over to us now so the house is ours, and we are just waiting for the first mortgage payment to come out.

Painting is still underway. Most of downstairs is done, we just have the kitchen, utility and conservatory to do. We've at least got the paint bought for it all though !

Upstairs we've finished the landing and the two main bedrooms. The two girls' rooms are still underway though. I'm beginning to rue the day I suggested a green stripe now ! Charlotte & Amalie's room is now very nearly done, just needs some touching up.

The yellow stuff is the low stick masking tape. If you only knew half of the grief that stuff has given me.... A second coat of green has since been applied to this room.

Sophie and Erin's room is much the same with a second coat of green all that is required there.

The two en-suites are almost done now as well.

The latest major development is on the floor front. We've got wood (laminate) down in the two sitting rooms, hall and conservatory which is really making start to look finished !

Here you can see the floor going down in the smaller sitting room. This has now been completed as of last night.

Going forward, we've still to finish painting the two ensuites and then move down to paint the kitchen, conservatory and utility. Whilst this is going on, we'll get some carpet ordered for upstairs. We have it picked out already so it's just a case of ordering and arranging fitting.

Look out for more updates.....

-pete

And then two come along at once....

2008-03-15T23:45:00.004Z

One update after another ! Well after the tiling update from last night, I thought I'd carry on whilst I was on a roll (there were crumbs everywhere..)

Painting on the inside continued recently with the help of some friends and family. We managed to get the hall, landing and two bedrooms done. Followed a couple of days later by a second coat so they are now ready.
Next up on that front are the girls bedrooms. After I foolishly suggested they could have something different, I have been out and marked up Charlotte and Amalie's room for the stripes they want, so that's my next job which should occupy me in a few days.

Last Monday also saw the fireplaces going into the house which really seem to make the rooms look much more homely.
This is the family room off the kitchen....

This is going to be complemented by a matching mirror and they are supposed to go back in and carve out a celtic knot design in the centre to finish it off.

This is the one in the main sitting room. A more chunky design but the room is bigger so it helps. We aren't going with the matching mirror in here, instead there will be some sort of picture that we have yet to decide on !
You can see my work laptop in the side of this shot, I had to work out there one day when the local electric board took the power down in the house here all day one day. Glad to say it works a treat. That's going to be the actual place of my desk too, although I may treat myself to something more suitable than the school desk you see here.

In terms of the legal side, we are just waiting on the mortgage cheque now that is coming from the bank and should be with our solicitors by mid week. Then they have to pass it on to the builders people and then we get the keys ! So, even though some people seem sceptical (!), we should have progress in the next couple of weeks.

Watch this space !

A long overdue update

2008-03-14T21:14:00.002Z

Firstly, sorry for the delay since the last update but I've been busy at work of late and haven't spent much time outside of that on the PC. We have been making progress though since I last posted though.
As I was talking about tiling on that last occasion, here's what has developed on that front.

This is the kitchen detail prior to the grouting which was completed shortly after in ivory.

The bathroom tiling is also now completed following the protracted delays in getting the tiles shipped.

Here you can see the mosaic splash back in the bathroom that runs from floor to ceiling. The rest of the bathroom is just tiled plain with these tiles.

This room is more or less complete now, just needs a floor laid and the skirtings back on.

Next update, hopefully tomorrow, will be about fireplaces..

Until then...

Tesselations

2008-02-02T08:52:00.000Z

Quick update -
Tiler has now finished the ensuites front and back and they now need painting.

He was nearly finished on the kitchen last night when he ran out of tiles. Unfortunately, these tiles originally took about 10 days to order so I am going to have to put some pressure on the tile place today to get some as soon as possible.

The bathroom tiles STILL haven't showed up although they are saying they will be in on Monday....I'll be greatly angered if they aren't as the tiler is waiting on them and we may lose him to another job if they don't turn up soon.

The bathroom taps would appear to have a solution in the form of replacing the quarter turn spindle inside the taps with a regular turn affair. This should hopefully increase the throughput on the taps whilst maintaining their outward appearance which is a win-win for all !

No more painting done since the first coat went on that front room. I intend to push on with that this coming week after I finish my round of shifts.

On a separate note, thanks to everyone who sent gifts, cards or well wishes for my birthday this week. I had a most agreeable time (followed by a not-so-agreeable morning-after but hey, I didn't get any younger !)

You can see some of the results from my new lens and other stuff on flickr which is linked up ----^ there somewhere.

I'll try and post some pictures of the tiling efforts just as soon as I take some !

All the best
Pete

It's been a while

2008-01-25T14:39:00.001Z

Well a Happy New Year for those that I haven't spoken to recently....

It's been quite a while since we updated this blog as there hasn't really been a great deal happening over the Christmas period. Since then though, things have started moving again now that we're into the New Year (and the builder is obviously keen to complete sooner rather than later).
First off we went through the snagging list with the builder just after Christmas and whilst there wasn't a great deal to do on that front, most of them have now been completed, so there's just a few things left for them to polish off.

January has seen us picking and buying tiles for the en-suites, bathroom and kitchen. These are the wall tiles rather than floor tiles which are going to come later.

For the en-suites we have opted for some called Esmira Blanco which are a kind of off white. This is going to be for two walls in each en-suite with the remaining two walls being painted.

The bathroom is going to be cream tiles with a brown mosaic, floor to ceiling, splashback behind the sink.

For the kitchen, we hunted further afield as it seems to be harder to find nice kitchen tiles locally here. We've opted for a green and cream chessboard style marble tiling job.

Right now the tiler is in working on the en-suites as these are the only tiles the places had in stock at the time of ordering. We are awaiting a second delivery of tiles early next week.

I have also now started painting the interior walls. We have opted for simple magnolia for much of downstairs so I have bought a couple of 10l tins of paint and all the necessary tools to get to work. The family room on the front was the first target which was started on Tuesday night.

This is the first lick of paint to be applied to the house internally. (the wires you see are for wall lights)
Shortly after -

The first wall was finished. It seems I started on the easiest wall in the room ! The rest took significantly longer and it was around midnight by the time I'd finished and cleaned up.

This is my first attempt at videoing, uploading to youtube and then embedding in blogger so bear with me if this doesn't work right.

I had intended to do some more tonight (painting not embedding) but I have contracted the cold from Sophie & Erin so am feeling under the weather today and will likely give it a miss, continuing next week.

Furthermore, we were in the solicitors on Wednesday signing more paperwork and he reckons we could be looking to complete in a couple of weeks when we can really get started on the rest of the stuff that needs completing.

I will try and get back into the habit of updating now we are getting stuff going again.

All the best for the New Year to all (even if it's a bit belated).

Getting there....

2007-11-29T13:43:00.000Z

Ok, so now we're getting somewhere close to finishing the build before the house is "handed over" as it were.

The kitchen is more or less complete, the plumbing work appears to have been completed, most of the internal woodwork has been done. There's still a number of jobs around the place that need sorting out but soon it will be down to us to start decorating from top to bottom (and slightly beyond).

So on to the latest pictures-
Here's the view that greets you as you come in the door -

This will be wooden floor by the time we've finished. You can also see the sink in the downstairs cloakroom from here. Moving in through the doorway you can just see on the right into the larger, more formal lounge

This has been massively cleaned up since the last time I was there as this room seemed to be the storeroom for all the stuff that was going in, coming out and being chopped up. You can still see that there's some things lying around; the brown box is the shower doors for the master ensuite.
The fireplace has been picked out and will be in fairly dark wood. I will try and find an example picture for next time.
Over the other side of the house, we have the conservatory (which some are trying to denounce as a conservatory due to it's lack of a glass roof, but that's what it says on the plans!) -

The garden as you can see is still a large mud pit but there are some signs of grass trying to break through....
Turning around and back into the kitchen -
We can see that we now have a nice shiny new oven and hob -

Moving upstairs, and we can see the main bathroom has now been put in -

With a close up detail of the taps on the bath -

You can see the detachable shower head on the left with the retractable cord going behind the bath to keep things tidy.

Finally, when you live too far away from the local Eircom telephone exchange, in order to get broadband you need to live within direct line of sight to a transmitter and get yourself one of these...

Then you can get 3Mb broadband from these guys - http://www.nwewn.com
Happy days !

Right, that's me for now, we'll let you know when we are ready to hand over and the place actually becomes ours ....
Byeee....
(ps more photo's of us on flickr (link to the right) notably of us dressed up for a Christmas ball!)

Kitchen & Bathroom special edition.

2007-10-31T23:02:00.000Z

As promised in the last post, we now have some internal shots of things as they are progressing. Starting off upstairs (or as was the case when these were taken last week - upladders).
There's still no main bathroom stuff in yet, so we start with the guest en suite -

A regular shower in a 800mm square tray with WC and sink, fairly standard stuff for the en suite that will be used the least.
Moving onto our own en suite -

Same WC and sink in here (they were on special offer) but this time there's a bigger 1000mm quadrant shower enclosure with an electric Triton T90xr shower
The shower doors themselves won't go on until the tiling is complete around the showers.
Lighting in both these en suites will be recessed spots.

Now then, moving downstairs, and today we can actually call them stairs as I came across the stair fitters this morning putting in the staircase which they reckon will be done by the end of the week!
To the kitchen -

This has only just started to go in this week and as such just the carcass is in so far here with the countertop.
Going from left to right -
- A shelf unit with cupboard space under
- Full height pull out larder
- Eye level Oven unit with cupboard space above and below
- Cupboard space under counter with glass display units above.
- Draw space inc. cutlery under counter with hob to go into counter and Stainless steel hood above
- "Magic Corner" under counter to utilise otherwise wasted corner space and another glass display unit above.
- Corner unit above counter around to open shelves (I think will be at least)
- Single cupboard under counter
- Double cupboard under 1 + 1/2 bowl sink with drainer under window.
- Space for dishwasher under counter
- Space for Tall fridge freezer out of shot to the right.

Then there's the door through to the utility room -

In here we've just got a double cupboard in the middle under a single sink.
Each side of this is space for the washing machine and tumble dryer
Above is another double cupboard.
The reason there's doors in here is that they are just PVC finished doors whereas the main part of the kitchen will have painted solid wood doors with the same finish.

The counter top can be seen in more detail here -

Hopefully the oven and hob will be delivered out to the house this week. The Kitchen guys will be finishing off then the rest of this week and early next week apparently.

The bathroom stuff might've been pending the stairs going in, (wouldn't fancy lugging a 2m long bath up a ladder!) so I have to chase that one this week.

The next piece maybe the fires which have been picked out but not bought yet.

On the outside, they've finished the perimeter fence, smoothed out the topsoil that had been laid and created a driveway. The site road is more complete now also so you get a nice effect driving up to the house, and up the driveway !!

I'll try to get some more pictures of the completed kitchen shortly.

Take care,
Pete

Nice day on site

2007-10-15T23:31:00.001+01:00

It's mostly pictures this time to show. As the external paint job is about 99% finished here's how it's looking....

This is the view from the corner of the front garden, the guy emerging from the earth is just some guy working on the grounds.
Far left you'll see the green oil tank that's just gone in. This fuels the boiler around the back which we can see in the next picture -

The silver box to the left of the downpipe and under the utility room window is the Cosyman 90/120 oil boiler manufactured by Gerkros providing central heating. Remember there is no mains supplied gas in Ireland so fuel needs to come from some other source and in 90% of the homes in Ireland that source is Kerosene.
Any strange round holes near windows are the vent holes for extractor fans in bathrooms and the extractor fan in the kitchen.

These pictures were taken last Wednesday when I was in talking to the plumbers. Surprisingly, even though I'd only just put the deposit down on the bathroom stuff, they were already installing the sinks, WC's and shower trays.
Internally it's all been plastered now by the looks of it. We're still waiting for the floors to dry out before we put in the kitchen but now that the boiler and oil tank are all hooked up they reckon on getting the heating fired up this week. Obviously that should speed up the drying out process.
After that we can get the kitchen in followed by the rest of the bathrooms.

There's still no stairs in either which makes getting around inside a little tricky which is why there are no real internal shots yet. I'll do my best the next time I'm out there, promise

Bye for now...

Finally...after two (+) weeks of waiting...

2007-09-30T04:19:00.000+01:00

Ok then, finally we are back making some progress with the house again. When I last reported in the plumbers were moving in. Now they have come and gone having installed all the plumbing and heating, with the radiators now in place.

Externally, the roofing has now been completed with the last portions of tiling getting finished last week. The scaffolding is down as they have finished rendering the outside. Furthermore, the external paint is now being applied as you will see in pictures slightly further down.

Here's the usual front shot (click for a larger version) -

Taken late on in the evening just after sunset you can see the smooth exterior prior to the paint going on. The light in the downstairs right hand window is actually the sun setting through the french doors at the back. The digger is there currently doing the groundwork for the drive and gardens.
The garden will eventually encircle the whole house with the drive going from the position the photo was taken down the right side of the house as we look at it with a parking area in front of the house also.
The gravel around the house will be the base for a path that goes right the way around.

This shot is more representative of the finished article with the cream paint's initial coat being applied here. The wooden guide around the gravel I'm assuming is the extent of the path around but we'll see.
Finally back around the front in the fading light....

As you can see they seem to have run out of paint by the time they reached the front elevation. Off to B&Q for more then I'd say.

So that's the progress on the house itself. Internally we've been deciding on bathrooms, flooring (still) and tiles (don't know where to start).

At least the deposit is down on the kitchen which means there's no going back on that one, which is one less thing to worry about !

Once the floors are dry internally then the kitchen can go in and then the bathroom stuff. After that we'll need to paint the walls and tile the bathrooms and then do the floors, or whatever order it all comes round to being.

Progress once again, so that's us for a couple of weeks now. Don't forget to click on the flickr picture up there on the right to see what else we've been at recently (Charlotte's birthday for instance).

Bye for now !

Quiet time

2007-09-13T23:00:00.001+01:00

Sorry for those that keep checking back here expecting some progress but it's been very quiet on the house front of late.

Nothing has really changed since the last time I was out taking photos.

The plumber is supposed to be coming in this week to sort out the pipes etc. for all the bathrooms. After that the sub floors go down which can take a couple of weeks to dry at least depending on thickness and weather.

Maybe we'll have some more visible progress in the next week or so, watch this space.

In the meantime you can click on the link to my flickr pages to see what else we've been up to recently.

Bye for now !

Now we're getting somewhere

2007-08-05T03:16:00.000+01:00

Another long delay in getting an update out but it just means that progress seems to come on leaps and bounds each time !
Last time the roof was getting started and now that we return about 3 weeks later, we can see the roof has been completed now, and with it a nice pair of chimneys.
Also, we've now got a near full set of windows and external doors. As you can see it's really coming on now -

Wiring has been prepared inside now after our previous meeting with the electrician so all the switches and sockets are in place.
Now we are moving into the August Builders Break period in Ireland so, much like this blog, nothing much will happen over the next 2-4 weeks.
The next step is to get the plastering / rendering done outside which will lend the house a smooth appearance prior to the white paint. The the floor screed gets poured after which there is further drying time which leaves us about 10 weeks down the line when we can start getting the kitchen in...after that the bathrooms.

I was asked, after the last post's pictures, if this house is very close to the one next to it and if you look back at that post, you can see how this could be misconstrued, so I have tried to show in the next picture a better view for the space around each of the houses.

You can also see here the finish on the house next door (particularly if you click on the picture for the larger version) which is what's coming up for us.

It was unfortunate that at this point, my camera battery died and I couldn't get any more pictures but maybe a sub post in the next while will let us see more around the sides / back / inside (if they don't lock the doors that is!)

Not much else is being progressed just yet. So we'll let you know when we make any further progress on internal stuff next time.

2007-07-13T21:35:00.000+01:00

(Warning - loooooong entry today !)

It's July, although to look at the weather you would never have thought it. I'm beginning to see why Ireland earned the Emerald Isle moniker. Since our last visit here, there's been even more good progress being made on site. Last time, we were up to the upstairs windowsills, well, we've gone way past that, up past the windows and to the roof level, and to top that, the day I went out there (Thursday), they were just finishing up putting in the roof trusses.

To give you some of idea of what we are working towards here, this is the finished product, two doors down, the owners of which have just recently moved in...

As you can see, there's not THAT much left to do on the outside, finish the roof, put the windows in, slap a door on, a lick of paint... and then the hard work starts on the inside.
Previously we saw a picture of the group of 4 houses together but the picture wasn't great. So here's what they look like when taken properly...(don't forget you can click on any of these pictures to enlarge them!)

The first two along from the left were started a good while ago so that's why they are already habitable with the second (and final) "phase" well underway with the next 2.

Panning around to the right....

So, that's the progress on site. When I was on site there on Thursday I went around the house with the "foreman" and the head electrician marking out the positions of all the light switches, plug sockets, wall lights and such like, including the basics of the kitchen.

The electricians are moving in next week to start chasing these out ready for installation. This has also forced our hand in finally committing to a kitchen design.

We've been umming and ahhing, and changing minds for months now. So this is probably a good thing. We started with regular oak / beech units with black worktops. Then we changed to a dark Walnut design with grey worktops and blue walls. Finally, having gone full circle and halfway around again we've finally decided, for now, on an off-white finish. Hopefully next week we should have a copy of the proposed plans and I'll try and scan them in somehow so we can see them here.

Once the electricians have been round chasing out all the cabling, the plumbers move in and for this we need to choose sanitary-ware for the bathroom, two en-suites and the downstairs cloakroom.

Today we've been having an initial look at flooring options as we will need to put down all the floors throughout (with the help of fitters obviously!). We've been looking at wood, laminate, carpet, tiles, vinyl everything....totally confused....

Oh well, now the kitchen is decided upon, the bathroom is next so we'll concentrate on that and the en-suites.

Finally, although the Geothermal heating guys were supposed to be coming around, further Internet and local research has now made up our mind on this matter. Whilst it would be very environmentally friendly, and even a cost saving on the annual expenditure on heating, the initial outlay is just too much, quote vary from €10k-20k+ even after the government grants and that's just money that we can't afford to plow into something like this right now, so it's back to the original, as planned, included-in-sale-price, oil burner and radiators. Apologies to all the greenies out there, but we'll put in energy saving bulbs, honest !!

When I asked the "foreman" on an estimated completion date, he reckoned, with the wind behind it might be just 3 months ... but I'm still reckoning on Christmas / Year end myself. Particularly as the whole building industry shuts down for half of August.

Things might start moving on quickly over the next few weeks so watch out for updates ...

More progress and more pictures !

2007-06-22T12:49:00.000+01:00

The 3 weeks since my last post has certainly seen a lot of work done by the boys on site. This is despite a week of rubbish weather recently so let's see what we have now...

(viewers will be glad to know that I had my "proper" camera with me this time, although the keen eyed amongst you will spot the rather too high ISO setting left over since its* previous outing)

As you can see, the ground floor is now complete, the upstairs is now upto window sill level mostly with some walls even higher. Good solid RSJ's about the doors and windows can be seen here, this is particularly important given the upstairs has a concrete slab floor. Not often seen these days in houses around here, but a welcome addition when it is.

Also here we can see the framework going up for the conservatory on the left. This can be seen more clearly below with a view from the "back garden"...

Moving further around the back...

The large opening on the left will be the patio doors out to the garden from the main lounge. Also just to the right you can make out the back door, then the utility room window and the kitchen window.

Venturing inside for the first time... we can see the view from the lounge out the front ... the mountain in the background will hopefully be less obscured by the hill of dirt in the foreground when they've finished.

And turning around to look out back...

That's about it really, the next update will be possible more around some of the required fittings we are looking at, floors, kitchens etc.

Plus, coming next week, investigations into Geo thermal heat source providing underfloor heating...

Until then...

Another update, and things are going up ... walls that is

2007-06-03T20:46:00.000+01:00

Another attempt at posting an update after the last one which suffered from a myriad of internal errors and the whole blogger site reverting to German which I haven't spoken in 20 years. ...

Anyway, took a quick diversion out to the site (building not web) on Friday night on the way back from picking my car up from the mechanics (which could be the subject of a whole other blog) and took some more pictures.
Unfortunately, I must confess that I didn't have my main camera with me so was reduced to using my mobile which, whilst normally excellent, struggled here with the late evening gloom contrasted by the blinding sunset behind !

Was pleased to see that the piles of bricks from the previous shots have been put to good use in the construction of the walls.

The back wall seems to have gone up the furthest where the kitchen and utility will be as they are the straightest, the ones at the front accomodate two bay windows so obviously must take longer to get right. You can just see the low wall of the conservatory on the left hand side.

The following (frankly crap) pictures show the layout of the whole site in relation to our house -

From left to right, the first two houses are nearly complete as these were started ages ago. The third is nearing the roof line with ours, almost out of view at the end.

There are two designs of house making up the 4, and they can be seen from the finished ones on the left.

Ours is going to be the same as the second one along (from the left)
Finally a view across to Beam Hill

I'll try now and get some floorplans up so we can see what they are trying to acheive internally as well...

Hopefully next time, conditions and equipment will provide some better photos !

Until the next time.

First progress report

2007-05-16T21:39:00.000+01:00

Since our last look at the house not much has really progressed from the eye of one un trained in the house building lark, but it does look promising that there's big piles of bricks stacked up ready to be walls, I guess ...

You can seen the addition of what is presumably the red dampcourse sheeting, with the concrete subfloor now the highest level.
From the previous post we can also see where they've filled in around the foundations to bring it up to the floor level of the house.

You can also see the weather has taken a turn for the worse of late but that's not really surprising around here, still it makes for clearer pictures !

The deposit has now been lodged with the vendors solicitors so there is no going back now I suppose !!! More paperwork to come no doubt.

To answer a previous question, we are facing a bit south of west looking at the front of the house which itself faces slightly north of east...next question ?

Hopefully the next update should see some walls going up ... hopefully, although there was a complete lack of anyone in a hard hat at all when this picture was taken at lunchtime today...

Up from the depths..not quite 30 storeys high

2007-05-02T19:26:00.000+01:00

So progress is now being made on the house. After what seemed an age of it being just a bare plot, then just a big hole in the ground there now appears, rising up from the depths, some foundations with the shape of a house on top. Finally it begins to take shape which is more of a relief for the children who thought we might be living in a field for a while... Taken just last Sunday (29th April - Andy's 40th!) this is what we have so far -

(Large version here- http://farm1.static.flickr.com/170/481649212_7667cfc076_o.jpg )

This is a view of the front looking towards the back. Facing sort of westish I think, I will check on the compass bearing and report back.

Today saw further progress in the sale agreement with us visiting our solicitors to sign paperwork etc. Now comes the hard part of departing with our deposit for what is essentially a pile of bricks in a hole !!

It's progress though and we're happy with that...

More soon...

Background

2007-04-30T00:28:00.000+01:00

Take 1x Wife and add in 4x Children age 4 and under and install them into a smallish 3 bed semi in the rural English countryside. Ensure that this location is a long way from any direct family and after a while it all becomes too much for those occupants and it becomes apparent that changes are going to be necessary.

A bigger house is out of the question for financial reasons (have you seen the house prices in Kent ?) and basic reasons (we'd still be miles from family)

Moving to a different part of the country would just result in the same pressures coming to bear down the line.

Then a suggestion was made that I never thought I'd hear..."maybe we should move back to Ireland .... " (this being Caoilfhionn's home turf, but one place she never seemed to want to head back to in a hurry!)

After a tense conversation with my work we got the green light to up sticks and move over to Ireland whilst keeping my job. A definite win-win situation for us. That just left the physical act of moving which took some time between making that decision and finally getting the house sold (about 6 months all told).

So now we're here in Donegal, living with family looking to put down roots again. And that's what got me around to thinking about a blog. After our first house purchase ending up going down a big hole, we've now gone for a new build. About 3 miles outside Buncrana on the Inishowen peninsula the new house and our new home, is slowly emerging out of the ground.

I intend to use this blog to chart the progress and development of the house from now to the point we move in... I may go off on tangents if the mood takes me, but essentially this will hopefully help people see what's happening to us here over the coming months.

Feel free to comment and question, or even tell me to stop rambling on aimlessly.. pardon ? Oh ok, on with the show...