Simon's Blog (the personal one)

Challenge Anneka! - End of Day 6

This is a pre-dated post. I didn't get time to post it in real time. I'd been invited to Sunday lunch by Carolyn. She rang at about 10 to say that there was a bit a slippage in timing and that they wouldn't be eating until 1:45 which was brilliant. I needed the extra time and in the end this worked perfectly by 1:15 the last bit of flashing slipped into place and the drip, drip, drip stopped and I was able to throw the layers and layers of very wet cardboard outside and walk away from the building site to a fantastic lunch with great company.

After lunch I went to see the patient and had to confess to what I'd been up to as I needed to get back to get the tiles on before dark. The patient was very pleased! :-)

With the flashing and tiles in place I can relax. The interior can been completed at leisure.

Challenge Anneka! - Start of Day 6

Umm . . . ideally this wouldn't have happened until tomorow. I need to get that flashing in place. It's a bit wet in here.

Challenge Anneka! - End of Day 5

Done it! As dusk falls the windows are in. There's only a couple of screws holding each one but that will keep most of the rain out. Tomorrow I'll need to finish securing the windows and fit the flashing and then we will be water tight.

I'm really pleased with the way they look. They were never going to be pretty from the outside (this is the back corner of the house, so not too critical) but actually things line up quite well.

:-)

Challenge Anneka! - Lunchtime Day 5

There that's better! Thank goodness Angela offered to bring over lunch today - it's going to be a long one. It keeps raining! More later.

Challenge Anneka! - Start of Day 5

I was right to have the jitters at the change of tack at the end of yesterday. This single frame idea is not going to work either. It will leave an odd sticking out bit inside (see picture). So that will have to come out. Good that I didn't fix it.

I've now decided on a hybrid approach. I'm not going to move the existing rafters (the original plan). Moving the exising rafters was going to be really complicated as it would disturb the external brickwork. This is no longer an option anyway as I've cut them off! I'm now going to put new rafters in the right place. Watch this space!

Challenge Anneka! - End of Day 4

Progress was a bit slow this afternoon as I realised that the way I had planned to put the veluxes in was not going to work. So I had to have a re-think and a bit of a panic that the re-think wasn't thought through enough etc etc. Then I had to go an buy more treated wood - twice.

But anyway, here we are. The hole you see will take the first 3 windows. You should also note that the dormer window hasn't fallen down.

Lessons learnt:
You never know how a thing is going to turn out until you have a go!

I need to cover things up as it's going to rain overnight. But it's dry again tomorrow. Lucky.

Off on Florence Nightgale duties for the rest of the evening :-)

Challenge Anneka! - Lunchtime Day 4

Well you get the idea! Now why is it clouding over?

Lessons learnt so far:
1) The tiles come off much more easily from the inside
2) Things take longer than you think!

Challenge Anneka! - Start of Day 4

 

It's all systems go! The central heating pipes were diverted yesterday - thanks to Tad and the boys for that. And the building inspector has just been and is happy. More later!

Challenge Anneka! - End of Day 2

No physical progress on the Velux windows today but there's been plenty of time for thinking and planning which is no bad thing. When I DIY my 'thinking and planning' is generally not far enough ahead of the actual 'doing' which is not good.

I've been playing Florence Nightingale today and as you can see the girl is doing good! For those of you who know how to interpret this stuff . . . . don't worry, Jane's blood pressure never gets much higher than this even when we've just, well err, cycled around Draycote Water.

The plumbers are coming first thing tomorrow to move those pipes and I am going to try to get the Building Inspector to come first thing on Friday. The weather dictates that Friday is when the the roof has to come off and the windows go in:

:-)

Challenge Anneka! - End of Day 1

Before
 

After
 

I have never doubted my powers of destruction and here's the proof. No unexpected complications so far.

 

There are a few wires to sort out and a lagged central heating pipe to move. I'll sort out the electrics and Tad is sending the boys around to re-route the central heating pipes on Thursday.

So far so good!

Challenge Anneka!

My wife Jane went into hospital today for 8-10 days! So how do you cope with anxiety? I find challenges work best. We've been wanting to put some (more) Velux windows in our house to let more light in. We've done it before to great effect but these are more complicated and we've been prevaricating for years. The rafters are in the wrong places, there are dormer windows involved, plumbing and wiring will need re-routing, Building Control need to get involved etc etc.

So the challenge is to keep up the hospital visits, keep the installation secret (Jane won't be readig this) but also get the 4 Veluxes in the next 8-10 days (while at work)!

These videos outline the project. I'll attempt to blog my progress (or not).

Outside


Inside