Safe Flooring

But remember kids, always use protection...

















This is how our floor will look like for a while but its better than having paint and other crap spilled on it...
Painting continues and we are trying to choose between 3 off white shades. (Magnolia is looking attractive or do they call it Taupe now??)

Floor down

Terrazzo floor finally installed and painting has started. The house is now so bright with white floor and brilliant white paint that we nearly need to wear sunglasses.
 
 
 
 

Terrazzo

Terrazzo has started with Danny Fegan from Northern Ireland.
Here you can see the cement marble mix down and curing. The plastic is to stop the areas exposed to direct sunlight from drying out too fast

Our half yearly update

I just had a look at the blog today and was shocked to discover that it has not been updated since December last. A lot has been happening since then and not just with the house which is why i haven't been maintaining the site.
To summarise
March 2008
Drainage in

Insulation down


Central vacuum system in

Shed built

External wall muddied (bloody kids....)

Bore holes dug for Geothermal heating



Underfloor heating pipes laid


Anyway that's March and I am sure that more has happened since then. Now where's that camera...
All the photos are in the web album here as will any new ones I add

Finally Photos....

Well, Christmas has come and I have finally got around to putting up the photos I took at the start of December. First fix electrical is now complete and first fix mechanical has one more day after the Christmas break. Then we get on with the underfloor heating, plastering and screeding.
These are two views of the kitchen. The first looking back towards where the counter will be. You can see the rooflight over the worktop, and the second looking out towards the garden and back towards the living room.

View of rooflight from below

View of slot void over dining room table


Views down through same slot void
View from front, that scaffolding has been lying around for months, I don't know how the scaffolding company is making any money...

View from road

Our back door is finally in place, hooray....

View from neighbouring garden, you can see the rooflight over the kitchen. I have also added a link to all the photos of the house to date. It has all the photos on the blog and more...(because they weren't good enough...)

21A Newcastle Park

An article of faith

Whoah....
lots has been happening but when it has happened I have not had the camera or been too busy or etc. etc.
Photos to come but here is what has happened since last blog.

• Zinc roof completed and flue for stove installed.
• Stove ordered
• Shed walls built and ready for roofing
• Temporary stairs complete
• Rooflight over kitchen complete (looks good)
• First fix electrical started
• Marking out for vacuum system done

I will have photos soon, but until then you will have to trust me.
Scaffolding down but bits of scaffolding still lying all over the site.
I do however have one photo and it has a story


This is our carpenter's list and as you can see it is made of wood. Orla thought she could not possibly go to the builders providers with this and copied it out onto paper.
I am in work when I get the following text. All men here and all have wooden lists. Being a man I text back the logical response, You can write in pencil on wood in the rain. Text comes back, Ahhhhh.... Later when talking to another male friend he pointed out, again quite logically that it is very hard to lose a wooden list. Once again this comment was appreciated. The moral is that men are very good at this sort of advice but sadly deficient when it comes to other male female conversations. Picture the following hypothetical conversation
She: That shop assistant was so rude to me.
He: Don't go into that shop again
She: You are so INSENSITIVE.....

Therefore, men, unless the conversation directly concerns hardware or engines, do not offer any opinion or (as I have observed women doing ) say I know... I know...

Hi all,
excuse the delay in posting but lots has happened quite quickly.

The building has been roofed and rendered, and the scaffolding is coming down on Monday. We are now moving from Austrian kithouse building turbo light speed back to Irish building geological time, which seems even slower by comparison. The stove has been ordered but the flashing for the flue pipe may or may not be ready by Friday (I am writing this on Sunday and won't know until Monday whether it arrived or not...)
Our rooflight over the kitchen has been measured up and should be installed soon


House in all its rendered glory.

Neat base flashing detail

Junction of ground and first floors

Interior showing the columns in the living room

Zinc roofing, eaves cover pieces to be installed.

Zinc roofing with protective plastic

Velux window in zinc roofing
We changed from aluminium standing seam to zinc as the roofers gave us a good price for the zinc over the aluminium.
Zinc looks better and also performs better in a marine environment. (We might be a mile or so away from the coast but the wind is still full of salt; before we cut down the lleyandii they would regularly be burnt by the salt air)
If you want to know more about zinc and specifically the system we are using click here. The roof should last us 70 years, check back on this blog then for an update.
Other progress, our shed which goes on top of here

cannot be built in timber by the guy I hoped would build it. This is bad as all our geothermal equipment goes in the shed, and without the shed our mechanical and plumbing first fix cannot start, if that can't start our electrical can't start, and if that can't start our flooring, plastering, second fixing and decoration can't start. In critical path analysis terms it would be identified as the component that if not completed will bugger everything else up.
Luckily however the blocklayers next door have a spare few days and will build the shed for us in block, and while Orla may have giggled and called the block laying construction next door Flintstones technology she now realises what a high-tech, and more importantly available, method of construction this is.
More updates soon as we lurch from crisis to crisis (In a strictly planned way of course...)