A focus on flooring

Our builders are making good progress against our Ofgem deadline for installing and commissioning the air source heat pumps – this week saw them lay the underfloor heating in the three-bed and then pump the screed on top. They’ve only done the ground floor for now – we’ll also have underfloor heating in the two first floor bedrooms but that can be added at a later stage and isn’t required to commission the system.  

They’ve also installed the hot water cylinder and equipment in the outbuilding for the one-bed cottage, and continued to build up the three-bed’s outbuilding to accommodate the larger cylinder (it was originally sized for the smaller cylinder that has gone into our house). 

Work in our house has been limited this week as on Wednesday latex was laid on the floor where we’re putting the karndean flooring down, and you’re not supposed to stand on it until it dries, so we couldn’t access the building. Our builders spent the first part of the week on two main jobs  – the first being to lay out the kitchen which isn’t that easy as the walls aren’t square and so the cupboards had to go in at an angle. It means we’ve got a gap between the cupboards – we’re hoping our carpenter can turn it into a small shelf that we can use for chopping boards or something similar. 

The bathroom’s gradually progressing too – the towel rail was added a week ago and the bath has now been tiled. It’s quite a small room without a window and we were worried it would feel dark and squashed, but the tiles are reflecting the spotlights nicely. It also makes you realise just how much of a slope the house is on, with the tiles sloping against the ceiling. 

Our builders also put the beam up in the lounge ready to add the hanging lights. We’ve asked them to raise it once already to allow enough height for the lights to hang down, but we’re still not sure if it’s high enough – it’s hard to gauge as it is at the moment. It’s really exciting though to see the beam in place, as we came up with the idea nearly 18 months ago and have been waiting ever since for it to actually happen! 

They’ve been hard at work in the first floor communal building too. We’ve been designing the internal layout for the whole building over the last few weeks, trying to make sure there’s enough space in the laundry and garage for everything we need (including storage space as this will be where we store everything needed for the cottages), and then thinking about the different ways guests might want to use the top floor and building in all the electrical needs now. John met with our builder and electrician to talk through our plans, and since then, the first fix electrics have already gone in and they’ve started plasterboarding the top floor. 

And our sewage treatment plant arrived this week too! It’s been sized to accommodate the entire site once it’s all up and running so is definitely too big for phase 1 – it looks like a giant spaceship has landed in the yard!