Photo Diary - Beginning of May

It really looks likes a house now. The outside is pretty close to finished.

Main bathroom is being tiled. Never thought choosing tiles would be so difficult. Interestingly the water in the bath is there to keep the bath in place while they build the surround.

Shower area.

Oops they forgot the shelf in the shower so they have to add it the next day.

Kids toilet is having its basin and cabinet put in.

And what we've all been waiting for.....

Yesterday they broke through the ceiling into our house to begin the staircase. Yay. Starting to feel like the end may actually be in sight. However I mustn't get too excited because we've still got the staircase, tiling, bathroom fixtures, carpets, lights, plugs and switches, built in cupboards, exterior painting, carpentry under the staircase and fixing damaged ceiling to go.

Ok, let's not think about that for today......

This is not even a tenth of the dirt and debris that came out of the ceiling.

Our house is covered in plastic to try and save the living areas from getting too dusty.

Cardboard in the floor to protect it.

Plastic sheets over the doors.

Finally its feeling like a house ....

Painting is happening - This is the feature wall in our bedroom.

No we didn't choose black for the walls :). This is the waterproofing in our bathroom.

Our baby girls rooms. Robin's Egg blue and then pink, pink, pink accents.

Joshua's Room. Blue feature wall with orange and green accents.

Children's toilet. Wow its even more orange on the walls than it was on the colour swatch.

Finally the glass is going in.

Painting the landing.

A special anniversary gift

On our 5 year wedding anniversary I convinced Super dad to let me climb the ladder to see the upstairs for myself. It is now the end of April and I am 8mnths pregnant. Up until now it has not been safe for me to go upstairs. I thought that I wouldn't get up there until the staircase has been built but I've been desperate to see upstairs for myself.

The only way to get into the upstairs has been up the ladder and across the roof and then through a window. However now that they have built and mostly finished the balcony and put in our french doors you can go in a much easier and safer way.

So today after much testing of the ladder my husband finally consented to allowing me up the ladder. Wow it was so amazing to see the rooms upstairs. It made all the difference to my stress levels. Now I can finally imagine what its going to be like when its finished. It makes putting up with all the hold ups bearable.

I enjoyed walking through the rooms, imaging where we'd put furniture and how pictures would look on the walls. It was a very special experience for me. 

It was the best anniversary gift I could have been given. Its also a bit funny because the 5 year anniversary is wood so we both joke that we gave each other a timber frame second storey.  

Everything is in and the painting and plastering have begun.

Interior doors are in and being painted.

Photo Diary - Mid April part 2

The interior wall cladding is going in.

Interior walls are being cladded. Now they are starting to look like rooms.

This is the hole for the straicase.

Looking from the nursery into the landing area.

Our main bedroom's little balcony. Oops its too little. Quickly, quickly renegotiate for a bigger balcony. Of course pay more for it but in the end it was worth.

Ceilings are going in.

This is where we sit when daddy goes up, up the ladder. We haven't seen upstairs yet except for in the photos

Super dad vacuums the saw dust

One little aside, which I sadly do not have photos for, is that Super dad was very concerned about the amount of dust and sawdust that was going to be sealed into the new floors. We all have hay fever and dust is a big problem for us. The sawdust was particularly bad in the nursery which the builders had been using as a base to cut timber.

So being the Super dad that he is and putting his family first he insisted we hired an industrial vacuum cleaner over the Easter weekend. He then he spent hours in the roof painstakingly vacuuming the dust and saw dust up. This was an extremely difficult task because we have ThinkPink in the ceiling and it constantly got sucked up and had to be carefully removed in order to keep it intact.

A big thank you to him for our less dusty house.

Photo Diary - Mid April

Finally the engineer came and gave the green light for the structure and now the construction to continue. Here you can see the metal speed bracing which we were waiting for. Now the structure can be closed or sealed.

Electrics are in and what a pain that was - loads of issues, things in wrong places and wired incorrectly.

Now that the engineer has given the green light the floors can go in. Yay.

Our bedroom wall which has given lots of headaches due to incorrect windows, window and door sizes being delivered. Finally the correct door and one window are in. The other window is still on its way because they delivered two right opening windows. How silly who wants the windows on either side of the door to open the same way - surely I am not crazy to think that it makes sense for the two windows to open in opposite directions.

Photo Diary - Begining of April

Door Frames are in. Internal structure is almost complete

Plumbing has been put in and is ready to be sealed into the walls.

Windows are in. All except for our bedroom wall where they delivered the wrong windows and door.

These are the taps for the bath - very exciting.

The strain of building

We've spent many painful weeks since my last post fighting the builders to get things moving more quickly. When we started the renovation we were told 10 - 12 wks which took us to the 2nd last week in April, plenty of time to finish before our little girl arrived. However some time around the beginning of April we were told that the new estimated date of finishing would be 25 May. When we picked ourselves up off the ground from the shock we started fighting. Super dad took their schedule and made them shave 4weeks of the deadline.

Things have been very stressful since then with Super dad basically becoming the project manager, foreman and overall 'bad cop' in order to get things done. We are constantly fighting about how slow they are going, what they have not communicated with us, what they have not asked for our input on and off course what they have done wrong and need to change, adjust or redo.

To make matters worse we still do not have our bond from the bank. Due to some terrible administration from Investec we are still waiting. So there is a huge amount of financial strain on us as well.

All this has lead to many sleepless nights and no time for blogging. However I don't want to give up on this blog even if it becomes just a picture diary of the building process. So for a while that's all I'll be adding.

When we started the project, like more people, I was very positive about the builders and the process. Now I simply want it done and finished.