Up, up and away!

All the builders were back on Monday 13th May, and the five of them got straight on with even more lovely bricklaying and block laying. I am really amazed at how quick things are progressing with the building work, it is brilliant to watch it all. After so many doodles on scrappy pieces of paper and backs of envelopes, it's wonderful to see all our ideas take shape!

The wall of our original house will be removed at ground floor level and the remaining wall will be supported by a very large RSJ (Steel lintel). As we want the ceiling to be level from the old house into the new extension, the builders will use several Acrow props to support the weight of the house while they carefully insert the RSJ onto the ends of our existing first floor joists. This will mean we won't have boxing around the lintel and it will be hidden in the ceiling. The RSJ will be slightly lower (a centimetre or so) than the existing ceiling, so we will have the original ceiling skimmed by a plasterer, to make sure it is flush into the extension.

Here is a bit of a tour guide...

This area, together with our old dining room and kitchen, will make a large kitchen, dining and family room. You can now see where the bifold door will be and the window over the kitchen sink...

Our utility and downstairs toilet/shower room will obviously be separated by a wall. We will be doing this ourselves as it will be a stud wall. You can see the outline of the back door and toilet window now.

The garage comes slightly further forward than the rest of the house. The bedroom, which is above, will be level with the original house to allow for a sloping canopy at the front of the house. The canopy will hopefully help to tie in the old house and the new build and make it look slightly less like an extension. It will also give us some rain cover when we reach the front door, as we are removing the old porch area to make the hallway larger.

All of this brickwork achieved so quickly means the joists and floor for upstairs are soon to follow!

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