So near and yet so far.  The crane has arrived on site this morning to move containers of blocks, beams and the yellow submarine into their positions.  This is the view of it from my garden - next door but one.  That’s how near it is.

In spite of the changeable weather the bricklayers have progressed well.  I’ve spent quite a lot of time on building sites in my life.  My dad, his brother and my maternal grandfather were all brickies and my dad used to take me to work with him when I was little, while my mum was working. No 15 hours a week childcare in the 1950s. I used to play in the building sand.  Can you imagine that now?  I survived it though.  And Dave and I have done many building projects together throughout our married life.  The ‘gang’ working on our house are really good.  The showcase of the exterior is the brickwork, and it is excellent.

So once the crane has done its job, the block and beam foundations will be put into place, which is quite a quick process I think.  Then the walls will start going up and we’ll really start to see progress.  The roof tilers are booked in for November, which means that if the weather is kind we will be in the dry before Christmas.

You never realise quite how many decisions have to be made at this stage of the building.  Where to put power points, lighting (always a tricky one) are these roof tiles ok, what sort of garage door are you having.  And so it goes on.  In previous builds we have been much more hands on with the actual construction.  This time we are strictly hands off.  I have definitely painted my last ceiling.  So we have more time to make these decisions, which is quite a luxury.  The last time we built - the house we are living in now - we lived in a caravan on site, so we saw every little thing as it happened, and by doing that progress seems very slow.  This time we just visit the site at the end of the day and progress seems much quicker.  Also there are 3 bricklayers working on this house - we only had 1 or 2 last time.  Makes such a difference.

We’ve just put our house up for sale, which I don’t like at all.  You have to make sure the house is always presentable in case someone wants to come and have a look.  We thought we had sold it a couple of months ago, but that has fallen through unfortunately.  So we start again. Fingers crossed.

Comments

  1. Campersmoll18 September 2025 at 23:34

    How many electrical points? Double how many you plan!
    Cranes really do make life easy for everyone!
    Lindsey xx

    ReplyDelete

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