Aha, the magic phrase that is “second fix”. It has begun! We now have some light fittings and sockets… oooohhh. We also have a bathroom floor and all bathroom components are ready to go in soon (well, as soon as the tiling is done anyway).
I’ve spent a week or so getting to grips with permitted development rights and building regs notice submissions in order to progress our loft conversion. Expect this new found knowledge to be retained for a week or so at most. It was the perfect time for a call from some friends with a loft conversion dilemma (so pleased to be able to use my current mastermind subject more than once!). The long and short of it is that the side of the new roof that only faces our own property (I know, this is an odd concept and has pretty much blown the minds of all planning department bods I’ve spoken to) is not on a side elevation and therefore we can put a rooflight in it without needing planning permission. This is great news as it means we don’t need planning permission to put rooflights in both halves of the loft conversion. So our building regulations notice has been submitted and the loft conversion can begin this week. I had to work out the floor area of the loft conversion in order to put this submission in, and we were both amused and slightly horrified to discover that we are creating a 27 square metre suite of rooms for a toddler’s bedroom… A lot of this is eaves space so it’s not really that big but even taking that into account, it is a bit of a change from the box room Spencer used to have.
The screed issue is still lingering on. The majority of the screed is now done and drying but the area by the front door (hallway, utility room and downstairs loo) is all still needing doing asap so that it has enough time to dry before the flooring goes down. The sticking point here seems to be that the main man plasterer has done his knee in. He’s being chased by Steve, our builder, to get this done yesterday so we’re waiting with baited breath.
Once the screed has dried, the wooden flooring will be going down. The only minor detail is our decision making on the flooring. We both agree on a particular colour and look for the wooden flooring but it looks so different (and much darker) in all the promotional pictures than it does in the real life sample that it’s difficult to commit. We had finally reached our decision when the carpenters fitting the floor told us that our choice of flooring would cost an extra £1000 to fit as we had chosen a more difficult option. So, second choice it is! Massive thanks to Sylvie for all her help with this.
