Grianán

External Ground works

2010-06-25T10:04:00.006+01:00

Arrived on site yesterday but no radiators or piping had arrived for the plumbing to start work!! This will definitely delay the move in time as we can't start the flooring without the plumbing work being completed!!

Tiles for the downstairs are on order and being delivered next week so will have to delay the tiler and the Kitchen installation :-(((
May not be in the house now before I head back to work from my Maternity Leave.

On the plus side the external ground work has being going on - all drains around the house have been put in, hardcore laid out and getting ready to put in the footpaths around the house :-).
The Bio Cycle unit has arrived which hopefully will be installed over the next few days.

Below are the latest pics.

So much more to do!!

2010-06-24T10:37:00.007+01:00

Items Completed:

Site breakthrough and set up for build start
Build Stage 1-3 paid for and completed.
Build Stage 4 completed and stage 5 underway
Tiles selected and ordered for downstairs Kitchen/dining/hallway/utility
Wooden floor selected, paid & ordered - walnut - for downstairs seperate living room
Wooden floor selected, paid & ordered - birch - for all rooms & landing upstairs (except bathrooms)
ESB connection applied for; and paid for as was approved connection.
Kitchen selected and finalised
Double bed & bedside lockers for master bedroom
Shower tray & glass wall selected and ordered for the ensuite
Main Bath selected - NICE !!!
All sinks, loos, taps etc selected, paid for and ordered
Bought a sofa & 2 chairs about 6/7 years ago; in sis's house so will have to move them into my place
Got a free second table & chairs which will most certainly do till we need buy one when we have money!!!

Items to be Done:
Tiler selected and booked to complete the downstairs tiling before Kitchen is fitted
Wood floors to be laid ... aaaaggghhh ... the cost of it all!!!
The bathroom & ensuite tiles to be selected
Chippy in to create the surround for the bath which is to be tiled.....
Kitchen cooker, extractor hood & fridge freezer date for delivery to be finalised
Washing machine and dryer to be selected & ordered
Plumbing of wood stove, buffer tank, HRV & Solar panel to be organised ... must contact builder on best time for this in the schedule???
Double check on the extractor fan hole in the wall with the builder??
Get the stove flues quote and finalisation of dates to be installed with kiely stoves
Eircom for telephone connection
County council for water connection (who are on 'work to rule' and can't get through to them via phone and pretty stuck due to caring for baby too!!)
Once electric cert completed get ESB in for Electricity connection
Pay for the kitchen due to be paid next week!!
Pay the Stage 4 to the builder due end of this week !! (stage 4 of 5 stages)
Pay tiler and for wood floor to be layed aaaaghhhhh
Covering the concrete stairs .... with what & How?
Outside light fittings, internal light fittings!!!
Bar stools for the kitchen island unit
..........I know there is more to be added to the list but my head is now fried!!!

Internal Walls Spray Painted white

2010-06-23T14:20:00.006+01:00

Yay! The plaster was dry enough to get the internal walls spray painted. The inside looks even more amazing :-))
We decided to get this done so we could move in quickly without any delay but also ensure that the walls behind the radiators once installed would be painted first.

Below are some pics of how fabulous the internal walls are now :-))

Internal Plastering

2010-06-22T20:51:00.013+01:00

The downstairs family/Kitchen/dining room plastered - first pic shows the back wall and the second pic shows the long windows. The windows are covered in plastic on the outside as the external rendering is going on also.

The other rooms all plastered and drying out...

External rendering underway - June

2010-06-22T10:56:00.009+01:00

The external rendering is underway while the internal plastering dries out. House is looking fab.

Next post will have the internal shots of the rooms fully plastered with a coat of white paint plus the external render completed with scaffolding down.

Below are some of the pictures taken during the rendering process, firstly they skimmed a coat of cement over the ICF; then once dried a coat of adhesive was applied (in 1 day!) then the white acrylic render was applied (1.5 days*2men!!).

Pictures of the cement finish drying before the adhesive was applied.

Below is the side of the house shots of the acrylic white rendering with scaffolding still up :- )
All the windows were lined with plastic as applying the white rendering is such a messy job!!!

May Update

2010-06-22T10:54:00.004+01:00

Kitchen spec'd out and design finalised. Update Kitchen area with the Kitchen electrics :-))

All electrics installed into the house by now, approved & signed off. Yipeee!!!!

Over the next few weeks we will have the internal plastering to be completed, along with the external rendering :-)))))
The internal plastering is to be completed by the June Bank Holiday weekend so we can't wait to see this :-))

Chris and I are driving each other totally mad as we can't agree on any bathroom white goods and the house flooring LOL :-)) Ah the joys of shopping for the house !!!! Hopefully we will be still on speaking terms by the time the house is ready to move into LOL

March Update

2010-06-22T10:49:00.006+01:00

Well it was a long wet & cold winter for Ireland!!! Plus we had a beautiful baby girl in January! As a result more delays in build work plus decision making.
With Chris travelling all over the world Dec 09, January & February 2010 and me with new baby (first time Mum) in January & February we were just way to busy to do anything with the house :-(( Hence the delays with the house and with the blog!!! Baby certainly too all my time and priority ... she is a joy!!

Well finally in March we had the entire house electrical spec'd out and electrician on site for the electrics. Chris put in surround sound speaker wire for the TV's plus speaker cable for other music as we intend to fully use the Apple wireless technology throughout the house.

Next stop is the kitchen to finalise; and onto first fix :-))

Latest update

2009-10-26T19:33:00.004Z

For the rest of this week and remainder of the month of October the Builders are working on completing the roof!

The natural slates arrived and going to be being put up.

Yipeee!!!

Roll on November for when the roof will be finished and then in the second or third week in November the windows and doors being fitted. Let's hope there are no more delays!!!!

Some photo's of the inside - Upstairs Bedrooms

2009-10-26T17:47:00.016Z

The Master Bedroom - is above the living room and in the dormer side of the house.

To the left is the dormer window which is East facing.

Below are Photo's 3 & 4. Photo 3 is of the the walk-in wardrobe and door to en-suite.

Photo 4 shows the velux window in the roof of the dormer to the west of the master bedroom.

To the left are Photo's 4 & 5 show the Nursery (Bedroom 4/office room)

Photo's 6&7 show Bedroom 2 with the south/west and west facing windows. This room also has an ensuite.

Photo's 8&9 showing Bedroom 3 - window facing east.

The last 4 photo's show the attic area above the Bedroom2,3,4 & Bathroom (at the 2

storey side of the house).

There are 4 velux windows in the attic and the room will be fully insulated to 'hatbitable' stan

dards even though this room is not right now going to be used as a 'room' but is to be fully kitted out for possible future conversion.

The attic area will also house the HRV unit at the gable walls in the very last photo. We are going to use the Vallox HRV unit which is to be installed in November.

Some photo's of the inside - Upstairs landing balcony hallway

2009-10-26T16:46:00.020Z

Going upstairs to the landing & landing blacony.

the first photo here shows window on the stairs mid-way - this is facing the back garden and is west facing.

The second photo as you can see below shows the view as you are heading up the stairs to the landing area lighted by a velux window in the dormer side of the house.

As you turn to the left you can see the landing/balcony which brings you to the 2-storey part of the house. The 2

storey part of the house contains Bedroom 2, Bedrooom 3,

Bedroom4/Nursery/Office and main bathroom.

The view from the stairs to Bedroom 3 & 4 & bathroom

The view from the bathroom area to the Balcony

To the right the view looking at the corner window down to the dining area.

The final two pictures show the view from the dining area looking up to the balcony/landing.

Some photo's of the inside - Downstairs Living Room

2009-10-26T14:29:00.012Z

These photos are of the living room.

This first photo shows the door from the living room (formal room on house plan) into the hallway.

The second photo here shows the wall of the living room that is on the hallway side.

The third photo shows the window to the right of the door of the living room.

The fourth photo here shows the full wall to the right of the doorway with the two windows that overlook the front

driveway.

The fifth photo shows the wall where the chimney & fireplace is to be located. We are going to put in an insert stove - fondis. Hopefully it will work out!!! We are finding suppliers pretty sticky at the moment on price etc etc!!

Budget is going up and up!!

The last photo shows the double doors and side windows of the living room that overlook the garden (rear/back of the property).

The patio area will be very large and will also be accessed from the long open plan kitchen/dining/living room.

Some photo's of the inside - Downstairs Open Plan Kitchen Dining Family room

2009-10-26T13:53:00.023Z

From the front door - the hallway & stairs below and to the right upstairs to the

landing.

The kitchen

windows -

looking out to the front of the house.

The rest of this room is long open plan kitchen & dining & family room.

Next are the pictures of the long window next to the kitchen

where the dining area will be

And where it will be overlooked by the upstairs hallway balcony area.

Here you can see the south facing windows into the living area of this long room. Also the corner windows capture the westerly sunlight and there is also another window to the right which you cannot see that further captures the westerly light.

Stage 1 and Stage 2 Completed

2009-10-26T13:28:00.005Z

Finally an update!! Nearly every weekend has been spent planning, sourcing & researching.

We are well underway and the past few months have been in Stage 1 and completing Stage 2.

We are up to roof level. All walls are fully completed, concrete floors completed, pipes for heating laid, pipes for utilities instered, concrete stairs input (to be fully fixed in Stage3), internal block walls upstairs and downstairs, attic ceiling completed and the attic velux windows all completed.

It's been a long haul from May!! We have had a few delays along the way and probably a few more to come. One we know of already are the windows, we are still chasing the company on what is going on there!!

And it looks like we won't be in for Christmas due to the windows being delayed. Other news is that Tanya is expecting a baby .... first week in January!!!! Hence the lack of updates and added urgency on the build ... but still building and weather interrupts, supplier interrupts have more of an affect on the build!!!

End of week 2

2009-05-27T09:44:00.009+01:00

Well the first stage of putting up the Reward ICF system is on it's way. Over the coming weeks the concrete will be poured to bring the walls up to the first floor. Then end of Stage 1 - should be completed by mid-late June.

Stage 2 looks like it will complete August timeframe as this will incorporate installing the concrete floors (July) , putting up the next floor ICF system, pouring the concrete in these walls by end of July. Following on from this will be laying all the floors and ensuring all the pipes are installed for the heating/plumping etc on both floors. All should be completed by August.

As you can see from the pictures not all the windows are cut out as yet. Can't wait for this floor to be completed.

And the next stage!!

Then in August we can get the windows measured up!!!! Yipee!!!

End of week 1

2009-05-27T09:42:00.002+01:00

Day 2

2009-05-27T09:38:00.002+01:00

2009-05-12T14:21:00.004+01:00

Yipeeeee, its finaly Started!

The builders arrived on site arrived yesterday morning and cleared the site, dug the foundation and poured concrete.

More

Planting the hedging

2009-03-15T10:55:00.009Z

Well February was pretty cold and the ground very hard but we collected our order of hedging from Future Forests in west Cork Saturday morning Feb 28th.

As the ground is pretty hard and essentially Farm Land we arranged then to collect a rotovator at 1pm from Toss Bryan's in Fermoy.

The Van was packed with the hedging plants but Toss Bryan's rotovator was broken, we could not get another that weekend so we needed a plan B for breaking the ground. Chris went off to B&Q for a handheld attachment for the Ryobi strimmer which could work but so much smaller.

By 2pm we were on site and started to break the ground for the hedging, Chris with the small handheld rotovator and Tanya with the Fork & Spade!!! It was tough going so we did not get much done by 5pm on the Saturday. Back Sunday morning at 10.30am for planting and trying to do as much as we could.

We got the Beech planted on Sunday morning (March 1st) and spent the afternoon digging the west facing (back) of the site for further planting, and the back corner planted with the Yew, some of the privet and Berberis plants. We also planted some apple trees, and the Oak tree as planned.

It was so slow that we knew we would have get a rotovator for the following weekend to complete the North Facing site

Next post will be the north facing side of the site being planted, and the mini-nursery section where the remaining plants will be planted for re-planting

after the house build has been completed but at least there will be some growth between now and then.

Planting!!

2009-03-14T13:27:00.002Z

We found a great great nursery/garden centre in west cork that have a fantastic amount of the plants we want as well as at a great price!!

They are called future forests and also have a great website! They can delivery your order or you can collect.

Their website is: www.futureforests.net

So we made our order for the hedging to be collected Saturday 28th February:

For 50 Yew, 150 Beech, 50 Privet, 50 Berberis Julianae, 50 of the mixture for 4 Seasons native hedging (Cotoneaster, Spindle, flowering currant, Fuschia, Mixed Dogwood, etc) , 50 of the mixture Wild fruiting hedging (Wild Pear, Hazel, Guelder Rose, Bird Cherry, Blackthorn, Spindle, Elder, Crabapple) , 10 broadleaf trees (Ash, Oak, Aspen, Beech, Alder, Wych Elm, Hornbeam, Willow, Whitebeam and Birch)

We may need to get more Willow in as the soil layer under the top soil seems to be clay so we will have to monitor it.

Next post will be how we got on with the planting!!!!

Overall 410 plants ordered and needed to be planted as soon as collected!!

Getting back into to it!!

2009-03-14T13:12:00.003Z

For all those people who've been wondering why we've not posted in a while it is because of new Job for Chris and just pretty heavy workload happening for both of us at work since September 08! Plus at the same the economic crisis happened and required us to got through a huge amount of paperwork with the Banks for the financing of our house project!!!

It all started to go pear-shaped getting the finances in October when we were asked to re-apply for the mortgage and get the land re-valued. Since then it's been a pretty long slog getting all the paper work together again and going through the details that the bank's now require.

Everything was going soooo slowly it was unbelievable that we just concentrated on work while the banks and the Irish economy were going through the motions. Everything submitted is almost being checked 100 times (well it feels like that) and wrong dates by the valuer as well as incorrect figures on the engineers form compared to mine has all just taken time to re-submit.

Given most of the bank staff we are dealing with are on part time hours they only look at the file on a Monday or Tuesday.

We are both delighted that the Banks since February seem to be back in business - the cash injection from the government seems to have done the trick nicely!!

We've been given the go but still lots and lots of paperwork as the next stages are with the solicitors!

In the meantime we have been planning away, continued our research for heating systems so we can plan this effectively as well as monitoring the costs situation. We could not believe that so many suppliers are still holding out on prices from 07 and 08 which are to our mind just ridiculous!

Tanya completed the landscape drawings and plan for the hedging plants to be ordered Feb/March. Next step for the site is the planting in areas we can plant in - The north and south/west hedging :-) as well as get the builder on site to start the build YIPEEEEEE!!!!!

latest update

2008-09-24T13:59:00.002+01:00

We took the weekend of the 12th and 13th off as we needed some well earned rest as working through each weekend was taking it's toll especially with the state of the wettest summer on record in Ireland hampering our efforts.

Back on site the weekend of the 19th & 20th where we got back to work on the Shed layout - setup the shuttering and backfilled areas around the shed on Saturday the 19th. Sunday the 19th we set about looking at hedging! We had researched the traditional hedging in Ireland and made our lists.

The hedging we want to plant to give good screening as well as wind protection were as follows:
Elaeagnus x ebbinegii (Oleaster) - evergeen - height 6-8ft tall (spaced 1.5 ft apart)
Elaeagnus Pungens 'Maculata' (Variegated Oleaster) - evergeen - hight 6-8ft tall (spaced 1.5 ft)
Taxus Baccata (Yew) - evergreen - height upto 40ft - spaced 2ft
Fuchsia "Riccartonii" - deciduous - height upto 6ft- spaced 1.5 ft
Escallonia 'Macrutha' - Evergreen - height 6-8ft - spaced 1.5 ft
Fagus Sylvatica 'Green Beech' - Deciduous - height 6-8ft - spaced 1 ft
Fagus Sylvatica 'Atropurpurea' Copper Beech - deciduous - height 6-8ft
Native Irish Hazel
Native Irish Gueler Rose
Native Irish Dog Rose

We set about trying to source the above hedging and have totally failed in sourcing them so far. We have been promised a contact name for a supplier of native irish hedging but this has as yet to be fulfilled!!
So on Sunday, when we hoped to get just a few of the above list and start planting the hedging at the back of the site, we felt despondant.

My mother had some slippings growing from her hedging in her back garden and gave them to us. Even though these were not our list we took the chance to plant these so at least there will be some hedge growth to the rear of the site.
Boy it was such hard work digging out the ground for planting. We need better tools or shovels or something that will get through the thick growth and hard ground!!!

We worked out that if at 7-9 euro's per plant - the hedging cost alone to only 3 sides of the perimter will cost us 4,000 euro ... madness.

We will continue our search for planting and scour as many forums, garden centres, tree&shrub nurseries for the best deal so we can get our hedging planted over the next 3 months so this time next year they will have grown some bit and look good around our completed house!!!!

Back to the Site Clearing - Sunday 7th September

2008-09-08T20:33:00.012+01:00

Well back on site Sunday to roughly mark the house from our site layout plan.

Once complete we could then dig out the area to the front and left side of the house for further hardcore to be laid, as well as the back of the site and by the shed to prep for us to move in temporary building while the house is being built.

We moved the final 10 tonnes of hardcore from the site next door to where Chris had continued the digging from the gate into the site. And levelled it out as much into the site by the gate as we could. Elaine, my sister, and her husband Sean popped over to check out our work. Sean decided to have a try of the Dumper check out his big smiling face below!!

Chris did great work digging out the areas we need to place hardcore down next week and then once he completed I moved to the digger to remove the top soil into the dumper so Chris would dump it at the very left side of the site. There was no way I was getting on the dumper after Friday's incident!!!

We finally finished - totally knackered!!! But delighted we still did well despite the disappointment of Friday pushing our schedule back seeing as we can only work on site at weekends. Later in the evening my Aunt Celia and her husband Fred also popped by and it was great to see them, they were so enthusiastic about the site and my sister's house next door. They were in the area checking out a site for their son who has been looking for a site too!!

We crashed onto the couch when we got home, boy what a weekend. So much more to do. Chris was took Monday off work too to continue the digging out and clearing of the site all around the house - not sure when the hard core is going to be delivered and when we will spend another few weekends working away on that. All I know is that it has to be done in the next few weeks as we plan to meet the builder and engineer on site in October to discuss the build spec and the builders schedule, costs etc to start the main house construction. We will be building the shed ourselves - already ordered the 'bricky' so we'll see how we go as we have never built before!!!!

Saturday 6th Sept - Finally Completing the entrance

2008-09-07T22:43:00.011+01:00

Again bright and early Saturday morning we were on site and immediately continued moving the hardcore stone to the entrance.

We did our best and continued this all day - leveling the stone and digging out more of the driveway above the gates into the site.

Chris was great leveling the stone. Even the rain stayed away, giving better working conditions compared to Friday. See pics below!

Then the sun came out in the afternoon to cheer us up - it was

lovely and warm such a change!!

At the end of day we were delighted as we finished moving 90% of the 40 tonnes of hardcore onto the site entrance and driveway to the gate so roll on Sunday for digging the driveway into the rest of the site up to the back of the site and the rest of the stone.

Extending the Entrance and Moving some of the stone

2008-09-07T22:18:00.013+01:00

Friday afternoon, the track was fixed so Chris got back on the digger to finish extending the entrance and making enough room for lorries to enter and turn.

Cold, wet and miserable we continued. Once the entrance was wide enough and straightened out we then set about moving the 4o tons of hardcore stone from the site next door and dumping onto the entrance.

This time I was on the digger and Chris on the dumper... he could handle it way better than I :-) We worked through the afternoon and managed to move piles of stone onto our new extended entrance.

So by evening we had completed the entrance and managed to shift about 10 tons of the stone into piles at the entrance. We were pretty tired and cold so headed home for food around 6pm with the aim of being up bright and early Saturday to complete the moving of the stone and leveling it.

John Barry, Tanya's brother helped out too which was great so Chris & Tanya could head out to get some materials!!!

Washout Friday!

2008-09-07T21:34:00.014+01:00

Well Friday 5th September we both took the day off work, hired the digger & dumper, ordered the stone and were on site at 9am!

Of all days it was a total washout of a day with more rain in one day that you would get in a month! The stone lorries came but our entrance was not wide enough. So thankfully the site next door let us drop the 2 lorry loads of hardcore on their site!

So our goal for the day was changed to widening the entrance so we can get the stone deliveries as well as the deliveries for the rest of the build over the coming 6-10 months. Our goal for the weekend was originally to get in all the stone for the entrance, mark out the driveway, the front and back of the house and by the shed by digging these areas out about 1 foot and then lay the stone over the weekend. This now looked unlikely to happen.

Chris got on the digger and ploughed away to add another 12ft clearence to the entrance, trees & hedges and old stone wall was removed.

We had till 2-3pm to complete and let the stone delivery team know we were on track for them to delivery the rest of the load at 4pm. Chris was on the digger and I was to use the dumper which he would fill and I would empty up the side of the site. I was nervous on the dumper, combined with the very wet weather and got to work - unfortunately when I drove the dumper upto Chris in the digger I couldn't brake it!!!! Panic!! All I could see was Chris's face of terror as I slowly ploughed into him!!! Cripes I thought I was about to kill him and he thought the same thing too screaming at me to brake, but I could not manage it very well but fortunately I did just in time!!!! This scared the life out of me and that was that for me and the dumper!!! Never ever again it is not a machine for me!!! Thankfully after our 5 minute scare we got back to work and Chris continued to dig away with the digger.

We were getting there and despite the rain we thought we would be back on track in the afternoon! We broke through another 12ft of the hedging and cleared it out. I dried out and warmed up in the van and went to the local village shop for lunch. When I got back and called over to Chris only to discover he jumped out of the digger because the track fell off the digger!!! We had to call the hire shop to get them to come out and fix it. The rain had been so heavy that the entire driveway was sticky and moving was a nightmare. We waited 1-2 hours for him to come and fix the track on the digger. We knew then we would not be ready to receive the rest of the stone that day so delayed it to Monday, as Chris also took Monday off work so we would complete the work we need to complete this weekend.

What all the fuss is about!

2008-09-01T15:57:00.008+01:00

I just realised that we do not have the plans up.
Well here goes, its only the elevations but should give you some idea of what type of house we are building.
We have changed the finish to a render finish rather than stone so the finish will be in white acrylic render because the stone finish costs were just too high.

The site is a half acre and all the work we are doing is to prep and clear the site. Once we complete this then we can get the builders in to do all main building work - the house!!
The back of the house will south facing on the site where we also plan to have a very large patio area.

For the Windows & Doors - We hope to go for eco therm windows - wood inside and black/charcoal finish on the outside with a charcoal/black door - should look great against the white render finish.

Rain again

2008-09-01T11:52:00.008+01:00

Well Saturday was a washout and my plans to complete the shuttering for the Shed did not work out to the original plan!! I was up bright and early and bought more tools .... yet more tools!!!

Here are a few pic's of what did happen on site. I measured up the shuttering. The build next door had some spare floor joists that are ideal to use for the shed shuttering. I suppose I could have dug a standard strip foundation but I always prefer using shuttering and with the "free" shuttering its a no brainer. Anyway it turned out that the hole we dug was just slightly smaller than we thought so I ended up digging out soil just to get the level. Then it started raining so with the clay bassed subsoil I called it a day as it was messing up the hole (any excuse :-)). The joists were over 6 meters long so the van made a good work bench while cutting out the joints.

Well we need to do more digging for the shed next weekend and order stone/gravel as the ground when wet get's too mucky, and also start the full site clearence. So roll on the orders and planning this week so we can do more work next week
Tasks to be done before the weekend:
- 1 - Order Stone/gravel: need it for Friday 5th/Saturday6th Delivery
- 2 - Book Landscape gardner for the landscape plans which the council need!!! Arrange for this Saturday 6th September.
- 3 - Arrange for site clearence to be completed - contact T.'s cousin who does this to check if possible this week or weekend it can be done!
- 4 - Review if need to book digger again this weekend the weekend of the 13th September
- 5 - Contact Solicitor for follow up on latest correspondance in order to finalise details
- 6 - Complete latest financials (personal & bank forms)

Tasks for the next weekend in progress:
Basically I ordered 180 tonnes of hardcore that Tanya and I will lay per the site layout. It's very basic layout :-) but at least you can visualise the our site plan. We have better drawings from the Engineer which we must scan in!

Our initial plan was to use a JCB bucket loader with back hoe to clear the topsoil but between €600 and €800 was too much for three days. Now we are going to use a 3 tonne digger and 3 tonne dump truck that will cost for the pair €300 for three days. I will operate the digger and Tanya will operate the dumper. With both of us on site this weekend we should have a decent enough output to get the work done that we need to get done.

Completing the planned weekend work!

2008-08-24T21:46:00.004+01:00

We completed the goal for the weekend and caught up on Saturdays rain delay. Chris was on site from early morning AM to complete the work with the digger and then I joined in at 11.30am. Both of us stayed until 8pm Sunday evening our only break for lunch!!

Chris did an amazing amount of work in the morning completing the entrance and digging the holes for the Gate posts and had one post up when I arrived so we completed the second post and concrete together. Chris worked on the Digger to continue the entrance work and I got to join in too!!!

In the afternoon I was on the digger to prep for the Shed foundation dig-out which Chris leveled out so hopefully we won't have too much rain for when we need to lay the shed foundations!!

Gates are now up and the area for the shed is ready for the foundation laying work to begin!!!

Pictures for Digging out the Shed

2008-08-24T21:40:00.008+01:00

Putting in the Gates

2008-08-24T21:31:00.011+01:00

Tanya on a digger!

2008-08-23T22:24:00.001+01:00

Pictures of us Breaking Through

2008-08-23T22:10:00.001+01:00

Breaking through!

2008-08-23T22:04:00.002+01:00

Breaking through the site

2008-08-23T22:02:00.003+01:00

Today was the day to breakthrough the ditch so we could have an opening to the site! Our plan for day 1 was to breakthrough, put in temporary light steel gates so we could secure the site Saturday evening.

We started 9.30 am with breaking through the ditch and discovered an old stone wall with trees and hedging growing out through it and 4m thick on the inside of the field. The weather forecast was for showers which were to clear up in the afternoon/evening. We had misty rain which did stop at lunch time.

Then in the afternoon the heavens opened and did not stop - just when we were completing the entrance and had hoped to dig and lay concrete for the gate posts. The heavy rain meant we were working in a mud pit so had to finish up at 7.40pm. All in all with the extra work clearing the hedging and old stone wall combined with the heavy rain we could not complete everything we needed to complete sat 23rd!!

Roll on completion of these and if we can also clear area for the shed on Sunday 24th :-)