I'm sure there comes a point in every project when the problems reach such a point that the homeowner (or "victim" as they should better be named) feels ready to throw the book at his builder, tell him enough is enough and go and beg for any other tradesman to turn up and finish the job. Doubtless this is a venture more of hope than expectation - maybe someone whose reputation has been unsullied by the traumas and pains of recent problems and failures can sweep in to your life and fix all those last little tasks that stand between you and your home being returned to you.
That moment has certainly arrived for me and it is a task of great effort (physical and emotional) to restrain myself from ringing Paul, the "builder" and shouting at him and telling him to take his lack of management skills and get off my land.
No, the windows did not arrive. Apparently his manufacturer was let down by the glass supplier. Our frames sit somewhere in Croydon and some glass (whether it is the glass remains unclear) languishes in Perviale. So Paul will now tour London's outer reaches to harvest frames and glass and then assemble them and begin fitting them today.
Apparently, by the end of this week we should have all our upstairs windows fitted and those rooms finished. I will believe this when I see it.
In itself, I could almost find some tragi-comic value out of this tale of painful panes but this is not isolated. I have to put this in the context of the other vital materials that always arrived after they were needed; breeze blocks (twice), wood, cement (poured), cement (dry). And one can now add kitchen units to this as well, it seems.
I started the week with such optimism, the prospect that I would go off to a tedious and intensive 3-day meeting on Monday night, leaving a shell of a house and return on Friday morning to a lovely home with all its rooms ready for occupation, if not full use.
Instead, I face the prospect of yet another week homeless, sharing a bedroom with my sons and a living space with my in-laws (the headful of cold that is also trying to get elbow room doubtless isn't helping my mood).
All that is currently offered to us is the prospect of bedrooms, bathrooms (fitted but unfinished) and the two downstairs rooms as stuffed with the rest of the house as they have been since May.
For reasons I cannot quite fathom progress on the rest of the project has been Methusulean. Having made it clear that we wanted - at the very least - to have access to the kitchen (so that we could get all the boxes of crockery, food and saucepans etc out of the two living rooms), we thought we had an agreement that this room would be plastered and available to us.
As of now, it remains boarded up and largely unplastered, to the extent that the kitchen units - which we had initially discussed being delivered now for fitting this week and next - are not deemed wanted on site until the middle of next week.
Having made it clear that we, at least, wanted to move our sink and old units to the utility and connect our new cooker so that we could have a temporary respite from microwave cooking, this is not being offered to us for another week.
Given the prospect of returning to this grotesque chimera of a house - living room-cum-office-cum-storeroom, plus playroom-cum-kitchen-cum-diningroom and an unplastered hallway with the new cooker sitting in the middle of it, like a beached whale, I vote no. Somehow, Paul the builder thinks we would be leaping at the prospect of returning to this mess and seems intent on walking away from the job for the weekend (doutbless at his usual 3pm because, well it's a Friday and we like to finish early, don't we) presumably with the sound of applause from a grateful household ringing in his ears.
Given the sense of urgency we thought we had imparted, to say I am disappointed is an understatement. Given the promises that were made about the amount of work that would be done, to say I am underwhelmed with the effort visible is also an understament. Having been promised a weekend of work from the plasterers, we returned on Monday to find they had flagrantly lied to avoid working. Having been promised two teams of plasterers shift working to give us over 12 hours a day of activity, every time we visit the house in the evening we find it empty and dark (and unplastered).
Hence, my initial reaction is to ring Paul the builder and shout at him; to make clear my personal feelings regarding the project management skills he was meant to bring to this project (at our great expense); to tell him exactly what I want to see from him and exactly what commitment I want from him. That he can spend his weekend sweating his lungs out, whilst we cry our hearts out; that if we don't get our house back completely and utterly with everything finished within a week he can kiss his money goodbye. But most of all I want to ring him and ask for my children's (rapidly disappearing) summer holiday back, to ask for my life back. To tell him that I can't stand the tension of not knowing when (if?) I will get my house back, my sofa back, my TV back, my time back; to ask him if he understands what aggravation he's causing and tell him to put it right. I want him to know that I'm disappointed that another of his customers is taking him to court over problems on their project but my disappointment is because he's failing us as a result, not because it's an unfair world and it shouldn't happen to him.
Instead, I'm stuck here in this distant, dreary, interminable meeting, festering and pouring my angst out into a webpage whilst the good Doctor and her father plot the demise of Paul the builder.
Death through Project Management sounds apt.
I've heard it said quite frequently that building an extension is a lot less stressful than moving house. Now, I'm not going to pretend for a moment that moving house is a carefree and painless process and is facilitated by good natured professionals whose only thought is to ensure your happiness. Right now though, as we (theoretically) reach the final steps of this project, I can't help but think that I would at least have an estate agent and conveyancer on my side helping me deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Also, in all probability, I'd have a completion date. These are things I'd kill for right now.
Thursday, 26 July 2007
Wednesday, 25 July 2007
Plaster, but STILL no windows
Well, today I am pleased to report that we have:
*plastered rooms upstairs
*one working bathroom
*one partly plumbed bathroom
*no wallpaper on the stairs (this was a surprise)
Unfortunately, we STILL DON'T HAVE ANY WINDOWS.
This is getting quite dull, frankly. More tomorrow if I know anything else.
*plastered rooms upstairs
*one working bathroom
*one partly plumbed bathroom
*no wallpaper on the stairs (this was a surprise)
Unfortunately, we STILL DON'T HAVE ANY WINDOWS.
This is getting quite dull, frankly. More tomorrow if I know anything else.
Monday, 23 July 2007
Things that make you go hmm.....
And what a corking, chart-topping hit that was.
Still no windows. Apparently promised faithfully for Wednesday, after which 'penalties' will be invoked by Paul the Builder. I wonder if they will all stand and kick footballs at the windowless apertures of my house? Also still no plasterers, who turned up at the weekend and then went away again without doing anything. A new set arrived today and finally got on with something, which is good - but are at least three days behind, which is bad.
Also, we've had a bit of a wobble with the study door. It turns out it can't go at the bottom of the stairs because although there's 2'6" of space on the hall side of the space, there's only 1"10 on the study side. Those of you paying attention will have spotted that this won't work in terms of a door frame. So, the study is staying off the kitchen (no sneaking out when we're not looking, after all, for Nik) and I'll get Young Masters #1 and #2 and Little Miss to paint a 'Beware of the Daddy' sign for the door, I think. Actually, the only inconvenience this causes is that it means the light switch has to be moved back to where it was last week. We'll cope, I feel.
We are also starting to get over excited about decorating this new house. Little Miss chose her new blind for her bedroom at the weekend (guess what, it's pink) and the Young Masters have expressed opinions on bedroom carpet. Young Master #1 wants gold coloured, which is reasonable and won't swear too badly at the paint. Young Master #2 wants crimson - which is rather unfortunate, when he has also decided on orange walls. We might have to work on that. I wonder if anyone can guess what colour Little Miss would like?
On a totally unrelated note, reports today from both the in-laws and the BBC (I will leave you to decide who is the more reliable...) suggest that the bits of Cheltenham we used to live in are now largely underwater, and that all clean drinking water is off, for approximately the next fortnight. I'm quite pleased we moved, but also quite concerned about the people we know there. If any of you are reading this, are you alright?
Still no windows. Apparently promised faithfully for Wednesday, after which 'penalties' will be invoked by Paul the Builder. I wonder if they will all stand and kick footballs at the windowless apertures of my house? Also still no plasterers, who turned up at the weekend and then went away again without doing anything. A new set arrived today and finally got on with something, which is good - but are at least three days behind, which is bad.
Also, we've had a bit of a wobble with the study door. It turns out it can't go at the bottom of the stairs because although there's 2'6" of space on the hall side of the space, there's only 1"10 on the study side. Those of you paying attention will have spotted that this won't work in terms of a door frame. So, the study is staying off the kitchen (no sneaking out when we're not looking, after all, for Nik) and I'll get Young Masters #1 and #2 and Little Miss to paint a 'Beware of the Daddy' sign for the door, I think. Actually, the only inconvenience this causes is that it means the light switch has to be moved back to where it was last week. We'll cope, I feel.
We are also starting to get over excited about decorating this new house. Little Miss chose her new blind for her bedroom at the weekend (guess what, it's pink) and the Young Masters have expressed opinions on bedroom carpet. Young Master #1 wants gold coloured, which is reasonable and won't swear too badly at the paint. Young Master #2 wants crimson - which is rather unfortunate, when he has also decided on orange walls. We might have to work on that. I wonder if anyone can guess what colour Little Miss would like?
On a totally unrelated note, reports today from both the in-laws and the BBC (I will leave you to decide who is the more reliable...) suggest that the bits of Cheltenham we used to live in are now largely underwater, and that all clean drinking water is off, for approximately the next fortnight. I'm quite pleased we moved, but also quite concerned about the people we know there. If any of you are reading this, are you alright?
Sunday, 22 July 2007
Where are my windows?
Apologies for the hiatus - again - things have been afoot, what with it being the end of term (we were up at school for some reason other than dropping off or collecting every day of the last fortnight) and Young Master #1 turning 6 and having a birthday party (thankfully not at our house).
Anyway, to bring you all up to speed.... I have turned into a Victorian Housewife and shrouded the whole house in Holland covers (ok, plastic, but the idea is valid). As some of you will know, I had leanings in this direction anyway, but what has finally tipped me over the edge is the onset of Plastering. Oh, the dust! The bathroom was plastered last weeked, during Amersham Carnival, and the rest was supposed to start late last week.
You will note my clever use of the word 'supposed' in that paragraph. In fact, in the technical parlance, the amount of additional plastering achieved has been nil. Not only have the windows faithfully promised for Wednesday(18th), then Friday (20th) last week not arrived (hmmm.....) which prevents the finishing of any room requiring a window; the plasterers have also been noticeably absent. There were supposed to be two teams working two shifts late last week (one lot eight til four, the other lot three til nine) but instead, no-one turned up. Apparently the evening lot did arrive, got into the kitchen (downstairs at the back) when they were supposed to be in the bathroom (upstairs at the front), trod in the new concrete (oops), then left in disgust. All very amusing no doubt, but we are supposed to be plastered and ready by this coming Friday (27th July).
Watch this space, I suppose. We will be.
Anyway, to bring you all up to speed.... I have turned into a Victorian Housewife and shrouded the whole house in Holland covers (ok, plastic, but the idea is valid). As some of you will know, I had leanings in this direction anyway, but what has finally tipped me over the edge is the onset of Plastering. Oh, the dust! The bathroom was plastered last weeked, during Amersham Carnival, and the rest was supposed to start late last week.
You will note my clever use of the word 'supposed' in that paragraph. In fact, in the technical parlance, the amount of additional plastering achieved has been nil. Not only have the windows faithfully promised for Wednesday(18th), then Friday (20th) last week not arrived (hmmm.....) which prevents the finishing of any room requiring a window; the plasterers have also been noticeably absent. There were supposed to be two teams working two shifts late last week (one lot eight til four, the other lot three til nine) but instead, no-one turned up. Apparently the evening lot did arrive, got into the kitchen (downstairs at the back) when they were supposed to be in the bathroom (upstairs at the front), trod in the new concrete (oops), then left in disgust. All very amusing no doubt, but we are supposed to be plastered and ready by this coming Friday (27th July).
Watch this space, I suppose. We will be.
Friday, 6 July 2007
Watertight? No, waterlogged!
Apologies to all (well, all two of you) our devoted fans for failing to update the blog for a month. Those of you living in the UK and looking out of the window will have noticed that it's been the wettest summer on record since records began in 1914 (although that's practically current affairs and barely counts as 'records' - it's still within living memory). We have spent all of this period without a roof. Yes, that's right, it's still not finished. Apparently it will be by the end of today, but I'm reserving judgement until bedtime.
In the meantime, though, other things have moved on, including:
* creation of the dormer windows at the front and the spaces where our bathrooms will be. This is very exciting (although Little Miss has announced that she 'will share Mummy's bathroom', which was not quite the plan).
* Little Miss's room taking shape and now even having a floor (which is A Good Thing).
* we have seen the view out of our new bedroom window and consider it splendid.
On the downside, it turns out that there's been a live connection loose under the kitchen floor for the last 20 years. Oh, and every time it rains, something in the house leaks. Most recently it was the hall ceiling (which means it was coming in through the suitcase cupboard - joy) but we've also had the usual cloakroom/inner lobby problem, the study, etc etc.
More pictures later when I've processed them.
In the meantime, though, other things have moved on, including:
* creation of the dormer windows at the front and the spaces where our bathrooms will be. This is very exciting (although Little Miss has announced that she 'will share Mummy's bathroom', which was not quite the plan).
* Little Miss's room taking shape and now even having a floor (which is A Good Thing).
* we have seen the view out of our new bedroom window and consider it splendid.
On the downside, it turns out that there's been a live connection loose under the kitchen floor for the last 20 years. Oh, and every time it rains, something in the house leaks. Most recently it was the hall ceiling (which means it was coming in through the suitcase cupboard - joy) but we've also had the usual cloakroom/inner lobby problem, the study, etc etc.
More pictures later when I've processed them.
Tuesday, 5 June 2007
Finally some pictures
Well, I finally got to survey the estate, camera in hand, this evening. Here are the results.
What you can see here (slightly garbled by technology) is
1) the full depth of my new kitchen (hee hee) from the new outside wall, to the yellow wall 16 feet away on the other side (chortle).
2) the study ceiling. Nuff said.
3) and 4) the productive bits of the garden continuing to be productive. This is nothing to do with the building, but inexplicably cheering, nonetheless.
5) the utility room at the back of the house waiting for its new roof. With luck, we'll be watertight by the end of the week, on that side at least!
Where did THAT week go?
Yoinks, suddenly it seems about a week has passed with no update. An inexcusable lapse, my blog audience, for which I can only apologise. Anyway, if it's any consolation, you've missed out on a fairly uneventful period in the project.
Not.
Well, you already know that we escaped the cold, wet bank holiday weekend by visiting my parents. What is not, perhaps, adequately clear is that just as Paul the Builder and his team had left for the weekend, we identified a small problem. Not only were the controls for our central heating stuck in a largely-unreachable kitchen but, due to the peculiarities of our heating system, it would be unusable anyway. All the work done removing radiators had led to a lot of water from the central heating system ending up in carpets and buckets on the ground floor. Not, inherently, their natural habitat, nor particularly productive. This meant that we wouldn't have working heating for the weekend.
Hence, a retreat to my parents' seemed sensible, even if it meant 7 people sharing 3 bedrooms. We decided that the couples would stay together and the children would share a room, although the amount of sleep most of us got suggests this was largely an academic matter (with apologies to any academics reading this who might object to their chosen profession being used synonymously with "completely meaningless")
However, all such inconveniences were, largely, forgiven and forgotten when we returned home to discover that the temperature in our house was an arctic 10C. That's 50F to those of you still struggling with decimalisation (or otherwise afflicted, eg with George Bush's education system). Even the time our central heating packed in on Boxing day a few years ago (different house) and we couldn't get it fixed until the new year didn't quite compare to this. Words fail me for a description of how miseable and uncomfortable that night was, which is slightly unfortunate for a blog, so I shall change the subject and move on.
The rest of the half-term holiday week limped on in predictable fashion to the extent that the only thing that really sticks in my mind was the point when half the ceiling in my study decided it had had enough being up there and concluded it wanted to be down here. So down it came.
Now, living through the building work has left me reasonably immune to the bangs and crashes of construction. Needless to say, my level was reset at the moment a bucket full of bricks, mixed with soaking roof insulation material and plasterboard all decided to make themselves fully aquainted with the floor around me and the edge of my desk. I'll try not to play the drama queen about this but OH MY GOD A BRICK LANDED INCHES FROM MY HEAD.
Madam will claim that more of it came down near her, the next morning, but that was clearly several feet away and far less dangerous. Mind you, as a way of getting me out of bed in the morning, the rumble of falling masonry and a scream is as effective as it is unwelcome.
Typically, as these things increasingly seem inclined to do, this initially happened scant moments after Paul the Builder and his team had left for the day. A full and frank exchange of views was conducted on the phone that evening and we concluded that they'd take a look at the rest of the roof at that end of the study and in the adjacent cloakroom and decide whether it could be made safe enough to let us continue to use it, or whether we'd just be better leaving the house now and not coming back until some time in July. Gulp.
They decided it could be made safe, by the simple expedient of pulling the entire ceiling down (on the reasonable grounds that if it's been pulled down, it can't fall down). Since when, we've been showering and shi... abluting even more alfresco, with a plywood and tarpaulin roof.
So life went on. Walls were built, some bits of them were knocked down and rebuilt (don't ask) and, for a while, the house was mostly water tight and not looking like it was about to jump out and attack us.
Clearly it had succeded in lulling us in to a false sense of security. Again, just after Paul the Builder and his team had left for the week, I noticed a slight absence of hot water from the tap. I even checked I was using the right tap. I was. I got my best hiking gear on and summoned up my courage for an assault on the south face of the old kitchen to investigate whether the boiler could shed any light on the situation.
It could. The boiler was telling me it was knackered. The quaint little flashing red light and fault code were my clues. Another frank exchange of views on the phone and it was agreed that one of the lads would come back on Saturday morning to try and fix it.
I wasn't quite prepared for this to mean that he'd drop by at 7.45am, clamber into our bathroom and fiddle with the water pressure, shrug his shoulders and drive off before I could get to him to explain what actually needed doing. So, a weekend without hot water. No problem, we'd go to my in-laws and use theirs. But wait, what's that you say? Their hot water is knackered too. But of course. Handily they had an electric shower we could use, but it wasn't going to win too many fans among the children (and didn't, if the screams of terror I heard from my bunker at the end of their garden were anything to go by).
Another Monday rolled around and I attempted to explain what the actual problem with the boiler was and - one electrician and two "heating engineers" later (I think that's what plumbers are called in Buckinghamshire) - we had a working boiler and hot water.
Ready to stumble headlong into the next problem then, clearly. Which I suppose would be a good moment to mention the rather sheepish look on the face on one of the builders when we got home from the school run. Apparently they'd "dropped a bit of wood". Now, to me, that means a twig or small bit of rubbish. Clear warning that I'm not cut out for life as a builder. What they actually meant was they'd dropped a 5 foot long plank into our shower cubicle, cracking the base of it and breaking the shower curtain pole off the wall.
So, with the smell of silicone sealant hanging heavily in our nostrils, we battle forward.
Now, Paul the Builder always had an objective to get rid of the enormous, well, thing in the ceiling in the study. It's basically a 3 ft part of the old end wall of the house that hangs down, almost cutting the room in half. Now, I see his point. Unless Tracy Emin is going to put her name to it, it's neither use nor ornament, but I'd have been prepared to leave it in place for the sake of a quiet life.
However, Paul felt compelled to see if he could get rid of some of it - by moving whatever structural beam it contained upwards. Apparently it would just be a one-day job of knocking some plaster off, exposing the beam and then moving it upwards, then I could have my study back.
So out came the chisels and sure enough, it wasn't long before they'd struck the next problem. Saw that coming, didn't you? The structural beam it contained wasn't a structural beam. Now, OK, it wasn't exactly a string of Silly Putty, but it clearly wasn't up to the job of supporting the new bits of house that would be above it.
Paul's solution was to recommend a new, proper, steel beam be obtained and installed. The benefit (apart from the whole "your house won't fall down" thing, obviously) being that the ceiling in the study will be completely flat. The downside being that we won't be able to use the study "for the rest of the duration of the build" said Paul, calmly.
So, here I sit, in my combined living room / office / playroom / toilet / kitchen store room, rewiring the network (for the second time in two weeks) and trying to work out whether anyone will notice if I try and sneak my main tower PC in here, behind a chair or something.
Still, I suppose, on the plus side, I'm now working in a room with my stereo & TV so I should finally be able to listen to some music (of which I have not done enough since we moved here) and catch up on all the DVDs unwatched on the shelf. Equally, I can now network up the Xbox which will hopefully be useful eventually.
Well, that was a wall of text. More exciting photos of walls and scaffolding will follow soon. All I have to do now is work out which box all my leads are hiding in, so I can get the photos off the camera and uploaded here.
Not.
Well, you already know that we escaped the cold, wet bank holiday weekend by visiting my parents. What is not, perhaps, adequately clear is that just as Paul the Builder and his team had left for the weekend, we identified a small problem. Not only were the controls for our central heating stuck in a largely-unreachable kitchen but, due to the peculiarities of our heating system, it would be unusable anyway. All the work done removing radiators had led to a lot of water from the central heating system ending up in carpets and buckets on the ground floor. Not, inherently, their natural habitat, nor particularly productive. This meant that we wouldn't have working heating for the weekend.
Hence, a retreat to my parents' seemed sensible, even if it meant 7 people sharing 3 bedrooms. We decided that the couples would stay together and the children would share a room, although the amount of sleep most of us got suggests this was largely an academic matter (with apologies to any academics reading this who might object to their chosen profession being used synonymously with "completely meaningless")
However, all such inconveniences were, largely, forgiven and forgotten when we returned home to discover that the temperature in our house was an arctic 10C. That's 50F to those of you still struggling with decimalisation (or otherwise afflicted, eg with George Bush's education system). Even the time our central heating packed in on Boxing day a few years ago (different house) and we couldn't get it fixed until the new year didn't quite compare to this. Words fail me for a description of how miseable and uncomfortable that night was, which is slightly unfortunate for a blog, so I shall change the subject and move on.
The rest of the half-term holiday week limped on in predictable fashion to the extent that the only thing that really sticks in my mind was the point when half the ceiling in my study decided it had had enough being up there and concluded it wanted to be down here. So down it came.
Now, living through the building work has left me reasonably immune to the bangs and crashes of construction. Needless to say, my level was reset at the moment a bucket full of bricks, mixed with soaking roof insulation material and plasterboard all decided to make themselves fully aquainted with the floor around me and the edge of my desk. I'll try not to play the drama queen about this but OH MY GOD A BRICK LANDED INCHES FROM MY HEAD.
Madam will claim that more of it came down near her, the next morning, but that was clearly several feet away and far less dangerous. Mind you, as a way of getting me out of bed in the morning, the rumble of falling masonry and a scream is as effective as it is unwelcome.
Typically, as these things increasingly seem inclined to do, this initially happened scant moments after Paul the Builder and his team had left for the day. A full and frank exchange of views was conducted on the phone that evening and we concluded that they'd take a look at the rest of the roof at that end of the study and in the adjacent cloakroom and decide whether it could be made safe enough to let us continue to use it, or whether we'd just be better leaving the house now and not coming back until some time in July. Gulp.
They decided it could be made safe, by the simple expedient of pulling the entire ceiling down (on the reasonable grounds that if it's been pulled down, it can't fall down). Since when, we've been showering and shi... abluting even more alfresco, with a plywood and tarpaulin roof.
So life went on. Walls were built, some bits of them were knocked down and rebuilt (don't ask) and, for a while, the house was mostly water tight and not looking like it was about to jump out and attack us.
Clearly it had succeded in lulling us in to a false sense of security. Again, just after Paul the Builder and his team had left for the week, I noticed a slight absence of hot water from the tap. I even checked I was using the right tap. I was. I got my best hiking gear on and summoned up my courage for an assault on the south face of the old kitchen to investigate whether the boiler could shed any light on the situation.
It could. The boiler was telling me it was knackered. The quaint little flashing red light and fault code were my clues. Another frank exchange of views on the phone and it was agreed that one of the lads would come back on Saturday morning to try and fix it.
I wasn't quite prepared for this to mean that he'd drop by at 7.45am, clamber into our bathroom and fiddle with the water pressure, shrug his shoulders and drive off before I could get to him to explain what actually needed doing. So, a weekend without hot water. No problem, we'd go to my in-laws and use theirs. But wait, what's that you say? Their hot water is knackered too. But of course. Handily they had an electric shower we could use, but it wasn't going to win too many fans among the children (and didn't, if the screams of terror I heard from my bunker at the end of their garden were anything to go by).
Another Monday rolled around and I attempted to explain what the actual problem with the boiler was and - one electrician and two "heating engineers" later (I think that's what plumbers are called in Buckinghamshire) - we had a working boiler and hot water.
Ready to stumble headlong into the next problem then, clearly. Which I suppose would be a good moment to mention the rather sheepish look on the face on one of the builders when we got home from the school run. Apparently they'd "dropped a bit of wood". Now, to me, that means a twig or small bit of rubbish. Clear warning that I'm not cut out for life as a builder. What they actually meant was they'd dropped a 5 foot long plank into our shower cubicle, cracking the base of it and breaking the shower curtain pole off the wall.
So, with the smell of silicone sealant hanging heavily in our nostrils, we battle forward.
Now, Paul the Builder always had an objective to get rid of the enormous, well, thing in the ceiling in the study. It's basically a 3 ft part of the old end wall of the house that hangs down, almost cutting the room in half. Now, I see his point. Unless Tracy Emin is going to put her name to it, it's neither use nor ornament, but I'd have been prepared to leave it in place for the sake of a quiet life.
However, Paul felt compelled to see if he could get rid of some of it - by moving whatever structural beam it contained upwards. Apparently it would just be a one-day job of knocking some plaster off, exposing the beam and then moving it upwards, then I could have my study back.
So out came the chisels and sure enough, it wasn't long before they'd struck the next problem. Saw that coming, didn't you? The structural beam it contained wasn't a structural beam. Now, OK, it wasn't exactly a string of Silly Putty, but it clearly wasn't up to the job of supporting the new bits of house that would be above it.
Paul's solution was to recommend a new, proper, steel beam be obtained and installed. The benefit (apart from the whole "your house won't fall down" thing, obviously) being that the ceiling in the study will be completely flat. The downside being that we won't be able to use the study "for the rest of the duration of the build" said Paul, calmly.
So, here I sit, in my combined living room / office / playroom / toilet / kitchen store room, rewiring the network (for the second time in two weeks) and trying to work out whether anyone will notice if I try and sneak my main tower PC in here, behind a chair or something.
Still, I suppose, on the plus side, I'm now working in a room with my stereo & TV so I should finally be able to listen to some music (of which I have not done enough since we moved here) and catch up on all the DVDs unwatched on the shelf. Equally, I can now network up the Xbox which will hopefully be useful eventually.
Well, that was a wall of text. More exciting photos of walls and scaffolding will follow soon. All I have to do now is work out which box all my leads are hiding in, so I can get the photos off the camera and uploaded here.
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