The Wall Slowly Emerges

Structural brick laying is not the fastest job in the world, nor do I suppose you want it to be if you want a job well done. Andy our brickie is alway saying, "if you pay peanuts you get monkeys!" I took photos over a few days while the wall slowly grew higher. The type of pointing done between the bricks is called weather strut (or could be "struck"...I can never quite tell with the accent). It points out at an angle I am told to deflect the weather. A very straight brick wall. From the inside you can start to envision the kitchen and dining room. Or is it too early for that? The following day it gets a bit higher. The window starts to take form. The grey breeze block is built up as the second layer inside the reclaimed yellow brick. Our brickie said that if we went to the reclaim site it would cost us £1 per brick. I think they get a builder's discount. And now the breeze block has caught up with the yellow brick. Because we are a terraced house our outside extension walls are our neighbours' garden walls. This is what it will look like from their yards. The side walls did not come down, but will be re-rendered with a smooth plaster up to the feature yellow brick pattern on the side. More posts as the wall builds.

Quote: George Alagiah

"I remember a piece of advice given to me by an ex-military instructor on one of the survival courses BBC foreign correspondents were sent on. 'When you're hurt, when you're wounded, there is nothing more you can do. You'll only make matters worse - for you and everyone else - if you try to charge around. Find somewhere quiet, somewhere dark and lie down. Stay awake but stay calm. Get your pulse rate right down. It's for your buddies to do the worrying.'" George Alagiah - A Home from Home: From Immigrant Boy to English Man

New Windows

Here was our house from the upper back with our extremely breezy slat windows. What a difference removing the pebbledash made. And even more of a difference getting new windows. They really transform the rooms from the inside too. Because they are made from plastic they have more opening options so you can easily clean the outside of the windows from inside. Our bathroom slat window. Out shower is a drizzle and we froze coming out of it in the winter. Our new one has no breezy bits. The fancy hardware that we chose to go with it. from old... To new!

The Base of the Extension is Rebuilt

Here we have last week's scene. The footings you can see in dark red brick and have now been approved by the inspector. The existing extension is only 30 years old as are those footings, while the house itself is somewhere around 108 years old. Here the existing brickwork above the ground is being broken up to be replaced by a nice new base. Here is the new base being built up. There is barely room to put a layer of red brick and of breeze block. This means that instead of the air gap and insulation going between them, it will go in the interior of the built up wall. You can see the membrane of blue plastic that is built into the wall to keep the damp out. About 4-5 layers of brick will show before the reclaimed London yellow brick is built on top. The old brick Victorian houses have a series of vents that run in the walls and in the floors to keep the house "breathing". Our brickie builds in vent bricks at intervals to match the existing venting pipes. And here you see the final layer of red brick which is then covered by a layer of black rubber damp proof. This keeps the damp from rising from the red brick up through to the yellow brick which start parallel to the interior floor. And oh...excitement of excitements! The wall yellow brick wall is beginning... Here you see the outer corner of our extension starting to emerge.

Quote: George Alagiah

Nigel and I are big fans of George Alagiah, reporter and newsreader for BBC. For years he was their foreign news correspondent. We are reading his second book now which deals with immigration, in particular to the UK. It is also an autobiography of his own experience coming to England as an 11 year old boy for boarding school. "Migration is rarely about severing one's links with the old country. It's not about burning your bridges once you've got across, it's about building the bridge in the first place. The whole point is that others might follow, or at the very least you'll be able to send something back. Sending out a migrant is like making an investment, it's like putting money away for a pension. Everyone who chips in to help fund the journey can expect to make a return." "As a system of shifting money from the rich world to the poor world it works. Indeed, it does so far more efficiently than most official aid programmes. According to the World Bank, in 2002, for the first time, remittances sent home by migrants exceeded the amount of cash that went to the poor world in the form of official aid or private bank loans. Petrol station attendants, pizza delivery boys, nurses and doctors - together they transferred some US$80 billion in that year. And this only accounts for the money that statisticians can keep track of; billions of dollars more find their way to every nook and corner of the world through informal distribution networks. In its report for 2005 the bank estimated that if you include unrecorded transfers, the amount of money that went to poor countries was more like $250 billion. When British politicians boast about their plans to increase the country's aid budget, it's worth remembering that they will have some catching up to do if they are to match the amount sent back by immigrants, most of them at the bottom of the social pile." "Unlike the official aid programmes, there are no expatriate staff on tax-free salaries, no local bureaucrats to be paid off. Governments are not deciding who should get the money, people are. And there is a far smaller risk that the money will be end up paying for some grandiose project to feed the vanity of a tinpot politician. The money transfers end up in new roofs for old houses, in school fees and medical bills, and every now and then in an airline ticket so the migrant son or daughter can return in triumph."

Western Union Ad

There are some very funny ads out there that really make me laugh. This Western Union one came out last Christmas.

Selective Attention Test

Scientists have gathered some remarkable evidence which shows that it is possible to see something without observing it, in research that sheds new light on traffic accidents that occur when a driver "looked but failed to see", and other examples of mayhem and mishap in everyday life. The astonishing lack of attention we pay to our surroundings has been highlighted by research conducted by Dr Daniel Simons of the University of Illinois and Dr Daniel Levin of Vanderbilt University. And here is one of their Selective Attention Test: If you cannot see it click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo&feature=player_embedded

Back of House is Removed

Okay. Where did we leave off? Yes, the back extension demolition has begun. The plan is to knock out the entire wall between the two rooms to make one large kitchen and dining room (and music room). The back of the existing extension will be rebuilt in old yellow London stock brick to match the above (which is actually to building standards. You aren't allowed to build in new brick although some dodgy builders do.) Now the entire wall is removed between the two rooms minus the supporting post in the middle. The roof on the rebuilt extension will then slant up instead of being a flat roof. In it will be 3 velux windows (sky lights). The back door will be replaced with French doors and the window with a unit of 3 sash windows. The drawings above were what I sent to the window makers. The big dilemma is whether to make the windows out of plastic (easy to maintain and cheaper) or wood (beautiful, original looking and expensive, but can warp and need repainting). All the windows desperately need replacing in the house. They are of the 60's slat variety that when fully closed a breeze can still be felt. We were so frozen this last winter that we decided they were also a priority. We have opted for plastic windows but with an original sash design in the back of the house. It will be cheaper, but the fact that the sun faces the back of the house means that peeling paint and warped wooden doors is more inevitable. In the front, the design on the street is very ornate and it is shadier, we may get nice wooden ones in keeping with the look. Now the roof and back wall is gone. All this is done in a day by two New Zealand guys. The company that we have hired to do the extension is excellent (Scott McCabe and Associated). They come with a 14 year reputation for being meticulous about building regulations and building a structure safely and well (with a 10 year guarantee). You really do want reputable builders when your house is attached to two others on either side. For instance, this steel which runs across the back of the house was put in when the existing extension was build 20 years ago. If that back wall slips so do the neighbour's walls and their plaster cracks inside. The most nightmarish situation would be to have it fall and probably several houses on either side will also be effected if not condemned. Replacing this will be a box steel which is a square frame that will run across the top, down both side walls and under the floors. This will hold up the back of the house and allow the added weight of a future loft. The footings are exposed for the inspector to come and see (red bricks). The builders tell us they look pretty good and fingers crossed that they will pass inspection. The "brickie" as they call the brick layers here, has his supplies all stacked up. The breeze block bricks (large grey) build the inner wall, then a space for insulation and air, and then the old London stock (far right). The red bricks are structural and I am not sure where they are going. The old wall was just cut in half with a diamond cutter. Now we know why the last owner covered the whole thing in pebble dash. It was only breeze block underneath, not a nice brick to have exposed. So here we are. What next? Our brickie, Andy, is hard at work now. He is taking out the remainder of the wall down to the footings so that what is built up is all nice new brick. It was Andy's birthday the day I took this picture of him. Maybe that is a birthday cigarette hanging out of his mouth! Ha ha! He is a very nice guy. A better view of what he is chipping away.

Lower Back Extension Begins

Okay, so now that the top of the house looks stunning, the bottom needs some work. This is going to be a much bigger job. Currently inside the downstairs is divided into the dining room... ...and a very dated kitchen that came with no appliances. What little we had in a kitchen was moved into our front hallway as a makeshift kitchen. Nigel said we should only make simple meals while we are living this way. I agreed. What I didn't realise was that "simple meals" meant something very different to both of us. To me it meant any fancy meal that was a one-pot-meal since we were now going to have to wash up in the bathroom. (Okay, Nigel was going to have to wash up.) Nigel's idea of a simple meal is pasta and sauce. What? Every night?! That's two pots! And now the work begins. The electricians and plumbers came in to cut off the supplies to this section of the house. The wall is already being knocked down between the kitchen and dining room as you can see to the left of where Nigel is standing. More tomorrow...

Pebble Dash Removal

This is the upper half of the back of our house as it was a few weeks ago. The pebbledash is covering everything. Not many builders want to attempt to remove it with the soft yellow brick underneath. At this point the specialists Nigel has found have scraped off the pebbledash, have begun to sand down the surfaces, have replaced broken or damaged bricks, and have scraped out the pointing between the bricks. A closer view. You can also see they have two patches where they given us an option of two types of pointing finish. The one on the left is a ribbon pointing which sticks out farther than the brick and considered very fancy. The one on the right is a flush finish and cheaper. We'll take the one on the right, please! The pointing has to be replaced about every 10 years. And now you can see the finished wall. It is beautiful. Next we will have the windows replaced tomorrow and the rendering put back around the windows, and painted white. What a difference! You can see the bricks are still rough about 4 bricks below the larger window. The new extension's roof will slant up to that point. Now our house looks like the spanking nice house compared to the neighbours!