House Progress update

The builders began demolishing the back of my house two weeks ago and brick by brick the walls came down. This has been the hard work because the only access to this part of the house was through a 30" gateway. That meant that three piles of demolished bricks, concrete slab and rubble equal to this had to be wheelbarrowed from back to front to remove it and prepare the way for construction. Yesterday, the steel beams undergirding the upper reaches of the house went in to carry the internal and external existing walls. They will be concealed in the walls so we will have a straight shot with no visible posts or beams .

Top pic was the before shot after the plastic conservatory was removed. I have never liked this British culture of plastic structures. they look ugly because they are ugly and plastic only declines the day after it is installed. The once promised lifetime warranties of the 1970s on up were for the lifetime of what? The "never needs painting" touted back then never mentioned the ugly grey and orange staining that soon ensued, so for me, the removal of all things plastic raised my serotonin levels ten notches.

This is how the building looks this morning. I looked out from this room to the back garden and here is what I saw after 18 months of living in.

My garden beds are filled with veggies again and this too increases my serotonin levels. Look at these potatoes standing to attention.

In my greenhouse my tomatoes are well on the way to producing summer fruits and I am glad I got it in time.

Today I will be taking my newest third piece into the house and anchoring it to the walls. My theme wood so far has been that king of woods, cherry, but I am not set on using only cherry for the whole living room.

As part of the development for the Sellers Home house we asked what you thought would be important in your home and for the living room things like blanket stowage, toy boxes came up. That being so, my attempt next is to design storage boxes because my granddaughter, at two ,regularly contributes her collection of toys at the house.

Here is what the garden looked like when we bought the house. I've added three outdoor buildings and then of course the growing boxes, raised beds, garden benches, sandbox and so on.

This shed worked out well and with the move-out from downstairs during the building work, I have had place to add clean storage space.

This shed takes the garden tools and was made mostly from six plasterboard (sheetrock) wood pallets so very low cost and nicely robust enough too.