Phase 2 has lift off!

Right now there are two builders moving stuff from our garage into our dining room, prepping the spaces and organising the delivery of a skip. I can only compare the excitement to the feeling of anticipation one gets when pregnant: the unknown but ultimately thrilling possibility of something amazing is around the corner. But before then, will come a lot of mess, pain and money.

Last night I took some 'before' photos of the current spaces which I'll post here soon. It was difficult to get a good angle as the cloakroom is so small. Like, really really small. When we were imagining putting a shower in there we were originally going to steal back some space from either the outside storage cupboard, or from the under stairs storage. Neither of these options is happening now due to the cost.

The shower door will have to be made bespoke for the space so that it can fully open, that way when you're on the loo your knees won't be knocking against it.

At the weekend Rob and I went to Topps Tiles and chose the tiles which will end up on the walls and floor. I chose a 20cm square satin black tile for the wall and Rob chose the same tile in white for the floor. Me black, him white, it's kind of fitting. On reflection though, worrying about making the room look small when it IS small seemed silly - so we've ditched the white in favour of a dark grey. I'm guessing the size and colour will end up similar to the photo at top (via http://www.ffffound.com).

The snagging bit

There's been a bunch of small but irritating fixes around the house that have been ignored for many months. The to-do list probably added up to three days of solid work, but trying to get a builder back for three consecutive days when they aren't getting paid extra was always going to be a mission.

I'm pleased to say that Teia did manage to come back twice in the last couple of weeks and sort a few things out. Firstly, he put a thin strip of white wood along the top of the cupboards - this was to disguise the fact that the ceiling wasn't completely level. If the cupboards had been aligned to the ceiling, they'd never have sat completely flush with each other at the bottom.



Secondly, he put a length of timber at each side of the external doors to hide the concrete where the doors are braced against the brickwork.



Thirdly, he filled in some of the more noticeable cracks in the wall. I haven't got photos of the other two things as they're hardly photogenic but definitely worth mentioning: Teia lifted the planks of the deck to lay a membrane which prevents weeds from growing up between them. And last but not least, he finished connecting the extractor tube (which takes the smells from the kitchen extractor/range hood) and now spurts odours outside. We used to have that tube dangling in the garage so all the laundry that was drying in there smelt faintly of bacon smoke. It's been so nice to go in there and not balk at yesterday's dinner smells!

Teia's done a terrific job and hopefully he'll make it back for one more day to finish off a few more things, before moving back to New Zealand.

Knocking out walls

Viola! One and a half days after the builders started work and look how much they've achieved: the entire ground floor has had all the internal walls demolished, the stairs have had a layer lifted off and the middle floor has had the old kitchen and flooring ripped out. The progress seems extraordinary as I thought a day and a half of work would mean that perhaps the water and electrics would've been switched off and that's about it. My experience with British builders has taught me not to expect a fast turnaround - in fact on our last renovation the builders would disappear for weeks at a time with no explanation. The crew on our current renovation consists of all New Zealanders. We met Teia with two of them at a local pub late on Saturday afternoon and they'd been in the UK for less than two weeks. I had to ask Teia if he was standing at Heathrow with a 'help wanted' sign, seems incredible that he's managed to find such hard working and competent tradespeople who are possibly still jetlagged. It might have taken six months to get this project underway but now that it's actually up and running I feel full of positivity… let's hope it lasts.

In other news, we went to Ikea on Friday night and bought the base units and doors of our new kitchen. Unfortunately the moulded acrylic counter top (Ikea's answer to Corian) was going to cost nearly £5,000 to manufacture and install. Our counter top budget is more like £1,500. The kitchen sales guy was a really helpful Australian chap but he said there was no such thing as a corner pull-out option so we begrudgingly purchased the wire shelving option. We have this in our current kitchen and it's not very sturdy - if the weight on one side is too much the whole thing sheers off the pole holding it upright. When we got home and inspected the brand new Ikea catalogue (which I'd gotten from work a few days before it hit the public) we noticed that a brand new kitchen feature is the... pull-out shelving option for corner units. So in what will be the first of many visits to Ikea we'll have to return the wire shelves and order up the replacements…

Houston: we have lift off!

Img Livingetc.com

It's been six months and four days since we got the keys to our house and guess what? The work has FINALLY STARTED! I would say that this was the happiest day of the last few years but actually, that was probably when I got measured for a bra post baby number two to be told I was a 32DD. (Subsequently shrank to a 32D, but after being what I thought was a 34B for 10+ years, you can imagine I was over the moon...)

Last night we met with Anthony (Architect) and Teia (Builder) in Old Street - where there's an invasion of architectural offices - and discussed the schedule and timings. For some unfathomable reason quite obvious things such as "lighting" were left off the schedule and will now have to come out of the contingency fund. It didn't take that long to sort out everything, and in the end a contract was signed and the builders promptly showed up this morning to begin demolition.

Rob popped over to pay them the first instalment and was surprised/delighted that the old kitchen had already been ripped out. We're off to Ikea tonight to order up the kitchen. Photo at top shows a glossy white kitchen with dark counter top, I like this because it reminds me of Pierre Koenig, my architecture hero...

Six months of an empty house

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This is a holiday home in New Zealand which I was quite taken with. The iconic fireplace is a favourite of mine, but Rob said we can't have one in our house because of cost/space/eco concerns. Oh well.

Two days from now we should be having our meeting with the architect and the builder to sign off on the budget, agree a contract and a schedule of work. The builder reckons he can start on Friday. The work will probably start without a signed contract in that case as it'll take some time to write it up. I just watched "Don't Blame the Builder" on Channel 4 tonight. In it, a couple clashed with a sedate builder and a mediator was called in. The wife of the couple was a very angry Spanish woman, and she had every right to be angry (the builders were constantly late/absent), but instead of talking to them in a civilised way she wound them up by shrieking so much that they refused to finish the job.

Eventually, the mediator brought in a specialist barrister who decided that the builder had to honour a contract which stipulated penalities for running nine weeks over the agreed schedule. The couple got off lightly by having to pay about a third of the final bill (being the sum they owed less the penalties). The work was finished to everyone's satisfaction and they all learnt something: The builder swore he'd never do a job when someone was living in the house, and the woman said she'd hire a builder only with a comprehensive contract.

I learnt that you have to allow builders extra time to get the job done properly and also they won't work if there's no financial incentive or if you shout at them. Useful.

Trying to chill out

Oh wow, it's already the second week of August so our house has been sitting empty for six months. Ouch. Tip for newbies: if you are engaging an architect and don’t already have a builder lined up, move into your property or rent it out on a short term basis. Also, try not to do this during a "credit crunch" as interest rates are bound to lurch skyward. We've just had a weekend camping at The Big Chill music festival in Herefordshire, I was careful about removing the rubbish from our tent as it's possible we'll end up living in it if the build takes much longer to get started. After the Big Chill we spent a few hours wandering around Eastnor Castle in Ledbury. The Hervey-Bathurst family has spent many years and hundreds of thousands of pounds knocking it into shape, so I felt quite humbled when comparing the scale of this project against our own. If you're ever in the area, make time to go.

We're meeting the architect and the builder later next week to discuss the final quote (already more than what was originally discussed) and decide on the game plan. I guess then we'll be in a position to sit back and watch the work get underway. I think I've been saying this for quite some time, so I won't mind if you cackle loudly at my optimism in the face of terminal slowness. The good news is we got our keys back from the dodgy builder and will be settling up his invoice this week. Rob suggested we pay the original amount we agreed to pay, plus half the difference as a gesture of goodwill (what goodwill?!) as they didn't let us know that the Bill of Quantites would cost so much more, or that it would be so late, or that it would be so useless.

Also, as a result of our door manufacturers hiking their price by £1,600 I've emailed three new companies to see what they'd charge. I'll post the results in due course.

Furniture shopping no go

So on Sunday morning we raced off to Ilva to purchase a few items, namely a dining table, possibly a corner lounge suite, some rugs and a pile of these cute Arne Jacobson style kids chairs (which were down from £16.99 to a tenner) only to find the place had been well and truly picked over. There was virtually nothing left. Rob was miffed and mortified. I was surprised. I thought there'd be more stock as the receivership news was only made public last week. I guess this credit crunch means people are keen to buy mountains of stuff they don't really need if it's 50% cheaper than usual.

I'm glad we went though, because if we'd waited a couple of weeks then the place really would've been empty and Rob would've blamed me "If we'd gone in the first weekend we'd have found everything!" Ack. Back to Ikea and Habitat then I guess.

Our builder was meant to start work this week but we still haven't had the final quote in from him, any day now I'm told, and then we need to have a meeting with him and the architect.

In other news, I got the company who's manufacturing our extension glass to re-quote and it's now nearly £1,600 more than four months ago (due to the Euro strengthening, and the cost of petrol etc - the glass is made in Germany). Ouch. That's the cost of a Velux window and installation... something's gotta give.

Country blues...

Img from flickr.com

I've had a few rather terse email exchanges with builder number two, Division 5 Builders. When I asked for a more useful document than the one he supplied he got *very* defensive. I told him we'd paid (over the agreed price by a fair whack) for what was in effect a quote, and that it was of no real use to use unless it could detail the actual quantities involved. He retorted saying that's not what a Bill of Quantities is (check Wikipedia - that's exactly what it is).

We're now at a stand off as we'd like our keys back, he wants payment and we still don't have a Bill of Quantities, and he told us we don't need one. (We do, actually).

Anthony (the architect) was over for dinner on Monday night and he said that as the document supplied was six weeks late and builder number two hadn't told us of the massive price increase we should pay the original agreed amount and let him chase us for the rest. Of course, if we don't get the keys back we can also deduct the cost of changing all the locks from the invoice too. I found a really negative review about him on the internet which is another red flag, though having dealt with the guy first hand and seen how difficult and aggressive he is there's no way I could work with him on a full project.

Bill of what?

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This photo illustrates some serious demolition. The quote we had from the 2nd builder for 'demolition work' (ie removing the back wall downstairs, and removing a couple of non-load bearing interior walls) was in the region of £12,000. The quote from the 3rd builder for the same was less than half this sum.

The 2nd builder has been chasing our architect for payment of the invoice, despite only issuing it a few days ago. The architect sent a very good email back: "Your estimation was for approx 8 hours of work which was agreed but I understand you expended considerably more time. You thus should have informed the client immediately as such dramatically increased time thus cost expenditure was not authorised. Furthermore the costings took significantly longer than expected: we anticipated this work to be completed by the end of May yet it was only recently delivered. I suggest you explain this when discussing the settlement of your invoice with the clients whose email addresses are included in this email: FYI WHAT_architecture is the agent of the client not the invoicing party."

Awesome. He's right. And it's VAT on top, so instead of paying £360 we've been invoiced for £634.50 and in effect are paying for him to quote as the so-called Bill of Quantities hasn't actually revealed any quantities - we're none the wiser about how much MDF, plasterboard or how many nails are actually required!

Rob is going to email requesting a proper breakdown as we're paying for it, and it will be useful when ordering items for the build.

The third quote is in...

… and the bottom line is only double our building budget! I never thought I'd be happy that something was only going to cost twice as much as we expected. This is a great start. As I was hoping, the quote is from our New Zealand friend Teia and he can start work before the end of the month. We need to get the quote broken down into a full schedule so we can see which bits we can shelve until next year aka "Phase 2". The building quote covers demolition, build, plumbing etc, but we still need to buy all the fixtures and fittings including cabinetry etc. None of our sums include appliances or furniture. Basically, we need to be able to shave £20 to £25K off the spend. It's not an insignificant sum so it will be tricky to get the balance of major works done vs priorities and preferences.

Then we have no choice but to do the rest of the work when we've got some more funds. Depressing really, but heck, not as depressing as paying six or seven months worth of mortgage on an empty property (which is what we have been doing, for any new readers of this blog).

The photo above is what the garden currently looks like. Our neighbours were having an afternoon soiree and tentatively asked over the fence if it would be OK to cut down the grass as there was possibly a family of foxes residing in there. They own a large Persian cat, which is a sitting duck for some wily urban foxes. We were happy that they offered to cut the grass as neither Rob nor I have ever dealt with a sickle… or a lawnmower come to think of it.

Rob is keen to move in relatively quickly, whereas I'm thinking it would be better to give the builders a head start (say, 6 to 8 weeks) and see where they're at. Am a bit nervous about having a large gaping hole in the back of the building with a bit of tarpaulin over while we wait for the glazing to be manufactured. Firstly, it's not safe or secure and secondly, it'll be a bit chilly unless we get an Indian summer (not likely. This is England.)

Next step after seeing the budget breakdown is to get a contract signed between us, the architect and the builder. The only hiccup is that the builder doesn't currently have full building insurance but he's sorting this in the next couple of weeks.

So, five months behind schedule and it looks like we're about to have lift off...

Second quote is in...

Well the first quote came in a few weeks ago and we dismissed it outright as it was triple our building budget. Last night, Amy emailed to say the Bill of Quantities had finally arrived (six weeks later than it was meant to) with the quote detailed.

It was nearly four times our budget!

The actual cost of the BOQ was meant to be £360 but it ended up costing £540. So now we're paying out for a list of items which I am having trouble agreeing with. For instance, they want to charge us just over £6,000 to install and fit the Ikea kitchen. This includes plumbing and electricity. To give you some comparison, our current flat has a slightly bigger Ikea kitchen than the one we'll end up with in the new house and it cost around £900 to install and fit.

There are materials listed in the BOQ which are mysterious - £50 here, £100 there, for little more than nails and screws - and yet there's still a £2,000 contingency fee at the end.

As the addition of an extension on the property will add about 10% onto it's value, it's absolutely bonkers to spend much more than this on the renovation, yet the two quotes we've had in so far are more like 15% (and when you're talking thousands of pounds, that 5% adds a huge sum).

So. Rob now wants to move in and rent out our current flat as soon as possible so that we can start saving up for the rest of the work to be done in the future (THE FUTURE?! Incidentally the photo above is from the weekend, showing friends round our empty and expensive space.)

I am keen to get another quote or two as I would prefer to have two out of the three floors done before Christmas, if we used either of the quotes supplied so far, we'd be lucky to get the ground floor done. I suggested renting out the new house for six months, or even selling our current flat to fund the work, but Rob thinks that both of these suggestions are absurd.

And yes, I am buying Lottery tickets.

Dreaming about a piano

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Dum dum de dum. Still twiddling my thumbs. Have had an email from a friend today who's been out of the country and just arrived back saying 'I expect you're all settled into your new house by now…'

Ha!

If only. I had the most amazingly convincing dream last night that we were shopping for a shiny black grand piano on eBay to fill out the massive space. This wouldn't happen anyway as we have kids, ergo, space is generally filled up with kids stuff and secondly, I'd rather have a pair of Technics turntables and some decent storage for my vinyl if we were going to introduce a musical theme.

The photo at the top here is from Livingetc and shows an extension with a roof and sliding door system not too dissimilar from what we're planning. Our roof pitch won't be as steep as this, but the solid side walls and long narrow room are definitely on the same page. You can buy a film to go on the glass which helps reduce glare and sun damage, and potentially negates the need for special blinds (visual clutter, urgh) but as we've literally wasted thousands of pounds by having the house sitting empty I don't think we can justify shelling out more on things that aren't 100% essential, so maybe we'll just endure the brightness. Also, the extension is facing east so by mid afternoon when the heat's at it's most intense (for London…) the sun won't be pouring onto the glass, I hope.

Hopefully Teia (one of our prospective builders) has recovered from Glastonbury and is busy working on our quote. It's nearly July and if there isn't a builder starting work on it very soon I may well spontaneously combust!

Bill of quantities MIA

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Dark, square bathroom tiles. I think I'm wobbling on the rectangle shaped ones the more I think about our tiny little bathroom. Oh but I'm getting ahead of myself again, as we clock up the fifth month of watching our empty house gather dust. The grass in the back garden is now well over knee height, but at least the steady stream of junk mail addressed to about a dozen previous inhabitants is finally slowing down.

I've sent a few impatient emails to the architect's office trying to hurry along this bill of quantities - apparently the devil's in the detail and the reason it's taking so long is because all the suppliers must quote for their bit so that each part of the work is costed accurately. Why does it take everyone so darn long though? That bill of quantities was due a month ago! If I took a month longer than an official deadline for my job I doubt I'd have a job for very long.

Heartening to read in the newspaper than the building trade is slowing down due to this economic recession as it might mean that tradespeople are able to do jobs with smaller budgets (as this is preferable to having no job at all). I have a feeling that it'll actually be the bigger budget jobs that drop off first and that people with similar budgets to ours will be fighting over the handful of builders out there, as families decide to renovate and expand, rather than relocate. Oh, and the Polish are heading back too as things get too bleak here, great.

Is reading this blog as boring to you as it is to me writing it? I was hoping for hundreds of before and after photos in this blog by now… as I'm sure you were too. Apologies.

"Chill the f*ck out"

Sound advice from pic above, discovered on fabulous image bookmarking site www.ffffound.com

Rob had a meeting with Anthony (the architect) and Amy (the assistant) yesterday and hallelujah, we have made some progress.

Our friend Teia is a recently retired musician who's now a builder and he's submitting a quote for our build. Yesterday he had a look round the property, and dropped the keys back to Rob during the meeting with Anthony. As Teia drove past the café windows Anthony had a glimmer of recognition... and when Teia walked in they immediately recognised each other, having played football together in the East End in years gone by. What are the chances? London's pretty massive with 7m people (or more?) living here.

I should mention that both Teia and Anthony are both New Zealanders (as are Rob and I) and both have Maori blood. I am keeping everything crossed that Teia's quote isn't hair raising so that we can have the "Bro-Team" working on the project (that's a wee kiwi joke…).

Rob and I pored over the schedule of work over lunch today which listed what exactly is going to be demolished and then built.

This document really would've been useful a few months ago as I think most builders would've preferred to quote knowing what it is they actually need to do. If you've ever look at architectural drawings without any explanation to hand you'll know how confusing they are. Oh well, you live, you learn...

Ding dong time for an update

Img from Livingetc

I like wooden decking, which is good as it's a more affordable option than other types of outdoor surface. Clueless about foliage though so not sure what'll happen there. Met a couple recently who have an Eglu chicken coop in their garden and they raved about it. Except they'd just buried a chook which a fox had dissected. It was the kid's fault apparently for not returning the chicken to the coop before sunset.

Rob (the artist formerly known as "hubby" on this blog) was over at our empty property last week to show round a prospective builder. It was the middle of the day (lunchtime to be exact) and he spied a fox sunning itself in the next door neighbour's garden. This was a little depressing as it means we can't possibly have chickens as it would be too cruel to keep them penned up except for short bursts. Is there such a thing as a fox repellent?

In other news, it's now mid June and we haven't had a quote from any of the three builders who were meant to quoting. The first one was supplying a bill of quantities, eg: a list of exactly how much wood, how many nails and other bits & bobs, so that everyone can accurately cost up the job based on supplies and time. He said he'd have it after the last Bank Holiday weekend, which was three weeks ago.

Rob was having a real gripe about the state of things at the weekend and trying to get me to agree to move into our house so that we can stop paying out two mortgages. I can see the logic of this but I can also see merit in letting the builders have unfettered access for 4-6 weeks so they can get as much done as possible before we *have* to move in there. I'm sure they'd prefer to have a property which doesn't have people living in it, and as mentioned a few hundred times I hate the idea of living on a building site.

Or maybe it's that I'm fundamentally lazy and a move will mean quite a lifestyle shift: Currently I can hear the five minute warning school bell for my daughter's primary from our flat and grab her book bag, find shoes, put on some lipstick (me, not her) and leave, and because it's so close (like, one minute away) she's still there on time. Once we move we'll have to get up maybe half an hour earlier because the trek to school will be 15-20 minutes more than now, and unlike now when I can pop home if I forget something after dropping off my daughter, once I'm out that's it till it's time to go home…

Is that a dilemma? Camping in building site vs being broke and close to everything… which is better? Ooh, I've just made a wee poll so you can help me with my inertia - voting button to your right. Thanks in advance.

Feeling the pain

Props to my fellow renovators who have been kind enough to post about their torment. It's nice to know that there are more people out there who are pursuing the same end goal as us ie: to live in a nice environment as soon as possible. There are many renovators blogging but the two I'm most keen to follow are from an editor called James Oliver Cury at epicurious.com (pic above) who's been doing his kitchen since February. He doesn’t blog enough in my opinion, weeks go by without an update on his renovation angst but when he does it makes it all worthwhile. Besides, spending so long on one room is making our entire house mission seem less irritating.

The other blog I found via the Livingetc forums and I love it because the writer has lots in common with me except that after nearly two years of working in phases, her house is actually finished, whereas mine is still sitting empty: Worst House in London. The beauty of the WHIL blog is that you can go back in time to read the story as it unfolds, and echoes of our own time dragging problems are there in black and white (it took them three long months to even have the documents ready for tender, for example). The depressing part is that as I write this, my renovation is in real time and there is STILL NO BUILDER APPOINTED. It's the first week of June fer petesakes!

I've sent two emails to the architect gently enquiring as to when the next quote is due in as I swear it was meant to be here last week. No update yet.

Hubby says I can't call him hubby in this blog any more because it makes him sound old, fuddy and quaint (and he's only two out of these three things…) so we'll call him Rob.

Rob is keen to get our builder friend to quote but as this may take another three weeks I'm beginning to wobble. Each month is literally costing us thousands as we're A. Paying two mortgages and B. Not getting any income from renting out our flat.

The builder that's meant to have a quote for us this week is supposed to supply an accurate figure based on what exactly needs doing, as opposed to the last quote which was plucking a random number out of the air (I mean how can they charge £8,000 to move a boiler?!), but Rob says it's likely this quote will be huge too because their hourly rate "may be higher".

What I want to know is how come we didn't just give the sum to the relevant builders and say "This is how much we've got. This is what needs doing. Will you do the work for this amount?" It seems to me that getting quotes in on the off chance the sum is smaller than our budget is a false economy, because the four months we've just wasted has already cost several thousand pounds.

Mortgages and quotes

More lights from the ICFF. And I swear that's another Vernor Panton second from the left.

This week has been full of tiny highs and near misses. Firstly, our current flat's mortgage rate is going to expire. In exactly three days. Three weeks ago our lovely mortgage broker Claudia - who's had the patience of a saint and the determination of a starving rat - started sourcing a new mortgage product for us. (I'm really getting into the financial services jargon).

Two weeks ago she found the "best rate on the market" which was a squeak inducing .89% more than what we're paying now. Cue argument with hubby about why he didn't listen to me two years ago and fix for longer in the first place yada yada.

Last week we had the valuation guy around to measure up our flat so he could make sure the new bank wasn't loaning us a silly amount of money. We were absolutely convinced that it would be a shoe in as friends sold their smaller flat 5 minutes walk from ours last year for £40K more than what we think our flat is actually worth. Oh how wrong we were. There's a "credit crunch" on so all valuations are coming in way below "market rate". Our valuation was 13% below what we thought it was worth, and therefore the new bank was nervous about giving us the loan. Brilliant timing huh? Here we are paying out TWO mortgages in London and they want to quibble about whether we can afford a hike at this point? Ha!

Plan B was to show them comparable sales figures of similar flats sold in the last three months to prove that their valuation was based on fiction. Claudia rang loads of real estate agents to be told that hardly anything's sold in the last three months because of the "credit crunch". Catch 22 anyone?

Yesterday hubby rang our existing bank and by some miracle secured a rate lower than the one the new bank was offering us. So for a set up fee, an application fee and now a high payment next month for being too close to the deadline, we are back in business. It feels like money is evaporating when we haven't actually purchased anything new.

Secondly, we've found another two builders to quote. This could be good in that it stops us being held to ransom by only having one option to pursue, but it could be bad in that one is a friend and I've heard that you should never employ friends. Sod it, we'll employ anyone who can renovate our house this side of Christmas.

Self sufficiency

The building quotes were due in today but it looks as thought it'll be next week (argh!) now. One of the building companies wants to meet us on Monday to show us some of their work and look at our house so they can quote properly (why didn't they raise this three weeks ago when they agreed to tender?). Anyway, the house has now been sitting empty for three full months and we're about to enter the fourth. It would've been great to know this from the outset so we could've rented it out to someone.

Anyway, while we sit around twiddling our thumbs I'm fantasising about the day (one year from now?) that the place is finished, decorated, habitable and the garden's thriving. Husband has always refused to enter into conversations about pets of any kind but after a visit to Grand Designs Live he was convinced about the merits of having an Eglu chicken coop. Not only is it a really fetching design but it's easy to clean and houses two child friendly chooks, which could produce up to a dozen fresh organic eggs a week. It's £395 all up (including two vaccinated chickens and delivery) which I think would pay for itself in less than two and a half years - and the chickens live for five years. Apparently there's no noise or smell to worry about (it's only roosters/cockerels that make a racket) and the coop is fox proof. Ooh, I just had a flashback to The Good Life - I was always a fan of Margo's cocktail dresses rather than Tom and Barbara's self sufficient ways.

Are you a builder?

Still nothing to report. The architects have drawn up a short list (as in it's a very short list, not a list of the prime candidates) of builders and construction companies to invite to tender. I was feeling more buoyant until I noticed on one of their websites that their residential refurb budgets were generally over £300K. Not in this lifetime I'm afraid.

This photo is from a house built around 1963/1964. I love how these mid century properties look so modern and futuristic nearly 50 years later. To me, that shows real foresight - imagining how people will want to live. I know we probably won't be living in our new property in ten years from now so I don't feel bad about having such a tiny budget, after all, we can always replace the fixtures and fittings when we have more money if we decide to add value. But I am sure the work we are planning to do will create a superior space which people will enjoy, I don't know if it will last 50 years but here's hoping.

Anyway, currently waiting for more builders to indicate they are happy to tender and they're available to start the work in May. Apparently there's an economic recession looming and the housing market is set to implode yet every builder the architect has contacted is either busy or our budget's too small.

If you know of any London based builders who aren't total cowboys, please get in touch.

Love me tender (document)

This is a double height extension on a narrow Victorian property, so I don't really know why I've included it, other than I don't have a relevant photo to go with this post.

So, what's happening with the actual build?

Not much.

The tender schedule document won't be finished until next week. It's imperative that everything gets included (from which way the joists are running internally, to which walls will be demolished, to structual information, everything we actually want built etc etc) so that the builders can give an accurate quote. This will probably take a few weeks after we've supplied the tender document. Once we have the quotes in, we then have to wait for the builder to have a 12-16 week gap in their schedule in order to start the work.

Way back in December when we exchanged contracts we imagined moving in around May or June, but this looks to be more like July or even August now. The glass for the extension takes 9-12 weeks to manufacture and this can't be ordered until the extension walls are built, so it's possible that we'll end up living in the new house while work is still going on (great with two small kids) or we may have to sell our flat in order to finance the cost over run. Neither of these outcomes is ideal so I'm going to not think about it for a while.

When we originally bought the house I was a bit ambivalent about moving as we're close to the tube and the local school, a great drycleaner and loads of useful shops. The new property will mean having to get up earlier and being more organised about getting supplies in. But I have to admit, after so many conversations with our architect and his fabulous assistant I am starting to get VERY excited about how our house could turn out and am anxious for things to kick off soon (as I'm sure you are too if you've been reading this for the last month!)

POSTSCRIPT (24 hours later) - the tender document has just been despatched to the first of three builders. I was really excited until I read this post on another building blog which said they were waiting for 8 months to get a quote in - argh!