It was a busy week in a strange way, with one thing and another.  This week Stu and I were starting a refurbishment job over near Northampton, so we had a 45 minute journey each way and joined the ranks of the rush hour traffic brigade, something we are not used to. I don’t normally even see rush hour traffic!  Monday morning we travelled over first thing and met up with the client.  We have a new down stairs w.c to install, kitchen ceiling to come down, insulate and plaster skim.  Knock through a wall in the bedrooms; stud one wall out while making a walk in wardrobe in the other bedroom.  Then we have the bathroom to strip out, re-jig the layout and fit a new bathroom suite with wall and floor tiling.  So we made a list of materials and headed out for some shopping, trying to get as much as possible to save on future trips to the merchants.  We travelled back to Peterborough to do the shopping as we know where everything is.  Once that was done, we popped back to our kitchen job in the afternoon so I could grout the tiles and Stu could fix the handles to the doors.  That was that job finished.
 

Tuesday I set about digging up the drive area and finding the existing underground soil pipe so we could connect into it with our new w.c pipe work.  Once I had exposed the pipes, I then moved inside and set about doing the w.c stud work.  While I was doing this, Stu was running new hot and cold water feeds from the bathroom, under the bedroom floor boards and into the new w.c.
 

On our way over first thing Wednesday  morning, we had only got onto the A605 when the van lost all power and came to a halt at the side of the road.  I called out the AA, and by mid morning the van was in a garage.  I contacted the client to explain, and we had to right the day off.  It was just a case of getting the news on how long the van would be off the road for and more importantly how much it would cost to put right!  The news was pretty good under the circumstances and I could get my van back sometime Friday.  So with that I phoned my Dad and asked if we could borrow his van for Thursday, which he very kindly let us use for the day.  Dads van is not as large as mine, but I got most of my tools in the back but there wasn’t a lot of room left for anything else!  But it served its purpose for the day.  Stu got all the pipe work connected up with the existing, and I got the new hidden cistern plumbed in and all the new stud work fixed into position so all the pipe work was hidden from view.  As I was awaiting a time to pick the van up on the Friday, we took it as another day off under the circumstances.  It was good to get my van back.  You forget how you take things for granted.  My van carries all my tools; they are all easily to hand.  I have all the other bits and pieces on the van that come in handy when you need them.  It carries all size of materials, and doubles up as my office as well.  When you suddenly don’t have that, it certainly makes life harder.  I will be glad to be back to normal next week.

The kitchen had been delivered on the previous Friday with Stu and I spending most of the day taking everything out of its packaging, putting together a few units that had come in pieces and getting most of the base units into their positions. The packaging ended up filling half the skip!  On the Monday we levelled all the base units up, so on the Tuesday I hung the wall units while Stu plumbed in a new radiator.  We also got the first piece of work top into place.

Wednesday we got the second piece of work top cut and into place and then joined it up to the other piece, and then Stu got the sink plumbed in.  While I put all the handles onto the doors and fixed the doors to the units, Stu cut the plinth and pelmet pieces to size and fixed them into position.  By the end of the day the kitchen was pretty much finished.

Thursday I made a start on the tiling while Stu set about fixing all the skirting and architrave into place on all the new stud work and joining it up to the existing.  On Friday I continued to tile up to lunch time, and then I worked through our final snagging list.  Stu’s job was to hang the two, part glazed oak doors.  Bearing in mind the cost of these doors, they weren’t cheap; Stu took his time and did a thorough job.  We couldn’t afford any mistakes at those prices.  Unfortunately we will have to pop back on the Monday afternoon so I can grout the tiles and Stu can fix the door handles. After our two week schedule, we over ran by just one afternoon.  But then again, we did lose a morning to the electricians, so taking that into account we would have finished the job once again to time and schedule.  Can’t be bad!

After a nice two week break over Christmas and New Year it was time to switch the phone back on and get back to work.  The new build we had been working on was now all plaster boarded and John and J the plasterers were making a start on getting everywhere skimmed, so we are leaving them to it.

Stu and I were off to do a refurbishment and new kitchen fitting in Peterborough.  We were doing it for the parents of a client we did an extension for last year.  His parents were impressed with our standard of work and so they got us in to do the work on their newly purchased bungalow.  We had to take out the existing kitchen, remove some stud walls and put back some new stud walls so that they could alter their room layouts, and then supply and fit a new kitchen.  As it has tuned out their revised layout works really well and makes far better use of their living space than the original layout.

Of course we have also had the snow and cold temperatures, but fortunately this hasn’t stopped us from getting on with the job in hand.  Stu and I were doing all the work as usual, with John and J popping over to skim some walls.  The client had got their own electrician in doing some work for them.  I prefer to run the job from start to finish myself, using tradesmen I know and trust to come in and do their work as part of a schedule of works.  Some people don’t understand why there is an issue with them getting in their own trades, but here is a good reason why.  Stu and I took out the kitchen Monday morning, so then the electrician could run his revised sockets.  But this took them longer than they planned, and as a consequence we were tripping over each other in the afternoon as we were trying to take the stud walls down.  On the Tuesday morning they were going to replace the mains fuse board, which I wasn’t aware they were going to do, which meant there would be no power on site.  They said they would be done by around 11am.  So Stu and I went shopping for materials and got back on site for 11am.  Unfortunately the electricians hadn’t finished the fuse board and there was still no power, and we couldn’t do any work.  They then had a problem with the fuse board and did not get finished until around 13.30.  So Stu and I, through no fault of our own had lost out on half a day’s work.  It was only day two and we were already behind.  Then the afternoon was a mad rush to get the stud walls up so John and J had something to plaster Wednesday.  In the end we managed to work through things, but with some better planning and organisation the situation could have been avoided.  But most of the time its Stu and I who are the ones on the receiving end and we get messed about.  One day we might get our own back!!