We spent this week doing the landscape gardening which consisted of laying a large area of paving slabs on Monday, making up some timber raised beds, making a concrete slab base for a green house and running in a paving slab path down the side of the house on Tuesday and on the Wednesday we pea gravelled the borders, landscaped the front garden and actioned a few snagging points.  We finished the week by carrying out the finishing touches to the garden, and while I moved inside to finish the laminate beading and to hang the double french doors, we got the skips and port-a-loo taken away and Dane power cleaned the paving and drive area so when our clients returned from their week away they could actually see and use their drive for the first time in months!

We got off to a slow start to the week.  Dane was having car troubles over the weekend and was getting his car sorted Monday morning so didn’t arrive until lunch time.  But it didn’t matter much as I couldn’t do too much onsite as the kitchen fitters were back on site to finish off some of their bits and pieces, so I was trying to do what I could while at the same time keeping out of their way as they took over the site.  The last of our original jobs that needed doing were to grout the kitchen wall tiles and the newly hung doors and some skirting needed first and second coat painting.  By the end of Wednesday we were where we needed to be and it was just a case of creating a snagging list with the client and taking care of all their little issues.  We had created our own list which pretty much mirrored our clients which is always a good sign, so over Thursday and Friday we worked through the list.  All we have to do now is hang two internal glass doors when they finally arrive onto site and finish off the additional landscaping work.  Then fingers crossed, its job done.

We looked to make a start on the garden works this week as the plans had now been confirmed.  While we waited for the materials delivery to turn up on the Wednesday me and Dane started on the kitchen, utility and store room splash back tiling.  While Dane finished off the tiling on Tuesday, I set about hanging three new internal doors and putting on all the associated door furniture.  On Wednesday we had a new skip delivered and we made a start on the back garden by rotavating it and removing the earth where the patio area was going to go, which involved barrowing lots of earth round into the new skip.  Once that was done our next job was to hardcore the patio and paving areas.  This involved shoveling and barrowing eight tonnes of hardcore into the back garden, and we enjoyed immensley every tonne we moved!  On Friday we made a start on laying the 28 sq metres of 1100 x 560 paving slabs.  They were that large that it was a two man job to lay them and by the end of the day my back certainly knew it had done a hards days work.

We continued to work through the last of our jobs this week.  We took off the old hallway skirting and laid new laminate flooring in the hallway and down stairs cloak room, putting new skirting back when the floor was down.  Dane primed the hallway skirting while I first and second coated the kitchen and utility skirting.  We have also been asked to carry out the garden landscaping work that is required and spent the week working with the client as to what work they would like doing and what materials they would like to use.  Once everything was clarified we got the materials ordered ready for delivery the following week.

On Monday Dane was off trying to meet a dead line on some drawing work while I finished off the bathroom refurbishment in Sawtry by plumbing in the towel radiator.  Once that was all done we moved back to Alconbury for the rest of the week where the new kitchen had been fitted.  We started to finish off the last of our jobs and we also made a start on working through the snagging list.  As is always the way as a job draws to a close things don’t always fall into place.  We are waiting for the work tops to be fitted before we can do the splash back tiling and the doors I wanted are out of stock and won’t be delivered until next week.  So we are doing little bits and pieces as best we can to keep things moving.