Nearly finished?

We went to France for another weekend of gardening before a second UK-only Bank Holiday meeting which managed to save another of David's precious holiday days.

Gorgeous weather!

Sunday was 28°C in the shade - perfect for sitting out having breakfast, but I'm pretty tired at the moment [finally finished ALL the work I was doing on the flat in Brixton], and left the lion's share of gardening to David.

That's unusual for me, but I am conforting myself with the hope that the weather men are right (i.e. we get a summer that merits the name!), and the fact that I will soon be staying at the house, and can then get up early and weed before the heat builds...

It was only 38°C in the sun, but it gets so hot that it goes off the top of my thermometer - it only measures up to 53°C!

At our meeting on Monday, we were assured that all work will be finished by noon on Friday, 5th June...

Will believe that when we see it, but the signs are good.

Very little remaining to do in the house: a few clearer labels on the water supply, and some woodwork/plastering that we've said "let's wait till the house has dried out, and do it next year", so nothing to stop me staying there...

...Now the drains are connected!!

Deeply overexcited, and had some ribald responses to my text to friends saying I'd had a pi-pi in the house!

So, I'm tying up loose ends in Brixton & preparing to camp in the grenier...

Yes, I did say "camp in the grenier" as opposed to "set up home"!

We washed something up in our newly-connected kitchen sink, and later noticed a pool of water underneath.

We couldn't see where the leak was, so I got out the mop to clear up the mess and dry the floor - FAT CHANCE!

We don't think there's a leak; when we looked closer the whole floor was covered with drops of condensation.

Where I'd mopped was still no drier after 6 or 7 hours of all the doors and windows being opened.

Which means we've got 100% humidity, as far as we can tell - either way, I don't want our belongings in that damp an atmosphere, nor do I want to sleep in it, so the plan has changed to another summer of camping!

Not a problem; I'm getting pretty good at the "higher end" camping, and intend to set the bed up under the gazebo (bought to keep bird drippings off!), and will put most other things upstairs as well...

Today I'm tied to the flat - waiting for a delivery [SMS may even try to deliver; usually they just put a card through the door without ringing the bell, so keep your fingers crossed for me!]...

David has chosen what sounds to be the most powerful domestic dehumidifier you can get without crossing the threshhold to industrial-strength models!

Part of me thinks we should have done this sooner, but the part that's pee-ed off by how many of our things have ended up tatty or ruined by French workmen knows that I will look after the machine and won't break it through carelessness, so this is the right time.

Enough of our damp!

As well as the sink being fitted, and the drains all connecting up, we now have a gas tank in place [no gas, so can't test it - Schwartz are now under notice that if they don't supply the Qualigaz certificate (and finish all their other outstanding jobs) by noon next Friday, we will be reducing the bill by €100 a day - half of me hopes they work as fast as they've done so far! We won't owe a thing! ;-) ] and the VMC is connected and working (we think).

Another glitch: the well seems to have run dry!

We're hopeful it's just temporary (otherwise it's a lot of money 'down the drain'), and a couple of neighbours have told us that the water table is incredibly low, so again, fingers crossed...

So, obviously, we can't test the pump!

The main job to finish is the terrace - the breeze block wall is up, and the stone wall hiding it is about half done, so the workmen could well be leaving site in just over a week!?

One of M. Luparello's chap is studying at the Institut Universitaire Des Métiers et du Patrimoine - a university course teaching the old building techniques.

I think that's a brilliant idea, and feel lucky to have M. Faisal working at our house & wish him well with his studies and future career.

Sink Saga...

We finally found a couple of freestanding sinks, for a reasonable price, that looked OK in the Ikea catalogue...

[If you don't mind spending thousands of pounds, it's quite easy to find nice sink units, but we want something to last until we can get around to fitting a kitchen, so something that costs more than the whole kitchen will seems a bizarre choice, so "No!" to John Lewis of Hungerford and your ilk.]

We live reasonably close to Ikea in Croydon, so went along to have a look at the sinks "in the flesh", and hopefully buy one to take to France on our last trip.

They had two of the three possibles on display, neither of which we liked: one looked like a catering sink, but felt a bit feeble [industrial looks without industrial build quality; not what we were aiming for!], and the other one didn't have any kind of rim/lip to stop water overflowing [having occasionally managed to soak the floor using sinks with a rim/lip, I wanted that "safety" feature"].

The second sink we just didn't really like either - the cupboard you could add wasn't very aesthetically pleasing, and added to the cost, so that was also a "No".

Before setting off for Wembley or any other store I thought I would check availability, so that if we liked the third (as yet unseen) sink we could buy one there & then.

The website "availability checker" showed quite a few of both the sink and the base in stock.

Being somewhat paranoid (and wanting to avoid a wasted journey), I telephoned the store to check that they were in stock & we could just come and collect a set if we liked the look of the combo...

A very helpful lady said "Yes!" no problem.

What she really meant was: "You will get to the store, decide you like the item, copy down the location, but need to queue up for nearly an hour to speak to the one kitchen assistant working [to find the location for the waste, which wasn't shown]. You will be told by that assistant that the location in the warehouse you have copied down doesn't exist, and that you need to speak to someone down in the warehouse to find the correct location, but yes they are in stock".

She seemed a bit frustrated that this process was something she'd explained frequently, and customers who weren't happy probably had bent her ear on more than one occasion!

Another, though much shorter wait, we learned from the (equally helpful) chap in the warehouse that yes, both items were in stock, but we could only have one of them!

We could collect a sink - if he called through to his colleagues in the outside store, we could pick up the sink in 30-40 minutes...

The base was in an "air location" [a high shelf] that could only be accessed by the forklift driver - a process that they weren't allowed to do whilst there were customers in the store.

Fair enough: health & safety requirements seem sensible, but why not advise customers [who have taken the trouble to find out if they can take an item away before schlepping to North London] that they have to order the base one day for collection the next day?

So, we said "Please will you ask them to get one down for us" and "Where will it be when we come back tomorrow to collect it?"...

The helpful assistant said that the best they could do was ask the forklift driver to leave it near their desk, IF they got it down. [There seemed to be a lot of doubt whether the request would be actioned or ignored.]

[Again, we got the impression the staff suffers at the hands of frustrated customers who can't just buy items, and this wasn't a one-off "glitch"!]

Could we have our name put on it to reserve it?

No.

What's to stop someone else taking it?

Nothing.

Well, we asked for them to get one down...

Next day I spoke again with the helpful lady in Rotherham to see if I could contact the warehouse desk to see if the base was waiting there for us to collect.

I muttered a bit about the air location, and why couldn't they let us know, but it wasn't her fault, so I just asked for the name of the CEO. [No-one in store could tell me the name of the store manager, or the CEO - at that point I thought the problem was inefficiency at Wembley not Ikea's "system".]

The lady told me the name, so I could write to him [turns out he left last September - I Googled the spelling to find that he'd moved on], and said she couldn't contact the warehouse desk, but she or one of her colleagues would call me back, when I explained about the doubt whether the base would have been taken down to floor level.

She did say she could try to organise delivery, but that was going to be over £70, so I thought, "let's have one last go at collecting it first"...

Later that day I received a call from another lady in Rotherham: there were no bases in stock in Wembley, and no plans to get any more.

I didn't know what to say!

[I consulted the online availability checker the next day - which was still showing the same level of stock as when I first looked, so I don't know whether the people in store were misinformed/lying, or whether the lady from customer services at head office was.]

It was all a bit frustrating - not knowing whether they would have a sink anywhere near London, and if so whether I could collect one.

I never think moaning achieves anything, but I still have a moan anyway because it gets it out of my system!

But this time it was productive - I was telling mum about the Ikea "system" [how can anyone run a business that way?], and saying we'd have to keep looking on eBay till I found one we liked & could afford.

She asked what we wanted, and I explained that we just wanted a self-supporting sink - we didn't want to have to buy a base cabinet, a length of worktop, a jigsaw (to cut the hole in the worktop) and take it to France to assemble it all - so that we didn't have to take the washing up to the laundry room, wash it & bring it back.

Bad enough having to wash up!!

I didn't care what it looked like, as long as it wasn't too expensive; we're planning to think about kitchen layout/style when we are in situ and our heads aren't too full of all the other decisions...

And we've coped without a kitchen for four years already, so another year or two (or five!) won't matter!

Mum said "We've got an old sink in the shed; would you like that?"

"YES!!" [Please]

After measuring the sink and the car, it all looked manageable, so we did the belated Christmas present run (swapped gifts that we never exchanged last year), collected the sink and had another of our 36-hour round trips!

Some Vim powder, a bit of elbow grease and it all looked much better!

It's a catering sink (so we've got the industrial look, but this time with the build quality), with a small hand sink to the side.

The basin is far too large (would have been perfect in the laundry!!), but we can upturn one washing up bowl & put another one on top and it will be great!

M. Huguenot from Schwartz didn't seem fazed by it not having a waste so we're keeping our fingers crossed that it will be fitted next time we visit...

Having the sink in place also means we can have the mini immersion installed too, so it will be luxury!

[The run from the existing immersion heater meant we were having to run the tap for a minute or so each time we wanted hot water - a complete waste - so we are having a tiny one under the sink]

Tardiness explained!

We went to France very early on 2 May - we had a meeting on the Bank Holiday Monday (a rarity: we got a Bank Hol & they didn't!), and wanted to do some weeding before the garden got completely out of control...

Also we wanted to drop off the freebie sink...

[Note to self: remember to post about how Ikea's inefficiency saved us quite a bit of money!]

Just before we went, I'd received a letter saying a surveyor would be in our area to conduct pre-works inspections before Thames Water dig a big tunnel right underneath our house...

This would happen the week commencing 11 May - which gave me the kick up the bum I needed to finish off the decorating at home!

There was only the shelves in the dining room, the bathroom door and the inside of the flat door and stripping the lacquer off the door handles & relacquering to do.

Plus Spring cleaning and reassambling the flat [nice to have the sofa no longer on its side in the bedroom!], obviously!

So how come I managed to work over 12 hours a day for 9 days (quite often doing 15, 17 or 18 hours!), and only stopping on day 9 for a break to go to the pharmacist to get myself patched up?

Top Tip: when you're REALLY tired, don't use a razor-sharp pointy knife to slit open packaging without giving it 110% attention!

The cut was only about 1cm wide, but judging by the blood I found on the knife when I remembered to clean it up, about 1.5cm deep...

Gaped nastily & I couldn't work out how to close the gap without growing a third hand!

It's healing nicely, but for a couple of days, I could type or use my hand, so took a [well-earned?] rest. So lucky not to hit a tendon or nerve!!

[Oh, and the surveyor was really complimentary about the cleanliness/tidiness of the flat (all the effort was worth it!), and highly praised my decorating. Thank You! ]

Anyway, to get back to the point of the blog: the latest builder had been at work just over a week, and at the meeting on the Monday M. Boyer asked him to re-do the pipework for the VMC air inlet (including all the concrete and work in the cellar), and alter the groundworks at the rear of the house...

100% rate of "not-quite-getting-there"!!

Trying so hard not to become stressed by the process, and constantly reminding myself that it must end one day...

Won't it?

Whilst we were there, the new builders were trying to find the drains that left the house put in place by builder number 2...

[M. Boyer very firmly pointed out that they were NOT to connect to the redundant (visible) drains installed by builder 1!]

After an hour or so of chipping away at the subsoil with a pick-axe, and a 'phone call to M. Smail, M. Amin finally found the pipe (which only went halfway through the wall) about 2' away from where it should have been, and about 8" lower!

Not delighted: the pipe comes out at an acute angle, and we are left with a worryingly shallow fall to the sewer (less than 4" over 35-40').

Because the pipe leaving the house is at less than right angles, the elbow to the drain run at the back will also have to be less than 90° - creating a "z" formation; NOT ideal!

The builders and M. Boyer assure us it will work, but if I'm out there with the drain rods more than once in the next year I'm seriously tempted to go to the tribunal this time!

The only thing stopping me getting them to re-route the drains is the fact that all the work in the back hall has been finished, and it would ALL have to be pulled out and started again!

Can't face that, so am opting to keep my fingers crossed instead...

We had discussions with M. Baty [the damp in the house is undoing his work as fast as he corrects the new window sills & vaulting], and M. Roncari [he stuck a damp-meter in the walls in several rooms - off the scale in every room, apart from the one untouched wall, which is merely 'damp' (as opposed to "wringing") - it would be madness to finish the walls and ceilings that we are having painted with that much moisture still around].

The short of it is that we will get the ceilings finished & painted & the warped woodwork corrected when the house has dried out.

Realistically, this could be next year.

But we'll see what a summer of opening doors & windows can achieve...

We've got our horrible old doors mounted on beautiful new frames in the loo, shower room & boiler room - all we need are door handles, and then we will have some privacy for the first time in nearly 5 years!

Mind you, my mum has only recently fitted a latch to her bathroom door (after almost 30 years), so it's not like I'm not used to lock-free bathing... It was lovely when they replaced the curtain to the bathroom with a door!!

The correct tap has been fitted in the laundry, and the tiling done around the sink, and all the pipework finished off; it looks great.

M. Huguenot [Schwartz] didn't make a fuss about our reclaimed sink, so we're hopeful to have water in the kitchen by the time we can stay there...

Was not looking forward to carting all the washing up to the laundry & back; bad enough having to do it!

Little niggles: the housing for the entrance to the small cave is still too big, but M. Baty thinks he can channel into it to get the bedroom door to fit; the loo leaks (we only found out when they poured water down to try & trace the drains; we can't use it because it's not connected at the "other" end); the cap on the well is really high.

But small points, easily fixed (well, can't change the well-cap, but I can plant around it to hide it somewhat).

The huge bonus was arriving at the house and being able to see out of the back door - the tarpaulin has gone and our decision to glaze the back door was definitely the right one!