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!

OPR

We stayed at the house an extra day (to do a bit of weeding), and then it was Easter, and before you know it, I've forgotten to update my blog till today!

The meeting on Friday was for the Opération Préalable à la Réception (OPR), which is a fortnight before the Réception - that meeting is for agreeing that the work has been completed to an acceptable standard, and officially handing it over to the client [us].

We don't have either (as far as I know) in England, so it's a bit hard to understand the difference between the OPR and a normal meeting (same set of "Yes, that's fine", "No, that's not what you said you'd do" comments and "Oh, yes, I remember" responses), but it had a bit more preamble than usually!

When we have the Réception this is when the guarantees start, but the ten year guarantee only applies to "major" work, such as walls, so won't really affect us: we don't get a guarantee from M. Huguenot (because he went bust before the work was finished), and if other work doesn't last a year, I'll be on the phone to the firm responsible pretty sharply (and probably with some fairly sharp words, too!).

Anyway, that's how it works.

Interesting to see that the work that isn't finished somehow manages to be excluded from the handover, but I'm not sure how that will be included later...

We shall see.

Only minor changes to report:

• All the tiling has been finished (it looks lovely, but I would have put some of the joints in different places had we been there - still, gives it an authentic "French" feel!)
• The boiler has been installed, and the immersion heater (no gas yet; waiting for the builder to dig the trenches necessary)
• The laundry/boiler room sink has been fitted, and the laundry taps were fitted (but have been taken away again as they were the wrong ones, installed too low; the pipework has already been raised)

We have got a start date for M. Luparello: 22 or 23 April, with work likely to finish at the end of May.

Fingers crossed it will be third time lucky for building works!

Sorry if this feels a bit lacklustre: I'm struggling to maintain enthusiasm - we're just over nine months into a four month build - and I'm saving up all my energy to hope that it won't last a year!!

Seriously, can't wait to occupy the house (and be able to flush the loo again!).

Home straight?

Arriving at the house on Friday, only M. Waeber was on site: he has finished all the floor tiling, and was in the process of tiling the bathroom.

Sadly, I think I left my thinking head at home! For some reason I admired the beautiful (finished) kitchen floor but left my camera in its case, so you'll have to take my word for it that it looks nice.

But you can admire my loo!

M. Waeber had finished the tiling in there and Schwartz had fitted the sanitary ware and the towel rail.

It looks good enough to use!

The only "fly in the ointment" is the delay connecting it up to the main drains.

With luck, we will get M. Luparello to start work early April, so that may be resolved next time we visit.

Fingers crossed!

Not much to report elsewhere: still finding things Schwartz have forgotten to do, so that's an ongoing "snagging" list, and the things that M. Huguenot's men didn't finish (I feel that they would have finished their jobs if they'd been on site a week longer).

We're going back to have the "reception" meeting on Good Friday (oddly, that's a bank holiday that we have and the French miss out on!) - it promises to be a long day, but I'm looking forward to taking back possession of the house...

And cleaning up!

Friday the 13th...

Was it unlucky?

Well, to celebrate one week of having been in pain from the sinus infection/TMJ problem/teethache [it was all the teeth, bar one on the right hand side, so I'm not going to settle for just "toothache"!] I woke up with a raging sore throat, and the feeling that I might get a migraine (nausea, photophobia, feeling of everything being too loud/bright)...

But that was the worst that happened, so no, I don't count it as an unlucky day.

And I woke up on Saturday feeling even worse (succumbed to an attack of the "green lurgy", with laryngitis to top it off)!

So that's definite proof to me that Friday the 13th was actually slightly less unlucky than a normal day. ;-)

We didn't even hit any wildlife on the way home.

Arriving at the house early we managed to have a good look around.

The most obvious thing to see was M. Waeber in the kitchen laying the base for the last two rows of floor tiles.

It looks gorgeous! [IMHO ;-)]

Looking from the entrance hall, the tiles don't really seem to form a pattern, but looking in at the "other" front door, you can see the repeat.

It does draw the eye "into" the room (and rest of the house), rather than leading into a blind corner, so reversing the direction was definitely the right call.

M. Waeber had clearly been busy: the loo and bedroom were tiled.

I think it's Schwartz holding up the process [again] that prevented him from doing the bathroom and laundry/boiler room: the shower tray needs to be fitted before he can do the bathroom, and there's still masses of piping in the laundry that needs to be tidied.

I was a bit worried that by ordering the sink as late as we did, we'd be holding up progress... Hah! Fat chance. At least we picked it up this visit (another 70 mile round trip to Troyes; we'll both be glad when we can give the d-i-y superstores & builders' merchants a miss!), so any delays in fitting it won't be down to us!

M. Waeber had also tiled the space under the stairs, so here's the promised photo of David standing in the stairwell (well, several, as I found it amusing!).

He said it was actually quite nice in there, so that's put the kibosh on that variant of the "naughty step"...


Whilst we were there, M. Luparello arrived - he is a builder M. Boyer has lined up to complete the work...

HOPEFULLY!

We will probably have the base done for a terrace to the rear of the house at this stage; it's more expense (when we don't need it!), but I'm keen to avoid having diggers come back in a year or two's time and have to roll over the drains. I have this idea that any work over piping in the ground is a bad thing.

M. Luparello seemed OK...

But what do we know about builders?!!

I'm still letting M. Boyer worry about that, and not getting too involved...

Where I am getting involved is changing things that don't look right, because of decisions taken in our absence!

Sadly, I want the door in the bedroom replaced where it was (and where we wanted it), rather than in the entrance hall.

One of the main reasons for keeping the woodwork unchanged was to keep what remaining bits of character the house had originally.

So, the bedroom had the original paintwork (we think) on the cupboard, which matched the inside of the door. The outside (hall side) of the bedroom door was a particularly nasty shade of brown, but this matches the other original door in the entrance hall.

Because the housing to the small cellar doorway had become much bigger, there wasn't room to fit the bedroom door in the bedroom, so M. Boyer thought it would be OK to fit in on the other side of the opening, in the entrance hall.

It's not OK!

It means when the door is closed, the brown side is in the bedroom.

And obviously the greeny-grey side is in the entrance hall. Coupled with the newly-fitted door to the kitchen (faded green + "patching"), that means every door in the entrance hall is a different colour: 2 different shades of green, brown, and greeny-grey.

At least by replacing the bedroom door in the "right" location, we will bring the colour clash down to 2 shades of green plus brown.

I didn't want to paint the old front doors, but I really don't like repairs; I am going to see if I can "live" with the alterations, but if they still irritate me I will have to paint the doors to match the new woodwork; something I desperately didn't want to do.

I honestly believed that by telling everyone involved: "Do not TOUCH the woodwork [apart from fixing up the cupboard over the bread oven]!" I would manage to keep the doors looking exactly how they were.

Maybe from a "technical" point of view they are better now, but it's one more instance of diminishing the original character, and they don't work any better than they did (they all worked perfectly, anyway), so what was the point?

[I wasn't "allowed" to keep the old stairs (yes, the new ones look much better and are wider, so that was a good decision); I wasn't allowed to retain the step up to the back hall (I like small changes in level: makes a place more interesting); most of my original stone slabs have 'vanished'; you may have read an earlier post about the destruction of my beloved floor upstairs (yes, again, the new one is lovely, but that's not the point). If we can ever afford any more work, I'm going to live on site and get in everyone's way on a daily basis!]

I know it seems a small and petty point, but I'm now pretty tired, and deeply fed up of having workmen alter things in my home that were perfectly alright.

AND charging us for the privilege!!

Phew, rant over!

Another decision that M. Boyer made (and that's going to be reversed) is to place the heated towel rails in the loo and bathroom at eye-height.

We're not the kind of people that want radiators as a "feature" [I know we chose quite a fancy finish for the ones at the front of the house, but that was so they blended in better, not "stuck out".], and by having them mounted so high on the walls it prevents me from being able to put a cupboard above them (if we were to find a nice one somewhere).

There is the argument for having them in that position that we can adjust the controls easily (i.e. without bending down), but thankfully David and I are both flexible enough that we can bend down still (!), and I'm not sure that is a valid reason - what about all the other radiators in the house (where the controls as just above the floor)?

Anyway, they are going to be altered, and the wall tiling will hide all the changes (ironically, you can see where the bathroom one had been changed from the original, lower position).

I'm not overjoyed that the place hasn't been fully plastered; I specified [repeatedly!] that I wanted it plastering as I wanted to paint. I feel a bit cross that only the joints have been done - we now have to pay more money to get what I asked for in the first place! I understand that that is how things happen in France [you might want to carpet your ceiling, and then it doesn't need to be "properly" plastered!], but I emphasised that I wanted it fully plastering, so feel aggrieved that this wasn't quoted for [and done].

Hmmm!

Part of the floor upstairs has been fixed (around the landing to the stairs), but we are still waiting for one very small section of floorboard!

Just to balance out my crankiness [please forgive me for that, I think my ill-ness is making me much worse than usual!], we are really pleased with how the vast majority of the work has been done; it really is bringing out the best in the house, and realising the dream!

A big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped achieve this!