Catching up

With the amount of radio silence you've all been experiencing with this blog you'd be forgiven for thinking we'd taken a long holiday! Well we haven't, we've been trying to get the house, which is long overdue for completion, finished. Most nights after work we have been going to our house, working till late then catching the bus back to Bushey. Then of course working weekends to paint, then paint again after the builders have left yet more marks on the walls. Poor Mani has painted the hallway about 4 times already and it still needs fixing!

Anyway so what has been happening & why has taken so long I hear you ask? These are very good questions and questions we have been asking ourselves again and again over the past 3 months.

Let me explain.

You may remember that we sacked our old builder (see previous posts) and then extended the services of our plumber & electrician (Chris) to project manage the build of the extension. Chris was working with a builder that he trusted and liked his finishing and they came back with a quote and a time frame of 4 weeks to complete the build. Wow, we thought, 4 weeks and this could all be over and we could enjoy the rest of Summer in our new home! AND we'd be able to have Mum stay when she came in early September, as that was 6 weeks from the build start. We were told we'd definitely be able to have Mum stay. Too good to be true? Well.... yes.

Remember the problem we had with both pipes, well the water board took their sweet time coming over to sort that out. 4 weeks to be precise, so the build over agreement couldn't be sorted until then and that delayed the project. We also had issues with the architect who had put two descriptions of a flat roof, both of which were incorrect in their measurements and design so had to be re-done after the building inspector agreed they were wrong.

Now whilst we appreciate there are hold ups with building projects, we never anticipated that a 4 week job would turn into 4 times that. We did add some extras as we asked them to fit the kitchen and fit the flooring which we were told would take a week for the kitchen and 2 days for the flooring. We had gone to Spain to look at Wedding venues and they swore/promised it would be fitted by the time we got back. They even insisted we order the cooker as that would need to be fitted. So we spent quite a bit of time searching online for the right cooker to ensure it fit all that we were after and was able to be delivered next day.

Needless to say, when we got back from Spain, it wasn't finished. And the cooker sat in it's box for another 4 weeks as due to all the dust they were making with everything else they still needed to do, I didn't want the cooker ruined before it was able to be used!

We are now at 18 weeks from the point that Chris and his team took over. According to the specifications of the build, making allowances for the build over for the pipes and installation of the kitchen & flooring the whole project should have taken 6-7 weeks. We are pretty disappointed and now haven't seen the builders for weeks. They only contact us when they want money and they'll do some bits and pieces. We are pretty much at the end of our tether and the only thing we have over them is outstanding monies.

We have given them one last date to finish everything - whatever they don't finish we will deduct from the final bill and we'll have to get someone else to finish.

I know you want to see pictures, but I've lost the memory stick with them on! As soon as I find it I will post them....

xx

The Good

Not everything is Bad & Ugly, doom & gloom so on a separate post we thought we would share with you some of the Good progress pictures from the last month that have been positive. This does go back a wee while and I do apologise for not sharing these earlier!





Under the stairs and the old kitchen

Old kitchen without the chimney breast

New wall between the new bathroom and the utility room





Stairwell plastered

Tiler in the bathroom, the old builder bought the wrong colour adhesive, it should have been white!



The designer radiator bought for cheaper than those crappy looking white ones, thanks eBay!

Utility Room

The old bathroom, coming down!

Stress relief?

Mani enjoying the destruction

Start of the foundations, before the two pipes were hit and broken.

Our Plumber/Sparky with Pimpo and Kevin in the extension

New walls





Kez, the new mascot (Kevin's dog).

More to come soon!

The Bad & the Ugly.

So where were we? Ah yes, getting screwed over by our old builder how could we forget! In fact it has been a source of much stress and sleepless nights but then who wouldn't worry after what happened on Sunday night. So in reverse order starting from the Ugly, here goes...

As you know, we sacked our original builder over 2 weeks ago and sometimes being nice doesn't work out for you. Mani allowed the builder to keep the keys to our house so he could come back and pick up the rest of his belongings. I wasn't so comfortable with that and wanted the keys back and he would then need to arrange a time to meet us there. So after asking for the keys back numerous times and in the meantime receiving nasty, abusive phone calls for not making the final payment to him (we are withholding monies due to damage to property and missing property - pics below!) it all came to a head on Monday 30th July. Our new building team arrived on Monday morning to a pile of their tools on the lounge room floor. They also noticed a bad smell so investigated where it was coming from. They went upstairs to the back master bedroom and found in a bucket in the middle of the room in a plastic bag was a sh*t. Yep, that's right. It was also nicely coated in some p*ss to top it off. So someone, and we assume it to either be the builder or one of his associates, got into our house using they keys he won't give back to us and left us a nice little present. We assumed it was a threat and we treated it that way. Of course we changed the locks and we also reported the incident to the police. Mani's mate is a cop and he advised us that the builder refusing to give the keys back after his job was finished is effectively stealing. Not to mention entering the house without permission and stealing our stuff and the new builders equipment. Unfortunately, the new builder had some of their belongings stolen during that period so they have also gone to the police to report the theft. It is really not how we imagined this project going and I guess no one could have seen that coming a month ago but we are really disappointed it has taken this turn.

And now the Bad - we thought we'd share some of the pictures that caused us to question the ability and care of the old builder. The pictures speak for themselves but I will explain them all!

Normally you would cover the newly installed items so they don't get scratched, there are numerous scratches on the bath so it is no longer 'new'. Also the mosaic tiles around the bath will have to be redone as around the bend of the bath, they are badly cut and look terrible.

The state of the new basin after not being protected.

Quality workmanship on the tiling... not.

An example of the scratches on the new tiles (the whole floor was covered in them) it was suggested by the builder to cover them up with permanent black marker. All of the tiles had to be taken up and with underfloor heating, there was a risk we would have to replace the heating system if it was cut in any place.

The new mosaic tiles that were ruined with adhesive after having to remove the new basin to replace the floor tiles.

The brand new toilet!

Covered in adhesive and grout...

No care was taken to protect the toilet.

The broken soil pipe, that was covered by the builder and he hoped that no one would notice.

Completely cracked and exposed by the new builder when they checked the foundations.

Paint all over the new door handles...

The door (although hard to get a good picture) is now bent in the middle

Quality of workmanship from our old builder, filling in the kitchen window.

Compared with the quality of workmanship from the new builder on next door's kitchen window.

Our couches, which we can't store anywhere else, have been exposed to so much dust as they were not  covered the whole time - even after we asked for them to be covered and protected with dust sheets.

So there you have it, some of the lovely examples that we have of the quality of the workmanship we were left with. In the interests of moving forward from this bad period, I will leave the Good to a new blog!

O Brother, where art thou?

I hope that most of you would say that Manuel and I are nice people. We've done our fair share of good deeds (and ok a few naughty things but only when younger...) but we never thought we deserved to be lied to, cheated, deceived or ripped off but it seems anything is possible these days.

You would think that in the last two months since Pimpo broke his leg, that things would have progressed quite a bit. You could also assume, and rightly so, that we would be finished the whole project. The planning permission for the extension came through mid June, earlier than expected. Our builder was obviously keen to get started on it and so were we, but we were conscious of making sure the inside wasn't forgotten about and most of it was finished before moving on to the extension.

When we realised that the costs for materials seemed to be excessive, and that the progress inside the house was slowing down we took action. We informed the builder that he wouldn't be responsible for decorating. Things that Manuel and I could do ourselves we asked him not to do, but when the rain was constant (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18722054) our builder took it upon himself to paint and do general handyman jobs that weren't really required, nor were they asked for.

As stress relief, we got the sledge hammer and knocked down the bathroom at the rear of the house to make way for the extension. Although it was fun and one of the parts I'd been looking forward to, the enjoyment was short lived as the weeks of stress went on.

The bathroom, although works on it were started 3-4 weeks ago, is still not finished. We started to go to the house on a daily basis to check on progress and what we found was this; the newly laid black floor tiles were so scratched, they needed to be replaced which could have had serious consequences on the underfloor heating; the mosaic tiles in the new shelf had to be redone as they weren't on the right angle for water run-off; the builder hadn't made an allowance for the lighted mirror, even though it had been there since June, and so many tiles needed to be broken to wire it up; the builder had continued to paint, even though we had asked him not to; we've found cracks in the newly plastered walls; newly built walls were not straight, sub contractors hours were put on the bill without authorisation or validation; a water mains pipe was hit (in two places) causing 12 houses on our street to lose water supply on Friday night... and that was the straw that broke the camel's back.


So, I hear you ask, what did you do about it? Well, after adding up all the sleepless nights and stress we decided to fire our builder. Although the builder was a nice guy, we just couldn't take any more chances with the new extension. The building inspector has strict requirements on new extensions and we couldn't afford any more mistakes.

So onwards and upwards, our new builder promises to complete the works within 4 weeks which is much better than the 4 - 8 week estimate we got from our last builder.

The sun is shining (finally) and our stress is getting less. Mum - we hope to be in before you arrive so we will make it as cosy as possible for your arrival.

Photo's to follow, thanks to all those who have been supportive and given us advice!

Bad Karma?

Well the last few weeks have been eventful and therefore work on the house has slowed somewhat. Mani's Dad Pimpo, has been helping out at the house and one night went over to the house after work. Unfortunately, he slipped on our steep stairs and broke his right leg. It was a clean break through both the tibia & fibula which meant a trip to the hospital, an operation to put steel rods in his leg and plaster. Amazingly, the plaster came off after two weeks but Pimpo is now house-bound for at least another 5-6 weeks. Donations of red wine (Rioja preferrably but he's really not fussy) are welcome!

Not only this, Vitor our builder developed a lung infection and also had to go to hospital and was off for over a week. So works on the house slowed down quite a bit and with Mani and I both really busy and stressed at work, weekends were hard to focus on anything but recovery for everyone!

There also seems to be a leak coming from what we think is the guttering at the back of the property. This explains the roof in the bathroom that is caving in but also the rising damp in the master bedroom at the back. So we will need to fix the guttering and hopefully the weather will warm up so that allows the walls to dry so we can paint!

The deadline for hearing about planning permission is the 22nd June, so by then we will know if our application for the extension has gone through and we can start on the major works. God knows I can't wait to get the sledge hammer out and knock down the bathroom as a bit of stress relief!

In the meantime here are some pics of where we are at with inside...


The old kitchen, now the bathroom and utility room




Ditto



Hallway

The damp wall in the master bedroom

Newly plastered stairwell & a new wall on the right

Oops, how did this get in here? It's only my fav picture right now... :o)

More pictures from 'getting stuck in'

As promised, here are some more pictures associated with the previous post!

The kitchen minus the units & sink - vast improvement!

Under the stairs will make some decent room for the washing machine, hoover (vacuum), laundry pile, jackets, shoes etc

The second chimney before it came down

Smoother finish on wall and opened the area up a little, yet to skim the plaster board

What the chimney in the front room now looks like - unfortunately the brackets couldn't be hidden any more than this.

Front Bedroom, newly plastered walls

New doorway in the front bedroom - much neater!

Getting stuck in...

Whilst we are waiting for the planning application to be approved we have started doing as much as we can inside the house so that once the permission comes through, we can get cracking straight away on the extension.

So the crumbling plastered walls that were being held up by the 4 layers of wallpaper and paint have come down. As has the two downstairs chimneys to allow extra space in the front lounge and the bathroom. Upstairs, the front room has been completely replastered and is almost ready for painting, coving and skirting boards which should happen next week.

A pictures tells a thousand words right? So here you go...



Taking down the chimney in the front room



 

Mani the builder's labourer

aaargh! the ceiling!



who on earth is this man?



Just a little bit of rubbish...





New door frame in top bedroom



aaahhh, new ceiling...



Stripping back the walls



and slapping them back on again...



 There are plenty more pictures to come, but enjoy these ones for now...