Get packing!!

It's hard to believe I only posted the last entry on Wednesday as we seem to have had loads more activity on the house.

We came home from work on Thursday to find a small round bald man skulking outside the house, and we soon realised this was Mr Builder. We invited him in and tried over-hard to be nice in a sort of please-don't-screw-us-over way. He soon found out we have a damp problem in the Burrow that extends all the way along one wall and under the window bay. He also spotted that this had been treated once before, which explained the uneven line of plaster in the living room. Ah well, extra cost assured.

Mr Architect turned up and talked building talk with him for a while before we sat down to discuss business. He opened up with a general question of Mr Builder to see if there was any way of doing the job differently to save money. There wasn't. We then did the line-by-line analysis (again) to see what could be saved. We shaved more money off the contingency sum, allowed for our purchase of the kitchen (cheaper than the sum set aside in the tender) and found a few other areas of savings. The main saving came from realising we'd been quoted for casement windows with weights rather than springs - a good £1,000 off the price.

Once the price was settled we worked out the construction start date (probably week commencing 15 May) and contract duration (20 weeks - it wasn't a rough estimate, darn!) before waving them off. Oh, and Rachel managed to charm her way into getting the front wall rebuilt for nowt.

Today we've cracked on with packing and have cleared the shelves in the living room and back bedroom, and the chest of drawers in the back bedroom. Most of this has gone up to Horton-cum-Cuddle-Me. It feels like we'll have the place cleared before we have our week off.

Confirmation received that the lovely Adam is going to help us move the heavy stuff when we hire the van. Thank God - my back is killing me already