A week's progress

A week's progress
Originally uploaded by Burrow Life.

In only a week and a weekend we've moved from having the old extension gone to having the foundations finished and the new walls starting to go up

Work in Progress

We've both been amazed by how quickly we have moved from plans on paper to blokes with hammers knocking the house to pieces. Here are a few pictures to illustrate how things have changed to date:

The old extension has now gone completely. What amazes me is that they managed to get this digger through the house (although we have seen where an inside wall has been "adjusted" to achieve this)

The front room looking the worse for wear. Always wanted a concrete mixer in place of our armchair...

We've still managed to hang on to the gas fire, although the builder says he nearly ripped it out!

The front garden, not looking that much different, or perhaps a slight improvement! Out of vision is the front wall, now partially demolished.

Farewell to the boiler

We're off! It's started! Tonight we visited the house to sign contracts and generally chat over how everything was going to run to find a skip outside the house and two lads busily throwing bits of the Burrow into it.

Pride of place in the skip was a mangled wreck of metal that, pieced together, bore a startling resemblance to our old boiler. Inside the house lay a pile of pipes and valves that once resided under our bath. The floor the lay on was devoid of laminate flooring, with the terrazzo laid bare. The old extension was a shell of its former self, windows being removed as we walked in.

As a window in the kitchen was removed a portion of the wall fell down, revealing that it never had a lintel. Truly it was a really crappy extension, and its demise couldn't come too soon.

Latest estimates show the work completing on 19 September. Boiler gone, contracts signed, here we go!

Just about settled

It's taken us a few days but it finally feels like we've settled in to Horton-cum-Cuddle-Me. The Burrow is now gutted and littered with wallpaper and newspaper, not to mention the odd spillage from the washing machine being un-plumbed.

It's funny how messy it is and how little we care - seems a bit pointless trying to keep it tidy when it will all be ripped to pieces within the next week or so.

We're still waiting on the mortgage completion, which apparently hinges on Rachel's old mortgage company sending a fax to her new mortgage company. Mr Builder is apparently chomping at the bit to send some lads in to rip things to pieces, so contractual niceties don't seem high up his agenda.

Must nip round with the camera to capture how truly squalid the places looks this weekend

We've moved

It got to the point where continuing to live at Golden Road was hampering our efforts to pack, so we took the plunge yesterday and went for it.

Rachel's big concern was how Treacle would react. Sure enough, as we drove out with her in the car she did her best to escape and to sound lke a siren. Once we got here she looked around cautiously then made for the cupboard. However, much to our surprise she didn't stay there for too long. By the end of the evening she had spent some time on our laps, and topped off the night by sleeping with us in bed. Well, she slept anyway.

Everything is very different here, as you'd expect. What has got to me is how 'exposed' you are in the house as there are windows everywhere and nearly all of them point at another house. Let's just say you don't want to walk out of the bathroom without wearing something!

Oh, and we managed to flood the utility room.