Cladding and kitchens...........

The larch cladding on the garden room extension

...........This week we have been deeply engrossed in the subject of rain-screen cladding. The existing house has a 1968 cavity wall construction that has been filled at some point with foam but the quality of the fill is unknown. Because of this we are wrapping the existing house in another layer of insulation and we have to cover this with what is essentially a decorative, rain screening, outer skin.  On some parts if the house we are using larch strips some vertical some horizontal to echo the original design of the house. (see pics below) The larch is untreated so will silver down gradually.

the brick wall centre of the picture will be the one that becomes a dark purple feature wall - see artists impression below. 

 

Larch cladding along the garage wall

 These two pictures show how the larch cladding has been used in place of the white PVC cladding on a section of the house.  The window (kitchen)has also been lowered as the table will be here and the views are lovely.






 However, the majority of the wall on the main part of the house needs a different treatment and it had always been our intention to use Marley Eternit panels.  This type of product is more widely used on commercial buildings and, because of the relatively small scale of our project, the fitting costs have come in as prohibitive.  On Wednesday this week we met with the representatives of a different company and have decided to go with a new product.  The colours and visual effect will be virtually identical but this product can be adhesive bonded to the battens and so cost of application is much reduced.  The product is Rockpanel board made by the company who make Rockwool insulation – a product you may well have come across.  We are also hoping to use it to re-clad the existing up and over garage door in the dark purple to tie in with the small dark purple feature section of wall at the front. The bulk of the panel will be light grey.

The insulation that is being used in every conceivable part of the house (between floors, in walls, behind plasterboard, in the roof…everywhere) varies in type and thickness.  Some is soft fibrous insulation that can be stuffed into holes and crevasses and some is board of various thickness from Kingspan or from other suppliers.  The house is noticeably warmer especially at night when we are all sealed up. The thickest insulation board on site is this one! Kingspan Xtratherm  - cosy!!

The other major things to report this week are that the new first floor section of the house is well on the way to being finished.  The walls and ceilings are plastered, the electrician has been fitting switches and sockets, the floors are down.  The rooms are being cleaned up and the next stage is the bathroom fit out. 

The landing is now opened up to the new extension - master bedroom door on right

Master Bedroom

 The kitchen is also coming on well with a lot of work being done to the floor this week to get a good level finish.  The Aga cooker comes on Wednesday next week and the kitchen units are being fitted from Monday. 

We are fitting a 3 oven AgaTotal Control – a far cry from our old oil (and then adapted to electric)  Aga that we had used for 25 years at our previous home.  These new generation of Aga cookers can be programmed to sleep at night and be on and ready when you get up in the morning and individual ovens and hot plates can be operated separately from each other.  In this way it should be more economical to run than older models. 

Kitchen floor ready for fitting out next week

Obviously what the builders want is for us to be able to move into that section of the house so that they can demolish the old bathroom upstairs and the wall between the garden room and the lounge downstairs (our sanctuary soon to be invaded!!)
As we have been without a proper kitchen for a little over 5 weeks now, and below is our temporary arrangement just to remind you, we really really hope that my next blog post will show the beautiful kitchen taking shape - we can't wait!