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!

 

Things are shaping up inside.......

This week things have really started to move inside the house as our great team of plasterers get to work. 

First view of the newly plastered master bedroom

Master en suite - second fix electrics begin

This has meant that we have had to really accelerate our decision making so that we don't hold anyone up.  So, we have been looking at, and finalising, bathroom fittings, flooring, wood burning stove, tiles and electric and light fittings.

In the kitchen, back and front hallways and the bathrooms we are going back to a 60s feel and using Marmoleum tiles.  These tiles fit with our attempt to re-use, recycle and reduce because they are made with 97% natural raw materials, 72% of which are rapidly renewable and a 43% recycled content. They should be warm underfoot and practical for the dog and in high traffic areas.

Image taken from the Internet showing marmoleum in use

  There is a fabulous range of colours available and we aim to have a checked pattern using chartreuse and mercury (a light grey/white) seen in the photo below.

We have also been looking at fabrics for the window seat in the kitchen and for the two Ebay armchairs which I am going to try and recover myself.  These Sanderson fabrics have the right look - the red and green for the kitchen window seat and the blue/green for the armchairs. But I also love the grey one with the circles on... decisions, decisions!

I am stalking some G Plan bedside tables on Ebay too - such a great source of vintage finds.  According to my spreadsheet, we now have all the light fittings ordered, the tiles for both bathrooms ordered, the radiators ordered and all the bathroom fittings ordered!  Spreadsheets are essential!!

Today we had a site meeting with Aga to plan next week's installation so it is full steam ahead in the kitchen now so that they can fit it on Wednesday.  We also had site meeting with some cladding specialists as we have some issues about the main cladding we plan for the house.  More about this, and pictures of the great work that is going on fitting the larch cladding, in my next post.

Our glorious chimneys and the difficult choice of a woodburning stove......

I couldn't resist a very quick post just to show a picture or two of our glorious chimneys!  The original stacks have been overclad in the aluminium/zinc and the red pots are going to be replaced by blue/black ones.  They look superb against the new slate roof.

We have also been looking into wood burning stove options and discover that this is far more complicated than we thought.  We hoped to use the existing original fireplace with a stove insert ..... 

...... however after a visit to the fabulous Robeys showroom in Belper we realised that a lot of building work has to take place to acheive this. That being so, we have the opportunity to get rid of the old hearth which we don't like and rethink how the whole chimney breast and stove will look.  We also now think that we won't need as large a stove (esp as we are not now trying to fit one into an existing hole)  We were looking at Scan and the Rais 700 but, seeing one lit at the Belper showroom, we could feel how much heat it generated!!  The Rais Q-Tee is the latest possibility with an lower output of 4.7kw. This stove, together with all the insulation, solar gain, the aga in the kitchen and Heat Recovery and Mechanical Ventilation system, should ensure we are cosy and warm without much need to use the back up system of the original oil boiler.  Well that is the theory!

A huge amount of work has been going on inside the house this week as the plasterers are onsite.  I will post again in a few days with an update on this.

Manic Monday leads to a week of great progress.....

We started the week with what we now call 'Manic Monday' when we had so many contractors on site we had to park vans all along the front of the property on the main road.  This is not ideal but has had to happen in the short term - shortly after Christmas we did drop cards into all our neighbours apologising in advance for any noise and disturbance that we might cause.  Hopefully everyone is bearing with us on this!


However 'Manic Monday' has led to a week of great discomfort for us but great progress for the project.  By Wednesday night we had all the new windows and doors in (albeit not with airtight seals).  These windows are fabulous - triple glazed, wood on the inside and dark grey aluminium on the outside  - the huge sliding door in the lounge  and the kitchen window are my favourites.

New lounge sliding doors

New kitchen window which has been lowered and will have window seat under

new front door and glass screen (the white is just protective plastic film over the dark grey)

These beautiful windows have been made in Poland by Sokolka and we have only had 2 slight issues with the fit.  Thankfully our great installers and building team were able to solve these without any delays. The house on Thursday morning was noticeably warmer and light and bright with the new big windows flooding the house with light and keeping out the cold.

By Tuesday night the old concrete roof tiles were off and the new felt and battens in place to take the new roof slates. 

By Wednesday night new tiles were being laid on the back roof section and the extraction vent for the MVHR system was fitted. 

The chimneys are waiting for their metal cladding

Thursday came and we really began to see the butterfly emerge from all the chaos as the larch cladding started and, by the end of the week, the metal cladding on the extension was finished and the plastic protective coating stripped back to reveal the finish. 

 Metal as a building material is controversial I know but we love it!

 

 Front elevation of the extension (where the old carport used to be.  There is a superb double height window here but the scaffolding makes it difficult to see it just yet.





 Whilst all this was going on outside we were busy making what felt like hundreds of decisions inside!

 

We have organised a super SMEG cooker hood for the kitchen

 

Blue and copper lampshade for the TV room from Made.com

We are using copper accents quite a bit throughout the house

The plumber is coming on site on Monday and so we have had to get radiators and bathroom fittings organised as well.  It will be brilliant to see the interior being reconstructed after all these weeks on living in 3 rooms. 

Rather liking this tile for the bathroom as we have ruled out Mermaid panels because of cost

The radiators have been a huge problem to us - not in choosing the style - we are having Zehnder Charleston - pic below.  The problem has been deciding the size and quantity of radiators - I think I spoke about this in an earlier post.  Everyone is very nervous about this, especially our plumber, but we think we have got the heat loss calculations right and the radiators will be much smaller than you would expect for rooms of this size.  However, when you add in the solar gain from the glass, the Aga in the kitchen and the wood burning stove in the lounge, we should be cosy - Fingers crossed!!

 

 

  

Big changes as more contractors arrive onsite.....

 

The fabulous garden room windows are in!

There is no question about it the next couple of weeks are going to be the most difficult for us but also the most exciting.  Today we were down to living solely in the dining room and bedroom as the windows are being installed beginning with the lounge/garden room (which was our calm,warm sanctuary)  More contractors are arriving on site to undertake some of these major jobs and the drive is getting very congested with deliveries of materials and with vehicles. 

I have to admit that living conditions are a challenge at the moment.  I am writing this with the dog tied to my leg so that he doesn't escape as builders come and go through the many holes that we now have in the house. it is pretty cold (I am wearing a fleece!) and we are surrounded by heaps of belongings in boxes so we can never find anything that we need!  But it will be worth it and we can hardly wait.........

While we were away yesterday the fabulous windows were delivered from Olsen Doors and Windows (based in Newark) they are being fitted by Elite Installations specialists in this type of work.  We have been worried about the windows because, whenever you see a programme on TV about a property build, the windows are always the big issue.  They either don't arrive on time - or they don't fit.  Well ours have arrived - in fact slightly ahead of the timetable and the ones that have been installed so far seem to be the right size - Phew!!   What a difference they will make - 

Huge sliding door set for the lounge

More windows awaiting installation

These windows are aluminium (outside face) and wood (inside face) with triple glazed high performance glass.  They will have a U value of 0.95 and should make a real difference to the thermal efficiency of the building. Those in the garden room have a special coating to prevent overheating in that room and the flat roof will have a shade overhang.  

The new large sliding doors in the lounge

Meanwhile the winds have abated and the metal work has started again on the extension.  The roof is done and the walls are next - oh! and the chimneys are being re-clad in the aluminium/zinc as well so the builders have framed them up ready for this to happen. The builders are also busy putting up all the battens for the larch cladding.

Next week the roofers come to remove the old concrete tile roof and relay it with a slate look tile.  We are using Marley Garsdale Fibre Cement tiles.  This also gives us the opportunity to get the roof really well insulated.  This Marley product has been chosen to give a contemporary look to the building but also because it is a 100% recycled material - remember our mantra reduce, re-use, recycle!

In keeping with this mantra the mechanical ventilation and heat recovery equipment is being installed in the roof space and the various ducts that will extract and bring in the fresh air are beginning to snake through joists and down inside wardrobes and cupboards. 
This system will warm the fresh air coming into the house with the heat from the stale air that is being removed and is necessary because the house is going to be very airtight.  In this way we try to hang onto as much heat as possible so minimising the input from the oil heating. 

The good news this evening is that we are back in the lounge and the new windows at this end of the house are in - after cleaning up the dust storm all is warm (ish) again!