4 Years On

Today marks the 4th anniversary of my first entry in this blog. If you really want to start again, you will find it here. A lot has happened since March 21st 2004, most of it rather slowly ! In our locale we have seen other extensions conceived, planned, built and occupied - in one case even a whole house; so it seems obvious that our choice of strategy has been somewhat flawed.

Never mind - progress continues to be made. The plastering was finished a week ago and is now dry and ready for painting. We also purchased the fire surround pictured in my last entry. It is temporarily pushed into place for the photo-shoot :

Another spending spree at the local builders merchants has furnished me with a stack of architrave, skirting board, loft insulation, slab insulation and yet more plasterboard. The slab insulation and plasterboard is for the soffits on the landing. Actually the spending spree hasn't happened yet. I have an account at the builders merchant, so I just order stuff and it turns up. I get a delivery note but strangely even then I don't know how much I have spent. I have to wait for the invoice for that crucial information.

When I first started on my part of this build I shopped around for the materials, but it takes a long time to find the best deals. In the end I have settled on my local merchant and just order everything from there. Most stuff I have delivered, but their timber isn't the best so I tend to go down and choose it myself.

We are looking at the possibility of having some fire surrounds made from local stone for the two reception rooms. Both rooms are quite large, hence demand an imposing chimney piece. Jan found some pictures on the web and we went through them to find the sort of style that we like.

For the more formal room on the ground floor we favours something rather classical with a slightly arched top, such as this :

In the less formal basement room, something a little more muscular :

We contacted two sets of stone masons, both of which promised to call us and arrange a site visit. We had given up on both sets, but in fact one came back to us last week, very apologetic about the delay. He has since visited us, listened to our ideas, and produced some drawings and a quotation. More stuff to think about !

Here's to 4 more years of blogging ! I sincerely hope not..............