So, apparently I'm here in Bulgaria to renovate this funny old house? But judging by my last few posts, it might seem that my life has turned into a rakia fulled circus and the house has been left, once again, to fall into rack and ruin? Au contraire, take a look at my new dograma:
Yes, it might have taken 4 months, several arguments with the carpenter, a few threats about non payment and a lot of patience, but finally we have some freekin windows; and bloody good windows at that, slavu bogu. Pete is currently staining them up ready for the double glazed units to be fitted next week. A few more photos have been uploaded to flickr for those of you who have a slow day at the office (see links to the right).
With this boost spurring us on to 'get the damn thing finished' I thought it was about time for a boring post about the house, the whole house and nothing but the house (yawn).
As you can see, a huge mound of soil seems to have grown out of the ground in front of the house. That's because Sam and I have spent a considerable part of the last month digging out all the floors downstairs and removing all of the mud from the floor upstairs (yes the upstairs floor was covered in 200-300mm clay soil). This was not easy. This took a long time. Sam is still whinging about her fingers. After that, we scurubbed the floors/ceilings clean (ish) and shifted around 15 tonnes of gravel back into the ground floor to provide drainage and a sub base for our floating floors (more on which later). This photograph gives you some idea of the amount of much shifted - the pile of gravel on the left is about 10 tonnes the soil is the huge pile to the right:
We have also installed all of the waste pipes for the bathroom and kitchen linking them up to the septic tank in the garden. A trench has been dug for the water supply which is now located inside the house which would be helpful if we had some bloody water in the village. It has now been off for 4 weeks. Not very helpful.
We have also repaired quite a few sections of the exterior walls will clay mortar (thats mud to you and I) which is now ready for lime rendering, even if we are not and built a new step down into the main door to help us get some decent ceiling heights downstairs.
Needless to say, our programme has gone out the window. Days of pouring over my fabulously coloured excel spreadsheet has shown us that I definitely shouldn't go into project management - unless I have a much larger, highly skilled workforce, 12 specialist consultants and a least one jcb all of which I can control - not much to ask for really. We knew we were being a bit optimistic in wanting to finish by december 08, but it has become clear that with our extensive and highly experienced workforce of 2, we'll do well to have the interior, let alone the exterior ready for winter. This, i suppose is the challenge one must must face when taking on the roles of project manager, quantity surveyor, architect/designer and builder, in a foreign country where you cant speak the language and are unable to rely on suppliers and contractors who frankly could do without the hassle of actually having to do some work... the lazy bastards.
Still, we have re-prioritized a few things to increase speed and to save a bit of cash and reckon we have a reasonable chance of getting the place semi habitable by the end of the year. A bit of value engineering never hurt anyone after all did it? Changes to the plan include:
- less sophisticated heating system (aka. no radiators, just a wood burner in one room)
- fewer tiled floors internally (now just the bathroom and bits of the kitchen)
- 'floating floors' in the 2 bedrooms and hall way downstairs
- open doorways within circulation spaces.
Which all means that the building will be great in the summer and a bit chilly in the winter, which bearing in mind we haven't decided how to use the thing in the future, is probably a sensible decision. We are though, planning to install dual serpentine water heaters (dual powered by the wood burner and the electric which could be converted easily to solar later), a powerful wood burner with enough capacity to run 6 or 7 radiators (to be retrofitted if required), and we can always add a few doors at our leisure in the future.
Other proposals which didn't make the final shortlist included:
- open plan living spaces (aka knock down all internal walls to save plastering them)
- removal of first floor to reduce number of rooms by half
- 'rationalization' and removal of building foundations...
- ... and erection of a dome tent on the site of the former building.
To prove how brilliantly we are doing, here's a quick snap of our new bathroom and hallway which you can see is almost compete:
Off to buy a bath & sink on Monday and the free bog I got from a mate after rebuilding his dry stone garden wall should be in within the next 2 days - honest! Why do I sense doubters?
The good news is that our summer camp starts in just over a week which will give us a much needed injection of man power I'm sure. At last count, we have.... errm, oh yeah, one person coming over. Praise the lord for Darren 'yeah i'm bringin my cut off denim shorts and a sketch book' Clayson. We'll show em clays. S'gonna be immense.
As for the rest of you, excuses about holiday shortages, prior 'engagements', unmissable trade shows at the NEC (yes Collins thats you), redundancies, burglaries, lack of DIY skill, laziness, disinterest and dogs eating plane tickets don't wash. You will all be blackballed from my next venture: a nudist camp for recovering models with combined cheese dairy - unlucky!
Back in the UK for a flying wedding in cornwall next week - praying for some sun. If any of you change your mind (not about the wedding, about the work camp) then you know where to find me.
Off to the pool now for some sun, beer and a dip. Enjoy the floods - except you clays.
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