Fun, fun, fun

It's been a crazy week. Wednesday morning, Jess and I raced up to the house to beat the skip. (That's a dumpster, to you.) There was a car parked in front of our house so we went and introduced ourselves to the neighbor. She was still in her robe but happy to move the car. We've since gotten to know Anna and her cat, Mitchie. (I'm writing their names down so I don't forget...)

The builders arrived at that time, and immediately got stuck in. We were expecting three but we had four, and they made short work of the kitchen wall. Jess and I had to go to work, but when we came in that evening, we immediately breathed a sigh of relief--the opening looked great, the guys had done a fantastic job, and they even cleaned up! When was the last time you heard of builders who cleaned up after themselves?

Thursday, Jess met with the structural engineer and architect, and today I met with the building inspector, to discuss our ideas for the utility room and opening the wall between the hallway and living room. Fortunately, there aren't any issues, and in fact the engineer found the dropped ceiling in the cloakroom (downstairs bathroom to you) wasn't structural, and we can remove it. (Who knows why they built houses like they did...)

The inspector did note that if we do the loft conversion in the future, we will need to "protect" the staircase. This means having doors that can be closed, to prevent smoke coming up the stairwell. However, think about it: if you're on the third floor, are you really going to run down to the first floor to close the door to stop the smoke from going to the third floor, that you're no longer on? It's stupid, they all know it's stupid, but it's the law.

In any case, we'll deal with that in the future. Today, we had to deal with another stupid regulation -- that a new staircase has to allow 2 meters (about 6 feet) of clearance. The middle step on the current staircase is only 1.8 meters, but we don't have to change that because it already exists. When we put in the stairs to the loft, however, it will allow only 1.8 meters on the top step, which isn't allowed. So to avoid that, we have to move the bathroom wall 15cm (about 6 inches) so the staircase can start higher, and clear 2 meters.

Let me repeat that: We have to move a wall 6 inches because a staircase that only has 1.8 meters clearance in the middle can't have 1.8 meters clearance at the top.

That said, I've learned there's no point in arguing common sense, and today they busted out the bathroom wall. Coming upstairs (after the rubble had stopped raining down) was a little surreal, with the bath and toilet exposed, and a sheer drop from the bath down the stairs. However, in the next few days, there will be a new wall that will imperceptibly replace it.

While that was going on, the electricians were making a right muddle. Even though we'd told them we were going to be changing the door swing in all the bedrooms (and thus needed to move the switches to the opposite walls) and they had written it on the copy of the plans we gave them, they still managed to screw up two of the bedrooms. They also informed us that new regulations required the electric outlets to be 18 inches above the floor. 18 inches!! (Apparently this is so handicapped people can reach them without getting out of their wheelchair. That's after they get the wheelchair up the stairs, of course.)

Fortunately -- and even more strangely -- qualified electricians are allowed to "self-certify" their own work, which means the building inspector can't complain, even if he sees they don't meet code! And our electrician is perfectly happy to ignore the code and put them lower. (I'm thinking three inches.) What a country.

So that's where we are today. The builders also stripped off the bathroom tiles, the kitchen cabinets, and remaining bits of wallpaper we had missed. Tomorrow (on Saturday!) they will be removing the chimney breasts. They've already filled a 10-yard skip, and I'm having it replaced tomorrow.

Also tomorrow the plumber is going to do a "pressure test" on the plumbing, to see what would happen if we replaced the gravity-fed system with a "mains pressure" system. He's pretty sure it will leak like a sieve, and we'll have to replace all the pipes.

And we'll save the story of the plasterer for another day...