Getting there, slowly but surely

Well, we are getting there slowly but surely. After almost 18 weeks you can now see what this delevopment is all about. It seems to be raising quite an interest in passers by and a number have come in to ask questions etc, this is apart from general neighbour interest.
Unfortunatly, we have suffered delays from suppliers of the replacement windows, about 6 weeks late at the moment and we are stil not sure when they will arrive, and the Orangerie (post word for a conservatory) is also ruunning at about the same latenessbut we expect it at the end of next week. As for the Glass Link building which joins the old house to the new, well perhaps sometime after Christmas but before November 2008 I understand. This is frsutrating as unless the whole thing is watertight then they cannot do the plumbing and electric etc or even join the building together.
The Cedar cladding and shakes on the dormers makes the house look so much different. Jennifer and I spent all of last Sunday painting on the contraceptive varnish(or something like that) and that made the wood grain stand out and also makes the house less new.
We have tried to take good care of the workmen, with lots of tea, cakes and Noel even made them all bacon sandwiches last Monday as a treat.
The costs are of course not in line with budget, are they ever,but we are doing our best to keep them down hence Noel has been working outside as a labourer most of the time.
However, we have come a long way since the first hole in the ground and we still have to strip our main bedroom and also lounge once the conservatory is up to allow the rest of the work to continue. Like knocking down walls and the old fireplace and putting in new door frames etc. It will get worse before it gets better.
Luckily I still have my hair and have not aged to much, but then again we still have a long way to go.

The house development continues

Well it been quite busy just recently with the house being rebuilt around us. Its not going to plan however it is moving along. The glass atrium and also the glass orangery are running about 4 weeks late and the windows three weeks late. They should arrive at the end of November or early December and this delay means that other important elements cannot continue.

The cedar wood covering the lower part of the house is almost complete but we are now waiting for the upper floor cladding and insulation to be fitted. It is intended to use cedar wood shakes, or something like this, only there appears to be a delay on fixing these.
In the meantime, last Friday afternoon we packed our bags and disappeared over to a large shopping area South of Lille, where we visited Castorama, owned by Kingfisher who also own B & Q to look at sanitary ware, Loo's to you. The result was we purchased three loo's, three wash basins and the taps to match at a price 30 to 50 percent lower than from B & Q in UK. We have also looked at showers and again there is a huge difference in price and so we arrange to purchase those in France as well.
Well its Monday morning at 0945, the bricklayers are working, the guys doing the cedar work have not arrived and the delivery from Travis Perkins with sand for the bricklayers has failed to show since last Friday, so all is normal chaos here.
We have finalised our Australia and New Zealand trip planning and we leave mid January. We have hid to fix all the hotels in NZ as its the busy period there and this was a lot of fun working through this process but I must say that the New Zealand Tourist website is amazing, we were able to plan our trip, places to stay and locations to visit. Once its fully finished we will circulate tho interested parties..
Ken and Madelaine are due back this Wednesday morning and ken is starting to put the roof on the bedroom etc.
I have added a few pictures on this Blog but more are available on the Phanfare photo site.