The infrastructure in place, it’s time to begin the walls, and lay the floors for the proposed extension; so in comes a lorry with supplies. First the bags of sand…
Then the concrete blocks
The next job is to build the first layer of blocks on the concrete foundations.
The double set of blocks are laid to floor level. A desperate lack of funds means we can’t use insulation between the block walls as we’re building, which would be the normal way to go about things today. This air-gap will need to be backfilled with an insulation medium pumped in under pressure, once the extension has been built.
The interior is then cleared of rubble, a back-breaking job.
We then flatten the hardcore, and settle a ton of sand over it. The white waste pipes currently cut through into the room which will one day be a living area, but now doubles as a kitchen. The kitchen will be moved out into this new space, eventually, and these holes filled.
Of course, the new kittens instantly suss-out what this middle room is for…
All the connections are very carefully aligned with the exact specifications and drop required for end use.
The final sand is laid.
And tamped into place with a bit of judicious bootwork. The wooden form on the right has been made to tamp down the sand to an overall even level.
Looking good, eh? Hard to believe this will one day be entrance hall, kitchen, bathroom, and utility room.
Insulation boards are laid onto the sand, and the concrete lorry arrives.
The concrete is shoveled roughly into place, and a neighbour arrives to help tamp it.
And after all that work, with the infrastructure buried, we seem to have ended up with something much the same as we started off with!
Here’s a foretaste of the space a year or so down the line.
And a little local colour… This small waterway became a raging torrent while we were trying to get the foundations in, over-spilling into the surrounding fields. But thankfully the rain has eased, allowing the building work to start in earnest.
