Day 24 - The first bricks go down

The past few days, although with not much building activity, have still been busy.

The foundations on both plots were passed by the Council and by our Self Build Warranty auditors.

Mum and Dad's plot now belongs to them - sold for a complete bargain - £1.  Mum and Dad always owned it in principal, we just needed to sort it out legally now the land has been split into three plots. 

Our mortgage is finally completing next Friday - the only thing that might hold this up is the postal address - but fingers crossed, everything will be ok. 

Both sites are currently known as Plot 1 and Plot 2.  Again, I had a learning curve to overcome as to how to register an address and then Dave remembered he had kept a link on his iPad from many months ago on how to do it.  You have to approach the Street Numbering department of your local authority and suggest an address.  Our current number is 36 and the next is 40, so it makes sense for us to be 38 and Mum and Dad to be 38a.  The council agreed and now I am waiting for confirmation. It stays with Royal Mail as a non-live address and we let them know when we have moved in.  We also need to know this for the services as they cannot install a meter without an address.

Installing a meter seems a long time away at the moment.  We have paid the services company and have yet to receive the plans.  After numerous chasing, I am told they will be here on Monday.  The digger can then come back to dig the trenches and we can finalise outstanding jobs on the cottage.

The first is the driveway.  This is going to have lots of lorries going up and down and I desparately want to level it out and add some new stones, particularly where the cottage is.  The second is the front wall.  This looks so ugly against the renovated cottage.  Mum and Dad have done a fantastic job tidying the garden.  We need to confirm what we are going to do with the wall - but whether it stays and is re-rendered or is knocked down depends on the pipework leading to the existing electricity pylon.

Back to building work - it's very exciting as the first brick has been laid!  We've had lots of activity on site today with many deliveries - including my friend's husband, who is a driver for Travis Perkins.

The first level of the bricks that go underneath the damp-proof course are nearly in place on our house.  We had to make a decision today as to whether we had traditional or plastic air bricks - the plastic version lets more air in apparently, so we went with Sheldon's advice, (the main builder) on this and selected this one.

This is where our wood burning stove will be one day soon....

And the kitchen/utility room/family room will be here

We're looking forward to more progress over the next few days.