Spent a couple of days hanging the new internal doors.

I thought it was time for an overview of where we are so far. POSH’s work is finished. All issues have been resolved to our satisfaction and we are very pleased with the results.

The outstanding tasks for me now are:

1. Hang and paint the interior doors.
2. Lay a new patio.
3. Buy furniture and consumer electronics.

The carpet was fitted today.

In the last couple of days the door frame has had a couple of coats of paint.

The locks have been swapped for a matched pair.

All remaining black brackets have now been replaced with white brackets on the guttering.

We had £200 knocked off the bill to pay for the carpet to be cleaned.

Added the doorstop to the frame myself. I would have rather done this after installing the doors but it needed doing to define the door location for the carpet fitters. There was no way I would get the doors and the doorstop fitted before Friday. This also allows me to paint it before the carpet is fitted.

After painting, my next major job will be to install these.

The guttering was changed to white. There is still a couple of black brackets as POSH were out of stock but these should be changed next week.

And the floor had a final layer of concrete to raise the level to the same as our existing lounge.

Had the old patio door removed today.

And the final piece of roof trim was installed.

The building inspectored sign off the build today.

It’s been a while but finally the power has been connected and we have light.

The next step is for the building inspector to sign-off the build so far. POSH then have to complete the following:

• Finish trim between ceiling and roof
• Change guttering to white
• Remove existing door, fix plaster and skirting (followed by me painting it)
• Change locks for a matched pair

Hopefully this will be done by Friday 1st August as Downs carpets are booked to lay a new carpet. I’ve then got a busy few weeks (or maybe months) installing new internal doors and laying a new patio.

Painted the skirting board today.

The electrician returned for the second fit of lights and power sockets. Unfortunately the power couldn’t be connected up due to an existing issue in our downstairs ring main. More investigation required.

And our plumber fitted a radiator.

I have spoken to POSH and confirmed we want the guttering replaced with white and it is now on order. POSH are covering the installation costs and we are having to pay for the parts.

The result of two evenings worth of painting with Dulux Buttermilk.

Two top coats have been applied to the ceiling. Need to wait for the final piece of trim to cover the lead and the rough edge.

I’ve also undercoated the skirting board.

Today, the ceiling and walls had a coat of undercoat. The finish isn’t very exciting, so I thought I would show the workers in action instead.

Picked up some paint samples from B&Q. Ceiling and skirting will be white, but what about the walls? Decisions, decisions…

Walls are now fully filled and sanded.

The skirting board is finished.

Additionally, work is continuing on the plaster. Hopefully finished tomorrow.

After a call to POSH, they aggreed to come out and fix the finish on the plaster. Everything has been filled but it still needs a sand tomorrow. This picture should highlight how much repairing was required.

The plaster is done. Should be ready for paint in about 3 days. I don’t know whether POSH are going to sand it or whether we have to first though? (more info)

Once painted we need:

• Second fit electrics.
• Plumbing for radiator.
• Skirting boards.
• Flooring.

Although we have been very impressed with the efficiency and quality of the service so far, there are always issues that crop up. I’ve added a page to catalogue all of the outstanding issues here.

Walls have been boarded and the ceilling has its first coat of plaster.

The plaster has been left for tomorrow.

I think we are now currently waiting for the building inspector before the plasterer can do his thing.

Previously the windows just had temporary panes of glass in to keep the weather out. The correct double glazzed units with integral blinds have been installed this morning.

We noticed today that the two doors have non-matched locking mechanisms. This might be annoying in the long term having to have two keys on every bunch just for these doors.

The roof has been installed in a day. It looks very impressive and worth the money.

Where are the builders? I think we are now waiting for the roof as it needs to be weather proof before any other jobs can be completed. Lets hope they arrive tomorrow.

First fit of electrics today.

Doesn’t look like much from ground level, but the flat part of the roof is progressing.

The window and door frames are in. They currently have temporary glass in until the proper panes arrive. The guttering has also been installed.

We are unconvinced about the black guttering. We were advised to go for black so it blends in with the flat part of the roof but as the rest of the windows and roof are white, as well as our existing windows and guttering, we are unsure this is correct.

Yesterday a new air brick was installed on the side wall of our living room as the existing air brick would be blocked by the new wall. It is our first area of disappointment as they weren’t very neat in cutting a section from the wallpaper and the black dust has stained our carpet.

The roof is looking nearly finished now (apart from the glass obviously).

Slow progress today, but then the weather was horrible.

The carpenters have arrived and made a good start.

The concrete floor has been poured.

A few more courses of bricks (with the thinnest lintels I’ve ever seen).

We also have what looks like the underfloor insulation ready to lay.

The brick work looks finished now.

The brick work is nearly finished now.

A start has been made on the brick work.

The front of the house has now been cleared. At the rear, the concrete has now been poured and the soak-away has been dug.

Coming home from work on the first day and it looks like a lot has been happening.

Around the back of the house and we can see what progress has been made.

Although the builders were supposed to lift the paving slabs and save them, we had little hope in this occuring as the slabs were cemented down. We had a go ourselves as there were some specific slabs we wanted kept.

In progress.

The result.

Before starting the extension, this was the state our patio was in.

A couple of hours of tidying-up and we were left with this.

The design has to change as the original one had brick pillars between the windows that were too narrow. This is an approximate CAD render although is it slightly flawed as it shows a floating roof.

We’ve paid the deposit.

We know it was probably a sales trick, but there was a discount if we signed before the end of the financial year.

The final design we’ve chosen.

After trawlling around several conservatory companies we settled on POSH Windows & Conservatories. Their showroom had an example of the sort of structure we were looking for. It needed a large amount of brick rather than the traditional conservatory which is almost 100% glass. This is because we wanted to use the room all year round and at all hours of the day. Technically this becomes an orangery.

Additionally, we liked the salesman and their practice of employing builders instead of contracting them out.

The original patio layed in 2004.