12 - BAD NEWS!

We've had some bad news as a result of starting the 'knocking through' process. The builders were pulling my washing machine out of its space in order to start building a pillar there when they looked at the flooring and it looked in a bad way. 

We investigated further by pulling up the Lino in the kitchen and found plywood stuck on top of the floorboards in squares, which the builder says doesn't look good, looked dodgy. Underneath these plywood squares the floor is a wooden floor (because of the age of the house) and it turns out these are rotten. The house was treated for woodworm years before we bought it and the builder couldn't say whether it was still active but the upshot is the floor needs replacing.

The builder has quoted for 2 options, one being to concrete completely or to concrete the worst area and treat and replace the other area but the costs of this are unexpected and not included in our plans so it will be quite a hit to us. The cost is anywhere between £3.5- £5k. It needs doing though as the floor isn't suitable to carry the heavy amount of people traffic that it will need to and it's also where we are knocking through to connect the bedroom to the main house and the very act of that will affect the rotten floorboards and cause problems anyway. We have no choice. 

As a result of this I'm asking; if you can help with any of these costs we hadn't known about that would be hugely appreciated, we can't bring Andy home until this is complete as it wouldn't be safe to him or the staff or the family to be walking/moving around a rotten floor. 

The fundraising page is www.gofundme.com/blaggy 

11 - underfloor heating.

So this shows our bedroom with underfloor heating in place with the next step to be putting screed on top and then concrete.

10 - Front door

This is the view of the front of the house, we now have glass in the front door and panels too so it matches the other front door. Please excuse the trash style at the front though, it's still a work in progress! 

9 - Internal pictures.

This is the view of the wet room and downstairs cloakroom beyond that.

This is the view of the kitchen with the utility room knocked down!

8c - The internals - structural engineer

And lastly I move on to something I didn't mention in 8a - a structural engineer. Now that the extension is almost weatherproof it has gone very dark in the extension but it has also gone very dark in the kitchen/diner. We now have to have lights on all the time so we can see and this got me thinking about this in the long term and I wasn't keen on what I was visualising, so I thought;
 'What if we take the back wall down as it'll let light through from the kitchen'

I mooted the idea with the parents and they also thought it a good idea and as there is nothing in the new kitchen against that wall we decided to speak to the builders to see what costs would be involved. To our surprise the cost isn't huge, certainly its manageable and less than we thought so my dad has now spoken to a structural engineer friend of his who is also coming round Monday to discuss this with me and the contractor too, but it looks likely we will take down the existing back wall of our house which will open up the whole downstairs pretty much. in affect we will be dual aspect front and back as we are also putting a door into the party wall of the lounge and kitchen. In affect we will have pretty much a completely new downstairs by the time its all done!

8b - The internals - plumbing.

The plumber will need me to make decisions on what type of toilet we want in the wet room and what type of hand basin is going in, he will also want my thoughts on where I want the manifold - to do with the underfloor heating- to go and the siting of the new boiler.
They also want us to ship out for a couple of days so they can take it all out and install it in one go thus lessening the affects on us. Except they want to do it during the weekdays, which will be a bit more interesting getting the kids to school on time!
It'll be exciting to have a new heating system in place though, one that might actually have some heating effect as our current one is over 15 years old!

8a - The internals - electrics

So the head contractor rings me up this week and asks my availability next week on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday as he wants to discuss electrics and plumbing as the electrician is starting Tuesday and the plumber on Wednesday and he also wants to start the internal walls layout. I said that I was working all those days!! aghhhh.

So Monday afternoon, after work, I'm meeting with the electrician and head contractor to talk electrics. This is good,  as we are now moving towards the internal side of things taking place but its also scary because the decisions I make now affect the layout of our bedroom quite considerably.
"Why so?" I hear you ask, as it's only plug sockets and lights.
Well, Andy has a lot of equipment that needs to be plugged in either constantly or almost constantly and they require their own plug socket, this would include:

• Specialised air pressure mattress for the bed - to protect Andy's skin as he can't turn himself, it rolls air through the mattress which relieves the pressure on Andy's body
• Ventilator - supports Andy's breathing overnight allowing his body to rest more.
• Humidifier - warms the air pushed through the vent. 

These 3 are vital and need their own plug all the time, but then there is the:

• Overnight feed pump - Andy has a supplement overnight to ensure he's met his nutritional needs, it goes on in the small hours so it acts a breakfast replacement.
• Suction machine - is used to pull up secretions off Andy's chest when he is unable to cough it up and should remain fully charged at all times
• Nebuliser - Is used to loosen secretions on Andy's chest, Andy has a neb through the night so that would need its own plug to reduce staff disturbance. 

That's 6 items already and we haven't even discussed machinery such as the physio vest that is used daily to keep Andy's chest clear and cough assist machine which is used daily to force Andy to cough, thus helping to clear his chest. Also, something called a Niagara board, which is for massaging out Andy's hands and arms which help him keep the range of movement he has. I'm sure there's other things too that I'm forgetting but this doesn't include our own personal stuff such as charging phones or a radio/telly. Hmmmm.