loft conversion update

It's two weeks today that the two builders arrived on site, or, in my home, as I prefer to call it! They have worked hard since their arrival, and a plumber, carpenter and electrician have also appeared, played their parts, then exited, stage left.

They arrive at about eight every morning, except Sundays, and leave around fourish, having made still more impact every day. You can see here how space-age and silvery the loft looked when the insulation was installed, the silver being like the two slices of bread in a conventional sandwich, surrounding a thick layeer of custard, or rock wool.

It almost seems a pity that all the lovely light reflective surface is then concealed by plasterboard, but I know it's only practical to do it, I'd be forever catching and snagging the fragile foil if it was left there!

The small Velux window in the shower room has been installed, and today the fire escape Velux is being fitted. This really irritates me, having to have a fire escape window fitted. Not only that, but because the window is above the purlin in the loft, I need to have a step fitted so that I can reach easily to step out of the window in the event of a fire. To cap it off, I need a sign fixing to the cupboard in which the step will live, to tell me it's there for use in the event of a fire! This is my bedroom, on what is now the first floor, not a hotel room somewhere with countless members of public passing through - or, at least, I hope not!



This is the space where the new Velux will be sited, hence no insulation there. You can see plasterboard visible at the sides, covering up the lovely silver.



The penultimate photo shows the fresh braces across the roof to stabilise it. Seems a shame to cover up such lovely white, clean looking wood, but then I think of the dusting if I kept them all, and there's really no contest. They get covered up :-)



The new side walls cover the supports for the roof trusses. These were built of brick, very clumsily, when the bungalow was constructed. They are called "dead men", for some unfathomable reason, which made me think that a story lurked there. (see next post). These brick installations have been removed and replaced with huge chunks of wood, so that the dimensions of the room are slightly greater than they would have been if they had had to block off the originals.


It's all good fun - not clean, but fun :)