We were in Albi all day Monday & when we passed by the site on our way home it didn’t look as though much had changed. This was somewhat worrying since the handover date to us is Friday 8th December.
We had lots of questions for the architects & organised a meeting on site Weds. They were in agreement that there should be much more activity. By Friday’s site meeting everything had changed, all the artisans were on site & working. We’ve never had such a crowd before!
The floor is in & drying & everyone should be wearing clean footwear inside, the downside being that, as the photos show it’s mostly been followed, but not entirely. In this weather it’s not easy but…so we now have reminder notices at all points of entry & we’ve banned smoking inside the house as well.
When the floor company comes to apply the final polished finish it will be interesting to find out what they think. That is programmed for 23/24 Nov, when the house will be totally closed for those 2 days + the weekend to let it dry completely.
After that it will be all systems go to fit the kitchen, wardrobes, TV unit etc etc. There will be only 2 weeks after that before handover!
BUT there has been lots of progress this week after the slow start.
Firstly the leak has been fixed & tested.
The floor. It will look similar to this but will be sealed & polished.
The fuse board is coming on.
The heat pump & underfloor heating is coming on. (There’s a temporary fix testing all the pressures & slowly increasing the heat to aid the drying of the floor)
The plumbing of the bathrooms has started.
The internal wood finishes around all the windows are well underway.
The ceiling & wall painting is underway & the final finishes on the internal stucco walls will be started tomorrow.
The external render on the terraces is being done & the garage walls are done.
All the stone cladding is at long last finished.
The Friday site meeting was hectic, with all the workers on site, plus all the heads of the companies, plus 3 architects & us two.
The ducting from the road to the house for water, electricity, sewerage & telephony is started.
It also needs saying that we’re having really foul weather & working outside is no joke.
All the filling in around the house, the levelling for entry from the road to the garage, all the parking, all the drainage from the roof to the reservoir we’re putting in & the excess to the drains is all to do in these conditions!
And then there’s Louise’s “entretien”/interview for French nationality right in the middle of all of this!! It’s unlikely to be a quiet birthday for Louise, nor a quiet Christmas chez nous.
It seems that we’re really living up to something I said to Louise when we decided to get married.
“It’ll be many things, but it’ll never be boring”