What have we done to the house?

This must be one of the longest silence I have on my blog.  Well, life has been busy.  Very busy actually.  Lots of big decisions, many of which involve the house renovations and more.  We have had hiccups with this massive house project.  I haven't really blogged about what we are doing to our house so maybe I should do it now so you can understand the situation we are in.

Truly I can call 2017 the year of dilemmas - I'll leave it a bit ambiguous for now.

For some reason K has been, to my surprise, lamenting that he doesn't like our current house.  He doesn't like the location (esp after experiencing our Southeastern trains), he doesn't like the house decor; he doesn't like the finishings of the house; he doesn't like this and that.  Beginning of the year, we went to do some house viewings in a completely new area, somewhere in zone 9 - yes even further out of London, but amazingly with better connections into London than our current zone 4.  Which is why a lot of working professionals love this neighbourhood.  So naturally, the house prices in this area are much higher than where we are now.  Filtering for those we could afford, we soon realised they were much smaller than ours and further away from the train station.  We were in a dilemma and discussed what we should do.  My dilemma was: trains after all aren't too reliable in this country, so if we should move to zone 9 and trains aren't working we would be stuck.  I mean, to cab home would cost way too much money.  At the moment we still can tube to a zone 2 station and take an Uber home for GBP14 which isn't too bad.  Also our house is bigger than those we saw, with lots of potential to extend and improve on.  We figured if we should sell this house as it is, we would regret it next time, knowing we could have added value by extending it and refurbishing it.  So a common decision was made: we would stay put and improve on the current house - our plan was to do a double storey extension (3m out towards the back of the house), a brand new patio, rewiring of the whole house, and refurbishment of all bedrooms.  A massive project as you can see.

Next K started asking for quotes from builders and this is a tough one, because good builders are hard to come by in this country.  Many people place builders in two camps (sorry if it's mean but even my British colleagues agree on this) - British builders vs Eastern Europeans.  I don't wish to generalise but the previous British builder we got was such a nightmare and put us off getting any builders.  He loved his tea breaks and would sometimes not turn up for work giving reasons like he had a dental appointment, or he had a doctor appointment.  Too many of such excuses soon made our trust in him go down.  We have however, heard how hardworking Eastern Europeans builders are, working for longer hours with very little tea breaks.  They take a shorter time to finish the project, which is usually what you want.  Our friend Ken who lives near Wimbledon recommended us his builder Aleks.  Aleks and his team are all Albanians and I have to say so far we have been very impressed by their efficiency and speed.  In fact, they were a bit too fast for us.  They came into the house like an army and within a week our patio was gone, they have dug deep foundations and our kitchen was gone too.  We couldn't pack fast enough for this team of speedy Gonzales!

Kitchen shopping

Choosing the kitchen cabinet door colour

Carpet shopping - love the colours

These were oh so soft to the touch but too pricey for our budget

The problem unfortunately came when the architect which Aleks recommended turned out to be quite rubbish. His job was simple - to draw the plans for the first storey (i.e. bedrooms) extension and submit to our council.  He told us he submitted in early March and I guess we were too trusting.  We waited patiently (8 weeks being the turnaround time from the council) and after 7 weeks, I thought I'd check the council website just to see if anyone's given any feedback on our application.  Lo and behold, I couldn't find any of our submission, and that was 26th April.  Long story short, the architect didn't press the submit button back in March, and denied it was his fault; in fact he blamed the council for 'losing our application'.  So we were 7 weeks late by that time.  He finally submitted on 26th April (the day I contacted him), but about a month later the council rejected his application due to two incorrect drawings (unbelievable) and quite typically our architect said he didn't receive any email from the council "so I don't know and you can't blame me".  I was so mad I told him "Matteo, you need to check your emails more often!"  The council said because he resubmitted on 25th May, that would be our new start date for our 8 week turnaround wait time.  This council approval is becoming a joke and we had no leverage on the situation.  So now, we are waiting for a reply from our council at the end of July.

The first week - our patio was gone

Building our new wall

The new wall on the other side

That's where the new patio would be

Meanwhile the builders have started on the ground floor extension (ground floor extensions up to 3m are within the government's permitted development so we could start) and though they were good, there were also hiccups along the way.  As we were talking about knocking down walls and putting in new ones, we needed a structural engineer too, to come by to do measurements, and decide on how many steel beams we need to insert into the structure of the house.  And his job is the most important I'd say.  We don't want the house to topple!  Not only that we also needed to get a building control person (a government body) to come by to ensure everything makes sense, in terms of foundation work, structural work, before the builders could continue.  Can you imagine we were dealing with all these while working full time?  Thankfully K was on his sabbatical and so he could deal with many of these appointments and calls.  On weeknights we would drive back to the house, meet the builders and see the progress.  On weekends we would be out looking at tiles, furniture, light fittings, kitchens... all too many to name.  Seriously it is mentally draining and right now, we have moved out for almost 2 months and I just can't wait to move back.  Give me ugly brown painted rooms with gaudy lights.  I don't really have much energy to deal with this.  But of course I can't.  There is so much at stake here and there is still so much to do and decide... I wish August would magically appear so we would have heard back from the council and would, hopefully be in the last phase.

Putting in place the red steel beam

Our kitchen's gone.  Even our patio doors.  It was just an exposed, open space.  They left us the cooker and the sink at that stage, but cooking was already a challenge.

Alfresco cooking - we didn't last very long under this setup.

Cooker's gone too, revealing an exposed brick wall with loose bricks btw, explaining the poor sound insulation.

Our bedroom stripped bare

Putting in thick insulation in our loft, so our house won't be that cold anymore

So now you understand the reason for my prolonged silence - pretty justifiable don't you think?  It's been overwhelming to say the least, on top of other things that are happening.  Renting from our friend has worked out the best way it could possibly turn out, but I do miss our home terribly.  Blogging does de-stress me to a certain extent, and often there are so much emotions welled up in me that I yearn to say it all out here, but I need to restrain I understand.  Nonetheless I will endeavour to continue, until the day I leave London, this beautiful place which I call my home.  I always remember the motivation for starting this blog, which is to update friends and family of my adventures here.  The day we leave, sadly I think that would be the day I bid this blog goodbye because I don't see the point to continue anymore, and probably be sinking into some sort of depression at the same time.  I be honest to say emotionally wise, it is very hard to leave because we have invested so much into our lives here.