Conservatory Construction, Weeks 3 and 4

AKA the weeks where it started to go a bit wrong. After the builders had knocked through last Monday, and left, the firm which actually makes and installs the conservatory frames and windows sent in its fitters on Tuesday to start putting the superstructure together. They had the side windows and the door up by the time they finished, and we naturally expected them to return on the Wednesday to finish the job....but instead they'd hit a snag: when preparing to install the first roof panel, they'd found that the outlet pipes from the boiler, conveying hot water to the first floor, sloped up at a too great an angle to fit under it. So the plumber had to return on Wednesday to reseat the pipes, as well as installing (as expected) a new flue for the boiler (going out vertically through the roof, having previously gone through the wall on which the boiler is mounted, which is now inside the conservatory). But the fitters did not return on Thursday; instead, they had unspecified work elsewhere, and it wasn't until late on Friday that the roof was completed.

Also on Wednesday, a carpenter showed up to begin constructing the new understairs cupboard, claiming that it was "normal practice" to do the woodwork before any plaster was applied to the bare bricks. If I'd been at home last week, I'd have challenged this and sent him away; but Judith let him get on with it. He hadn't finished by the time he'd left for the day; but what he had done looked very nice. It's also, at the point where the new woodwork connects with the existing understairs cupboard, a complete bodge, managing to both narrow the entrance and leave bits of redundant doorframe in place, instead of ripping them out and continuing the lines of the dado rail and the skirting board. I presumed that he'd be coming back the following day to finish the thing; but he never showed, and a call to the office elicited the information that he had other work but was booked in to return to us this Tuesday (tomorrow). Notice, there, that we had to call the office; it didn't bother to call us.

On Saturday, I took the cupboard frame apart so that it can be re-assembled later, on the lines we want, and to allow the plasterers to get at the bare brick. (The idea that they could do their work behind a pair of closed doors, in the dark, is just absurd.) The plasterers, we were told last week (again, we had to call the office for this information) were booked in for today -- but by mid-morning had failed to show. Another call to the office; and after some run-around an individual on the switchboard said that she'd been left a message to give us -- but had not, clearly, realised that this means actually giving us the damn message. Which was to say that a previous job had overrun, and the plasterers will be with us tomorrow. As well as the carpenter, although what he thinks he's going to do is a mystery. (Get in the plasterers way, perhaps?) We called the customer relations manager who'd sold us the conservatory, who apologised for this, and hopefully went to kick some arse in the installation office.

Here are some photographs of the new conservatory -- still not finished, because it has to be plastered as well; the electrician has laid cabling but will need to return to install lights and power sockets; and the final floor layer, called a screed, has still to be laid. Then the walls will have to be painted, by us, lino selected and laid, again by us, and wide pine windowsills screwed into place, by us, to replace the naff white veneer chipboard sills which come as standard. I'm sure it will look very nice once it's finished, but I'm hugely unlikely to get around to doing that finishing off until after the Christmas/New Year holiday, and perhaps not until the spring, when I retire from full-time work. Now that will be something to look forward to....