Are you sitting down?…. work has started! Graham Jones and his crew of builders, commenced action as promised on March the 3rd. I drove down to the house on the 5th and had a bit a shock to find that walls had gone and new shower rooms were up in their place. All this makes my progress over the past few months look frankly pathetic. The boys had gone at the house guns blazing and the new upstairs layout was already in place after just 3 days. We had a skip on the parking spot and the team had set up the all-important tea-making area and found the radio – I’m now a regular listener to ‘Red Dragon FM’. I’ve included some basic layout plans so that you can get an idea for the work taking place. I’m adding a shower room to the upstairs. Downstairs we’re knocking down walls to create a more open plan feel, changing the layout and adding French doors. In addition to this the house needs a complete re-wire, totally new heating system and boiler, new flat roof and extensive ground works.

Original Layout	New Layout

My time is now spent travelling down to Swansea 2 or 3 times during the week to check on progress. I’ve found that it is incredibly important to be on site little and often rather than get in the way. If I’m ever unable to get down there I always ring one of the boys – when prompted they’ve almost always got questions that they wouldn’t ask me if I didn’t bother to make contact. Within a month or so, they should have the upstairs plastered out and I can then work full time on site. Whilst they finish off downstairs and then move onto the ground works.

In the meantime I’ve been busying myself by doing some serious shopping - unsurprisingly this has been one of the more enjoyable sides of developing a house : ) I’m really loving the challenge of purchasing everything I need from waterproof plaster boarding to the kitchen tap at the lowest possible price for the best possible product. I even surprised the builder with the bargains I’ve got – who would have thought I’d turn out to be such a good shopper eh? : )

Lessons learnt this month include;

• Just because you’ve paid big bucks, doesn’t mean you’ve got the best product.


• Don’t assume that because you’ve warned B&Q that you live down a narrow road, they won’t send a 21 tonne lorry! I had to drive down to the village and have all the kitchen cabinets loaded into 2 hatchbacks, then drive home and unload the lot ourselves.


• Don’t underestimate the motivating powers of doughnuts on builders : )