Category: Build

The stainless steel countertop for the kitchen arrived onsite today.  Fabricated using  Franke Kubus KBX160 undermount sink welded into the countertop.  The countertop is backed with a standard 40mm timber countertop to provide strength and rigidity.

The countertop was fabricated by Billy OGrady who works with a local metal fabricator Jeff McDonnell.  He made an excellent job of the welding especially considering that the Franke Sink was not specially designed for weld-in.

Once the kitchen units arrive and it is all fixed in place it’ll get a final clean & polish to bring it up to its full glory and we’ll publish some more photos.

BTW, the video of the house has been updated with extra footage added .. here and on the HomePage

We spent the day cleaning up after the plastering. Lifting the cardboard sheeting from the floors, plastic coatings from the windows and giving the place a general sweep out.

With the early spring sunshine and a clear day the cladding looked spectacular.

We’ll give the house a week to dry out and hopefully begin the painting around the 11th Feb.

In the interim we are sorting the kitchen units and other smaller details in the bathrooms such as the tiling and fixtures.

It has been a week of milestones with the plastering of the interior coming to a conclusion.  The last walls in the kitchen/dining area are being completed today so we should be fully skim plastered by the end of January as planned.

Yesterday, in the gales & hail the top run of scaffolding was removed by Nigel of Assured Access Scaffolding.  The parapet capping on the main roof is complete and all the smaller roof areas are also finished.  The bottom run of scaffolding will wait another few weeks until the final coat of mineral plaster finish is applied to the exterior of the ground floor, hopefully completed before the month of February is complete.

We’ll give the house a week or so to dry-out before the next stage begins with the painting of the undercoat, floor polishing of the concrete and the second fix electrics & plumbing.

In the foul weather at the end of January the final bits of the cladding were completed.

Window openings, the porch and overhang at the back of the house were all clad in larch and the finished appearance of the cladding is very good.  The only issue is a shortage of SPAX screws which meant that we had to skip alternate battens when fixing the boards on certain parts of the house.  I’ll go along and fill in the gaps when the screws arrive back in stock in Irish Wire in Limerick.

With the cladding complete I was able to fix all the parapet capping on the main roof during the week so the roof is now weather-tight.  A small bit of capping on the porch over the hall door remains to be finished but I’ll wait a few days until the stormy weather abates.

The last few weeks have seen all the internal walls fitted with plasterboard. Brian O’Sullivan & his guys have done a great job throughout the house, sorting out lots of small details in the battens and walls to get every inch of the house covered.

A number of walls had to have additional timber battens added to allow for the incorporation of the rainwater pipework at the corner of the bedroom, kitchen and living room. Concealed cisterns in the bathrooms and grounds for fixing sinks and toilets had to be added too. In the pantry beside the kitchen the ceiling was lowered to cover the ducting for the HRV system.

The plastering of the walls begins and should take about a week and a half and be completed before the end of the month.

In order to cover the top of the walls around the house we had to have a special aluminium parapet capping fabricated.  This capping covers the top and allows the water to run off onto the roof or down the outside of the timber and aquapanel cladding.

The capping was formed by Speedline Engineering in Limerick who were very good in producing the profiles and they were powdercoated in a matching RAL7016 colour that is the same as the windows and doors in the house.

All the corners around the perimeter of the roof and junctions where the capping meets the timber cladding have to be cut and shaped by hand … by yours truly.  Once completed we’ll have a fully weather-tight and sealed house .. we hope!!

 

As we enter the 3rd week of January the plasterboarding is close to completion.  Brian OSullivan & the lads have done an excellent job in fixing the plasterboard throughout the house.

All the rooms apart from the downstairs bathroom are now boarded and it is the window & door openings that need to be finished.  There are also a few small areas which were left open to check for leaks, fit showers etc which have to be finished also.

Hopefully the plastering will start next week and we’ll be skim coated before the end of the month and ready to start the final fixes, plumbing and flooring.

Finally, just before Christmas the somewhat elusive Shane McMahon made it onsite and began fitting the battens to the upper level of the house.  He only managed to get a days work done before the holidays but now that 2013 is here, the weather is dry and the days are getting longer (slightly) we are back on track.

The battens have been fixed to the exterior.  All the windows and areas where the timber will overlap the plasterboard have been flashed with a waterproof membrane and the window sills are installed.

Tuesday 8th January was a gorgeous, bright and dry day and the first side of the building, the south elevation over the kitchen was clad in the larch boards.

The siberian larch boards have a tongue and groove profile with a 12mm shadow gap and.  They were sourced from Corell Timber in Athlone and are fixed to 2×2 treated battens using a special decking screw from SPAX in stainless steel.

With the start of 2013 the plasterboarding of the house is now well underway.  Upstairs in the house the ceilings & walls are now largely complete.

We have to leave a few areas of the ceiling and walls exposed as there are some persistent leaks.  These are coming in through the walls of the house from the parapet and upper level of the house which is still uncovered.  Hopefully the timber cladding & parapet will seal the exterior and the leaks will stop and the timber can dry-out.

Until then the guys are working away on the stairwell and moving downstairs to do the interior walls.

Just before Christmas we managed to get all the plasterboard stacked inside the house. Scaffolding was erected in the living room to allow access to the walls and ceiling in the double-height space.

A number of internal walls had to be adjusted by adding extra timber battens to fit pipework and toilet cisterns. Brian and the guys managed to get most of the battens fitted before the Christmas holidays which left a few smaller jobs for us to do over the holidays.

All the steel columns in the living room had to be cleaned, holes filled, welds grinded down and then sanded & primed.
A frame to hold the bath and some studwork in the ensuite bathroom around the sink and mirror also needed to be made.
Over the holidays we also did a cleanup around the house and site.