Updates

With the painting of the basecoat & first finish coat complete we can now get the ground floor polished. Concrete Concepts are back on site to carry out the next stage of polishing on the floors.

It is going to take a few days to remove the top dusty layer from all the floors, grind out all the small scratches and bring up the full floor finish. A special sealant is then applied to the floor which, once dried, will be polished to a shiny platinum finish.

 

So .. as we approach then end of February and nearly six months from kick off we are in the home strait.

This week the electrical second-fix is underway and should be completed by Thursday.  All our sockets and switches are ready to be installed.  We have chosen a screwless cover plate in stainless steel for the main sockets and switches.  They’re called click definity – for more information see here – http://www.clickdefinity.com/the-definity-range.php.

On the outside the finish coat of mineral render is being applied as part of the Aquapanel wall system.  Hopefully the weather will stay above freezing & dry enough for the next few days to allow Denis & Co. to get the work done.

The exterior render will get a coat of paint in the summer months but this will get us through the rest of the spring and allow us to take down the last of the scaffolding and get the ground works underway next week for the sewage and wastewater treatment.

 

 

The plasterwork is more-or-less dry so we can lash on the first coats of paint.  We’re going for WHITE (yes, very safe and original) for the finish coat throughout the house.  Once we’ve settled into the house we might introduce a few other shades when we get a feel for the decor and spaces.

We sourced the paint from a Limerick supplier (Limerick Paint Supplies) and are using a Macphersons for the base coat and Johnstones Durable Matt Acrylic for the finish coats as it is scratch resistant and can be wiped down.

The initial basecoat and first finish coat are applied with a spray gun and we will wait until the floor grinding & polishing is complete before applying the final coat as there will be lots of dust created.

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!!