Buses and doors

We've just come back from a week of R & R, but are now very much back into house-building mode.  There were lots of things that we had hoped would have been done whilst we were away that haven't been and a few things done which we had not expected yet.

You are probably well aware by now that we have been having issues with the front door and currently the hallway is out of action as it is more of a double barricade (one built from the outside, and one build from the inside for security) pending the installation of a front door.  This is also holding up the commissioning of our ventilation and heat recovery system which cannot be 'balanced' until we have a more airtight seal where the front door should be.

You know how it is with buses, you can wait for ages for one to turn up, and then two turn up together.  Imagine our surprise when we were informed that the front door and the garage door would be arriving early this week.  Even more surprising was the fact that the long-awaited front door was delivered first.  Considering all the surprises we had just had, we had one further less welcome surprise when we were told that the front door was in fact the wrong size!  It appears that somewhere along the line the fact that the doorway is made up of a 300mm wide glass panel adjacent to a 950mm wide door seems to have got a tad confused, and what was delivered was a 300mm wide glass panel, and an enormous 1250mm wide front door.

An over-size door still in its packaging

Clearly we do not want to wait for another 3 months for a front door, so our builders (who are not to blame) are negotiating with the suppliers to re-order the correct size (at no cost to us!), but since the delivered door is a bespoke size and is no use to anyone else, they are also negotiating to temporarily fix the over-size door without the side glass panel until the correct door is delivered.  This would give us a proper, albeit cumbersome front door which would be a vast improvement on our existing barricades.

On a more positive note, garage door arrived yesterday, and was installed without incident, although some of the optional extras appear to have been forgotten!  These will have to be added later.

Ever wondered how they deliver a garage door?

First segment in position

Halfway there

Three-quarters built

Complete

The landscaping of the garden area is well underway and the stone tiles on the terrace and steps to the lower terrace are nearly all laid.  They are not yet grouted but they do look good.

Paving on the 'Upper Terrace' with dusty footprints

Steps down to the 'Lower Terrace'

In the meantime BT broadband fiasco continues.  I now had a real case manager to talk to who I can reach using a direct dial number which saves having to explain everything three times over to get through to the right department.  It seems that super-fast broadband capacity in the village is fully subscribed and there is no spare capacity in the 'cabinet'.  Last time this happened, I was able to find a provider who found some capacity, but this time, no provider (including my previous provider) seems to be able to find any.  I have effectively been mis-sold a super-fast package which BT cannot deliver and for which they are "extremely" sorry.  My previous super-fast package has obviously been allocated to someone else when I agreed to transfer back to BT.  Despite all their apologies, BT seem unable to tell me when I might get super-fast broadband.  In fact, the onus appears to be on me to keep an eye on the OpenReach website, and let my case manager at BT know when capacity becomes available, at which point he will then graciously find me the best deal possible.  So all I can do is keep checking!

Our kitchen has been nearly 'complete' for a couple of weeks now, but after an abortive attempt to fit the glass splash-backs and window ledge which turned out to be the wrong colour, the correct colour arrived this week and was fitted, and we are really pleased with it.

We decided that we had earned a break today and took my father up the canal in our boat to a pub.  Very busy (it is peak season), but the terrific weather (including today) and lack of rain meant that water levels were really low and to preserve water levels, some of the locks between Cropredy and the pub are closed from 4pm until 10am leaving us not enough time to bring the boat back.  So we ended up getting a taxi from the pub and we'll go and collect the boat some time in the next few days.  It was a great day away from house-building!