The Extension: Our Biggest Makeover Has Begun.

If there is an awkward way to do something, I’ll do it. Just under three years ago, permission was granted to tear down the existing extensions on the back of the house and build a shiny new replacement. For a reminder, click here. Instead of pulling our finger out and getting on with it, we decided to concentrate on a million smaller jobs: you know… the fun ones that don’t have a deadline on them. Duh.

I say ‘decided to concentrate’ but really, I mean ‘put off for as long as we could’.

The truth is, we knew that this project would be a massive inconvenience. I don’t just mean the mess of dust and lack of kitchen for a few months: it’s also a huge expense for what is essentially going to be a reconfiguration of the same space, rather than an ‘extension’. It’s not that I’m not excited about the ‘reconfiguration’, it’s just that the negatives felt so huge, that I became blind to the positives. Also, delaying it gave me more time to turn it into the huge overbearing shadow that it became. Bonus!

A few months ago, the panic finally set in. We HAD to start now or the building permit would lapse and that would be additional expense. It was time to source a builder. Actually, it was so far past the time to source a builder, that we now needed one that could start the extension ASAP. The month was May and the building work needed to be finished by the following March. Call me naive but I really hadn’t thought about the ‘when’ of builders starting. Again, Duh.

Having contacted numerous building companies, I finally managed to find someone who was interested in taking the project on. It turns out that it wasn’t so much the timing that was the problem, but the fact that there is no access to the back of the house… other than through the house itself. Man-power rather than machine would be required, which is why no builder wanted to touch it.

Fast-forward to the end of September and after a Facebook plea for recommendations, we have the fantastic ‘Calums’ in place. The paperwork is signed and the relevant rooms emptied, ready to begin the build at the start of October. The hallway is bare, the front bedroom is a makeshift kitchen/storage room, our bedroom is a tip, and we have filled a garage in Dundee with furniture and boxes of ‘stuff’.

The Extension Demolition Begins

The demolition began on the first week of October. Within a day, the plumbing was all capped off and we had a makeshift kitchen set up in the dining room, complete with operational sink and washing machine. By the end of the week the old kitchen and bathroom were completely stripped bare, revealing some interesting stories from the past.

Before the original kitchen was a kitchen, it was a wash house. Removing the lathe and plaster revealed a curved indentation in the wall and a circular mark was clearly visible on the floor. This is where the old wash basin would have sat. You can even see the old paint colours!

The building had also been extended a few feet, as you can see a clear difference in the walls and the addition of a new roof section.

The bathroom revealed a few secrets too! The internal ceiling had been lowered at some point, perhaps to provide some sort of insulation. I think we can pretty much put a date on when the work began…

Cheers for that Alan! Just to let you know, the Souttars occupied the house until the year before we bought it. They had lived at number 69 for over 50 years. We know from neighbours that Alan was the son. In case you’re interested.

Where We Are Now.

It took the Calums less than a week to completely demolish both extensions. The bathroom, which I thought would fall down, turned out to be harder work than anyone anticipated, requiring an angle grinder to assist in it’s demolition.

It’s so weird seeing the empty spaces where the buildings once stood. It makes it a lot easier to visualise the new space though. Which takes me back to my earlier comment…

Now that the work has begun, a lot of my concerns over the build have gone. We know that the space is by no means huge but it will make a massive difference to how we live. I’ve mapped out the room sizes (with paper, on the living room floor) and I’ve made peace with the fact that we aren’t gaining a second wing to the mansion. What we will gain is a new way of living: now THAT is what excites me. More on that to come…

Remember, it’s not the size, it’s what you do with it that counts.