The Clan of the Cave Bague

It all seems to be going swimmingly on the house front. The internal walls are all in, the kitchen now has a roof, all the windows and patio doors have been replaced. Apparently, there is a tiler busily putting down a floor in the bathroom as we speak, with the bathroom suite arriving on Tuesday. Trouble is, it’s all likely to grind to a halt very soon. The radiators and central heating system will be installed fairly soon, I think, to help the plaster dry, but until the kitchen and conservatory have been installed, there’s not really much else can be done – no point decorating when you’re about to demolish the back of the house. The wait on the kitchen and conservatory is still likely to be six weeks, so we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s looking good for a christmas entry though.

On the other side of things, we’re busily making lists of things, all of which have to be individually priced – it’s pretty soul destroying putting all your posessions down in monetary terms, especially when you see the limit of your sum insured approaching and you don’t have any beds yet….

Actually, that’s not strictly true – it really has two sets of windows. It’s just that none of them are actually in the walls, if you see what I mean. We currently have the old set lying in the garden, the new set lying in the living room, and gaping holes where windows should be but aren’t. The windows were expected to take 6-8 weeks to arrive, but they’re here in just over 2. We’re trying to avoid getting our hopes up about early completion, but it’s difficult with the rate that things are going back in. There’s still a mammoth amount of work to do, but all the stuff that’s been done has been very visible. The new roof is going on the kitchen today, the windows are being fitted today and tomorrow, and then the heating people are going to get the central heating working so the plasterers and tilers can get in – the house is currently too cold for paint and grout to dry properly – Scottish weather, huh? So, still to do – the conservatory needs to be replaced, kitchen fitted, bathroom fitted, various rooms tiled and floored, carpeted, plastered, painted, doors fitted, skirtings fitted, well – you see what I mean

Still, it’s getting there

The hardest thing about a housefire is regaining stability. Our children are still (understandably) very upset by the whole thing, and Debbie and I are too. The trouble is, we have to do our utmost to present a front of normality, to reassure them that everything is alright and that we’re all fine. The trouble is, we’re not. Nightmares aren’t exclusive to children and us older types are a lot more aware of our own mortality and of how bad things could actually have been. The fact that they’re not that bad doesn’t really come into it. The knowledge that the same thing could happen at any time is a difficult thing to live with.

On top of what I guess is shock or trauma, is the repeated (daily) visits to our house, reminding us of what happened (as if we needed it). I’m trying to keep myself positive by keeping this diary and posting updated photos of how the work is progressing, but the bottom line is that our family house is a ruin and it was burning while we were in it. It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with and something that the vast majority of people I’ve spoken to just can’t understand. It wasn’t bricks, mortar, and posessions that went up – it was fourteen years of family life. The fire feels almost like a violation now, stalking our house like an animal or a burglar. When I think that everything is gone I’m not thinking about “irreplacable” things, like Tristan’s scan picture, Matthew’s 3 month old footprints, or even the space on the wall where we marked everyones height every three months. I’m talking about the love, investment and time that went into building a home. My guitar can be replaced by the insurance company, but it won’t be a guitar that I scrimped and saved for eight months to buy.

The hardest thing I’ve ever done was shovelling my childrens toys and books into a skip while an MPV full of people parked at the bottom of the drive and watched.

But getting there. These are the sprouts from the wall seeds that the joiny person planted. Apparently, once they’re fully grown they can go about sticking bits of plasterboard to them. Todays job seems to be something called dotting and dabbing, which involves them plopping galloping great gobbits of gloopy goo all over the stone walls. Once they’ve done that, they fix a framework of timber to the walls and then fix plasterboard to that, the goop acting as a bond and an insulation. Fascinating. Can I move back in now please?

But getting there. These are the sprouts from the wall seeds that the joiny person planted. Apparently, once they’re fully grown they can go about sticking bits of plasterboard to them. Todays job seems to be something called dotting and dabbing, which involves them plopping galloping great gobbits of gloopy goo all over the stone walls. Once they’ve done that, they fix a framework of timber to the walls and then fix plasterboard to that, the goop acting as a bond and an insulation. Fascinating. Can I move back in now please?

Ahem, yes well. Anyway, the joiner has been in today – now that we have floors and ceilings in place. Bizarrely enough, he’s planted wall seeds. These are big long wall-shaped things that walls grow out of.

<picture missing – for now>

The above is where Dotty’s room will be once the walls grow. It’s a bit strange seeing stuff mapped out like that. For example, the picture below shows a little plumber wandering about aimlessly in the space that our bathroom will (eventually) occupy. I could have sworn the bathroom was bigger than that, but it’s really kinda difficult to tell with the walls down. There’s also a bit of perspective wierdness going on cos a full length bath does actually fit longways (ie from the back wall towards the camera). I suspect the plumber may be a giant. That would account for the odd sizes.

The sinister looking chap in the middle pic is the joiner who’s, well, joining bits of stuff together to make new stuff. He’s the one who has been planting the wall seeds. He assures me that the walls will have grown by the time I pop back tonight. If so, I’ll be sure to post a piccie here tomorrow.

For completeness, here’s a piccie of our front room now that it has both a floor and a ceiling.

<except there’s not cos I’m tidying up>
Anyway, that’s enough for now. It’s a very strange thing – seeing your house naked. At least it is now covered enough to preserve its modesty.

Alright, so I’ve never lived in a really old house before and I’m not entirely sure how the central heating / hot water system is supposed to work. One thing I am sure of is that it’s not supposed to be boiling and gurgling like a kettle all night. Methinks a quick call to the landlord is in order. On a cheerier front, our house now has floors and they’re working on putting up the ceilings today. The double glazed window units (and the conservatory) take some six to eight weeks to manufacture, so I expect they’re going to hold everything up, but it’s still looking good for christmas.

Hullo all. Things are going pretty much according to plan. The house is cleared now, and I’ve had a swarm of electricians crawling over the place like devil monkeys, wiring stuff up and popping up in front of us barking questions about light switches. Upstairs is very much open plan, other than the wierd disembodied floating hot-water cupboard.

They’ve taken out all the ceilings and floors and laid panels of hardbaord across the joists so you can get about. It’s odd being able to look at your feet and see the floor downstairs.

Anyway, we’re settling into the temporary hoose, but it’s pretty stressful. The children are still pretty shaken by the whole thing. Still, the builders reckon we have a good chance of getting in for christmas, and they’ve pointed us in the direction of various places to go to choose tiles, paints, bathroom suites etc. I think they’re just doing it to keep us out of their hair, but not to worry.

Here’s a picture of my lovely wife, while I’m here, looking very smiley and cheerful

Well, when I said our temporary accomodation was big, I wasn’t really in full possession of the facts. Having now spent a weekend in it, it’s really too big. I don’t mean big as in “Oh mammy, it’s a big hoose!” either. I mean the kind of big that stomps about in tattered leather leiderhosen, swinging a massive club around its head and bellowing incoherently about claymores and rubber dinghies. It’s too sodding big.

I think the trouble is that there are too many different places for children to hide and – I swear to God – too many different places from which Tristan’s giggling little face can peek out at you. It really is quite disturbing – one minute he’ll be yapping about pokemon to your left and the next he’ll have vanished, gone halfway round the house, and reappeared to your right. You never know where to look for him next. Every time he walks into a room, he seems to come from an entirely new direction.

Heating wise it’s not too bad, but I do have issues with the central heating system. The problem is that it’s noisy as hell. I mean really noisy – at night, it sounds like the Hogwarts potions room on exam day, with all the hissing, bubbling, and farting it does. Please don’t make me chooose between heat and sleep. In the end, sleep won and I switched the bugger off. I am feeling a little delicate at the moment, what with our house spontaneously combusting, and the giggling burbling sounds of Stevenson’s Rocket on acid coming from next door was just too much.

I look forward to getting back to my nice little house.

Well, when I said our temporary accomodation was big, I wasn’t really in full possession of the facts. Having now spent a weekend in it, it’s really too big. I don’t mean big as in “Oh mammy, it’s a big hoose!” either. I mean the kind of big that stomps about in tattered leather leiderhosen, swinging a massive club around its head and bellowing incoherently about claymores and rubber dinghies. It’s too sodding big.

I think the trouble is that there are too many different places for children to hide and – I swear to God – too many different places from which Tristan’s giggling little face can peek out at you. It really is quite disturbing – one minute he’ll be yapping about pokemon to your left and the next he’ll have vanished, gone halfway round the house, and reappeared to your right. You never know where to look for him next. Every time he walks into a room, he seems to come from an entirely new direction.

Heating wise it’s not too bad, but I do have issues with the central heating system. The problem is that it’s noisy as hell. I mean really noisy – at night, it sounds like the Hogwarts potions room on exam day, with all the hissing, bubbling, and farting it does. Please don’t make me chooose between heat and sleep. In the end, sleep won and I switched the bugger off. I am feeling a little delicate at the moment, what with our house spontaneously combusting, and the giggling burbling sounds of Stevenson’s Rocket on acid coming from next door was just too much.

I look forward to getting back to my nice little house.