What are we calling it this week?

We're having a new room built on the front of our house. We've been intending to do this for a long time, but for many reasons, mainly to do with the availability of builders and the weather it's being done now. It's almost finished which is a good thing as I am sick of it not being finished, but I am at the 'It will all be worth it in the end' stage.

Originally it was going to be a small sun porch. Lots of houses on Orkney have small sun porches/tiny conservatories on the front. This is partly to do with enjoying views and sunshine and long summer days in the summer, and partly for catching and using what little light there is in the winter. Traditional Orkney houses, like ours, have thick walls and small windows. This is very good for heat conservation, but tends to make the interiors dark.

Several years ago we enquired of a local firm about putting on a conservatory. They came and talked to us, took details, said they would send a builder round to discuss siting and size and they never did. I chased them up twice and got 'I'm very surprised the builder hasn't been in touch Mrs A, I'll chase him up' twice, after which I decided that they weren't going to be coming and wrote them off as a bad job. Which is a good thing because if I had been waiting with bated breath for them to contact me I'd be dead now,  because they never did.

Anyway then we had the new kitchen, and some expensive holidays and a bad year  and then we did the bathroom and bedroom and now the new room is taking shape at last. Because the builder decided it was best to do a pitched roof tied into the roof we already have rather than a flat one we decided that rather than have a measly little conservatory we would make the new room a reasonable size - a size worth building really, which is what we've done. As a result we could no longer call it the sun porch or the conservatory and I call it inter alia the sun room or the garden room and everybody else, when they're asking about progress call it Your Extension.

It's almost done and once it's finished I'll doubtless come on here and shout hurray. Meanwhile here is the story of the whatever room, so far, in pictures.

 

digging foundations (not us the builder!)

 

the slab - which I was sure was too small

 

 

look at the size of those windows - who's going to clean them?

 

going up....

 

lots of storage - those boxes go round two walls. And it's not too small at all.It's bigger than it looks in  this picture.

 

 

We still need the outside rendering finished and the decorator to come back and put some colour on the walls and the electrician to wire in the lights and the sockets properly. But we're almost there.....