Going?

I got a call from the Conservatory Firm on Thursday to say they would be taking down the old conservatory this week, which is good news and on date, as they said that works would start five weeks from placing the order with them. Hopefully work will continue and foundations dug and walls built, etc.

The old shed went on Thursday evening, it was dismantled and taken away in under an hour.

The new plastic shed arrived on the day B&Q said it would, it came in a big polythene wrapped box and was sitting on my drive when I got home. I put it up on Saturday and it only took an hour. It seems well made and feels pretty sturdy, the obvious main benefit is that it should be maintenance free.

Empty

 

The old conservatory is emptied out now, just a big horrible glass box. Ants seem to have got in under a power socket at the far end of the conservatory as there was a pile of fine soil sand next to the socket. Still waiting for things to start, which will hopefully be in the next week.

The new shed arrives today. I was told it would be here in four weeks, but I got a phone call from B&Q to say it would be delivered on Tuesday, that’s only a week from ordering it. The old shed should be going at the weekend.

Found a an interesting website called www.floorplanner.com where you can design houses / room layouts, etc. online. It’s all Flash based and I found it very easy to use. It’s free for personal limited use. Below is a quick layout of my house (with new conservatory), I didn’t do any measuring so the room sizes probably aren’t correct, but it gives you a good idea as to how it looks.

Update

Not much to update really, still waiting for a start date. I advertised the two sofas in the conservatory, but got no interest, so I thought I would offer to them to Hospice who have a used furniture warehouse. Two men and a lorry turned up yesterday, but as the sofas were a bit sun faded they said they couldn’t take them as Hospice had moved up market. I thought the idea of the warehouse was to provide furniture to people at reasonable prices who couldn’t afford new. Yes the sofas were faded, but they had hardly been used and having loose covers it would be possible to either have new covers made or re dye the existing ones. Looks like they will both be going down to the Recycle Shed at the Amenity Site.

Decided to replace my garden shed, going for a slightly smaller one constructed in plastic, this will make more room in that area of the garden and it will (hopefully) be easier to maintain. I advertised the shed as a giveaway and last night someone phoned who wanted it. As it’s free the taker must dismantle and take away. Should be going either this weekend or next.

As Is

Here are a couple of photos which show the Conservatory as it is at the present, just a big glass box.

Decision Time

When I moved into this bungalow about five years ago, there was already a conservatory attached to the back of the house and accessed through patio doors from the dining hall (that sounds posh, but it is just a combined hall and dining room). The conservatory however is just a glass box, full height glass walls and a plastic roof. It had been fitted under the soffit of the house roof, which meant that there were steps down into it from the main house. It is too hot in summer and freezing cold in winter, it is also quite small being about 3 metres by 3 metres and is white in colour which doesn’t match the dark wood windows in the rest of the house. I think in all the time I have lived here, I have only used the conservatory no more than a couple of dozen times.

Back in November 2009 I decided it was time to replace it with something better. A slightly bigger conservatory with proper dwarf brick walls, Mahogany style PVC to match the the windows, a peaked roof that goes into a false roof built into the existing bungalow roof, French doors leading out onto a decked area (covering lawn which can only be a good thing). I also want a solid roof, not a tiled roof, but a lightweight plastic roof with a fibre glass outer surface which looks like roof slates and a white inner finish. This will help keep the conservatory cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. A bit of research on the interweb came up with this system which will hopefully work quite well.

I contacted two local companies to get quotes and both came round within a few days. Over two months later I received one price and as they quoted for what I wanted, it was within my budget and as I have been using that company for over twenty years, I accepted their price.

Start will be in about 5 weeks, so there wont be much to add here for a while. I need to empty out the old conservatory and sell a couple of sofas that are in there.

I will keep this blog updated with regular updates and photos as the build progresses. Hopefully everything will be finished and useable by June 2010.

Above is how the conservatory is at the moment.

This is how the conservatory should be when finished.