Lesley's house starts to shrink

Posted: 12th December 2007 19:11

'I was struck by how small some of the rooms now seem...'

Well, the weather might be murky, but our builders are cracking on as we romp (or should that be stagger?) towards Christmas. Nearly all the walls inside the house have plasterboard on them now and every window will be united with its glass by the end of the weekend. Scaffolding is now a thing of the past and holes are currently being cut in the ground floor ceilings so that the sparkies can install the lighting.

Husband has turned into a shambling, twitching zombie, having had to work out exactly where each of the recessed halogen spots holes should be placed. This is relatively easy to do in the average-sized rooms, but completely mind-boggling in the large, open plan area where there are at least four different lighting zones.

The disappearance of the scaffolding has meant that the paths that run around the sides of the house can be tidied up and levelled a bit – this helps to keep the site looking tidy and cuts down on the amount of mud that gets tramped through the house. Not that it matters so much until the flooring starts to go down and the staircase goes in, at which point everyone will have to learn to levitate immediately. I did notice that Darren-the-builder winced somewhat and looked faint when he saw how pale our ground floor tiles were going to be.

I've heard numerous people say that houses in the process of being built go through phases of 'looking big' or 'looking small'. The addition of plasterboard makes a difference and, after a look around our place at the weekend, I was struck by how small some of the rooms now seem. When the plaster and paint goes on they'll probably revert to looking more spacious again – I hope!

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