I’ve recently started work on the house extension again. Our current en-suite is getting ripped out (I knew I could find a real job for that crowbar!). Got wet removing the sink taps (can’t I ever stay dry when plumbing?)

I didn’t realise how much internal work there would be! You need patient people around for if you plan to take as long as I did.

The roof is now fully complete and I’m taking a couple of weekends off over the festive season!

This was a major milestone! We just had to have the roof on before continued bad weather set in. As it was we worked later in to the year than planned but it was extremely mild and so we were lucky!

Help from Mike who was up on the roof with me doing the tiling.

The only problem was getting anyone interested in doing the flashing – where the front roof slope abutted the existing house wall. No one was interested [at all] and I ended up doing it myself – took ages and isn’t the best job in the world but it seems to have held up!

Getting pretty fed up with Travis Perkins. Late delivery of items is a major pain when I only get to work on the extension at weekends and if they do deliver it they either get it wrong or just dump it on the front lawn.

Although the contact was extremely helpful, the whole company didn’t do me many favours. They were clearly not used to self-build projects.

Made a start on the roof construction now that the trusses have finally arrived. Spent most of Saturday demolishing part of the existing roof so that we could fit the new trusses in. Laid the last course of blocks and the wall plate ready for the trusses to be sited.

Again, more delays on deliveries. Can’t remember why and who created the problem though!

Another 400 yellow bricks arrived today – I was 100 short but they are only sold in full palette quantities.. The delivery driver also moved my ‘spare’ red bricks to a less prominent location – all 900 of them!

Over supply of the red bricks were down to a miscommunication of the palette quantity – I was told 400, so I purchased 10 palettes.. In fact each one held 445 so I ended up with ‘an extra’ palette. Apart from this, I was absolutely spot on with my estimation