Pleasantly surprised

No work done today because nobody turned up, not even the electrician, which I confess came as a bit of a surprise in view of what still has to be done. However, they know the date on which the house is due to be connected to electricity (29th of this month), which means that it’ll have to be pretty much complete and ready for occupation. So I assume they all know what they’re doing.

Out of the wind the sunshine outside is very warm, about the same as a typical UK summer I’d say, but the wind still has a bitterly cold edge to it and the overnight temperature was also below freezing. So it’s not a good time to be working outside and it’s also incredibly cold inside the house. I suppose that as it’s so well insulated it’ll take a long time to warm up even when the weather gets warmer.

As the house is now clear of all tools and rubbish, I thought this would be a good time to go around and check some measurements in view of the small discrepancy that I found previously in the kitchen. And as it turned out, I was very pleasantly surprised because the small error in the kitchen is the only one and in fact the internal dimensions of every other space in the house are the same as or, mostly, slighter great than on my plan.

I was a bit worried about the space on the living room side of the kitchen wall in view of the kitchen wall being slightly longer than plan (166cm compared to 160cm). I still have the dining room set that I brought with me from the UK which I was never able to use in Plazac because of its size. It comprises a table and eight chairs, two of which are ‘captain’ style with arms. And the table also comes with an extension and has sat ten people in the past, at Christmas and times like that.

So the size of the space that I allowed for it in my plan was critical, but I needn’t have worried. I mentioned in my last post that the living room is almost 10 cm longer externally than my original plan and even with the longer kitchen wall dimension, this translated into a 4cm difference in the width of the dining area – 397cm compared to 393cm. That will be very useful as it’ll provide enough space for the drinks and china cabinet that will be standing against the walls opposite the ends of the table.

And then I looked at the width of the living room, which I’d planned to be 679cm. It’s actually 682cm, and the length of the wall turning back towards the front door is also 2cm longer than plan at 648cm compared to 646cm. Even the little separate WC is 2cm wider than planned – 84cm compared to 82cm.

And so it goes on. We already know that the kitchen wall backing onto the 3rd bedroom is 2cm longer than planned – 184cm compared to 182cm. This means that the equivalent walls of bedrooms 3 and 1 are also longer by the same amount meaning the bedrooms are that much wider. The length of bedroom 3 is as per plan at 329cm but bedroom 1 is 1cm longer than planned at 351cm compared to plan 350cm.

However, at the ‘bedhead’ end, bedroom 1 is also 1cm wider than plan (338cm compared to 337cm) and bedroom 2, 2cm wider (323cm compared to 321cm), while in addition the alcoves in each bedroom in which I’ll be building fitted cupboards are also 1cm longer than planned (249cm compared to 248cm). But the biggest gains have been made down the front of the house.

The length of the ‘cellier’ and bathroom were supposed to be 266cm but actually they’ve come out at 269cm. And that’s even after the corridor running up the house has been made 2cm wider than plan (102cm compared to 100cm). The width of the bathroom was planned to be 226cm and it’s come out at 228cm and the width of the ‘cellier’ is also 2cm wider than planned, at 188cm compared to 186cm.

So taken all round, the house’s size outcome is very pleasing. No space has come out to be smaller than planned – in fact they’ve all come out to be slightly larger, and where it matters as well, in the ‘bedhead’ widths of the bedrooms where you want to have bedside cabinets either side of the bed and still have space left over and the size of the dining space.

I have to say, I’m looking forward very much to moving in and enjoying the house, especially after having spent the past 21 months in the cramped and primitive confines of my old caravan. The upside is, though, that it has saved me thousands of euros that I’ll be able to spend on decorating and equipping the house and making it really comfortable to live in.

I’ve asked the electrician to provide a cable at the rear ready for a small swimming pool pump. Nothing fancy, just a little 8.2 x 4.7 metre job, 1.3 metres deep, ‘semi enterrée’ (partially in the ground) with wooden sides. That’ll be lovely for languishing in during the hot summer days to come and it’ll be a great swap after the caravan 😉