After a few weekends fighting with the floor, Chris had success evening with a rented whacker plate, which compacted the soil down to the right level. Floor finally at the right height he moved in the sand, which was also compacted down using the whacker plate till it was properly flattened.

On Saturday, while I was busy running my monthly volunteer day, Chris continued his good work and got the vapour membrane down before adding insulation.

He also started installing back boxes ready to install our plug sockets.

Joining Chris on Sunday I took over on the insulation board, filling in gaps with pieces of board, before plugging smaller gaps with expanding foam. In order to stop the boards moving too much as we walked across them, we weighted them down with bricks while the foam set. All joins were then taped with insulating tape.

In order to properly join the vapour membrane on the floor with the membrane that had already been installed on the walls, we had to remove the lower plaster boards, so as to tape it down behind the boards.

Upstairs Chris managed to complete a job that had previously annoyed us, installing the insulation board above the window recesses.

With the boards all fixed in place we laid another plastic sheet over the top, which would act as a slip sheet. Marking out where the kitchen cabinets would go we began laying out the underfloor heating pipe everywhere apart from under the future cabinets. It was surprisingly easy to install, unrolling the coil and using plastic clips to fasten it to the floor. It was important to keep the pipe around 20cm apart from the next run, and to end up back where we started, so we curved our way round the room with care.

At the end it looked a pretty smart job, almost like we knew what we were doing. Finally the floor is ready for the concrete. Having initially thought we might mix the concrete ourselves we decided in the end to order a cement lorry. Always nice if someone else can do some of the hard work.

As the shell of the house slowly gets closer to completion Chris has been hunting down some bargains. He managed to win a £400 shower door and tray at an auction for £30, and picked up a toilet someone was getting rid of for free. With the concrete floor so close to completion we’re just getting ready to bid on a used kitchen. He keeps reminding me we have a lot of do still, but it’s feeling more and more like a liveable house with ever step we take. Which is lucky when our own house sale is now in the hands of the solicitors…