It was an early start to get to the house to test the underfloor heating before the cement truck arrived. Unfortunately, the company delivering the cement rang as we were driving across, asking if they could arrive half an hour early. Gone was our prep time.

Arriving soon after us our cement deliverer was in a foul mood. He was clearly unhappy about the steps up to the house, the office not having passed on this information. He also told us our boards were unnecessary, and wasn’t pleased we were still fiddling around testing the heating.

Still, as he began barrowing the cement, some 2.7 m3 of it, we were pleased to have him.

While he barrowed in and dumped the cement, we spread it out and flattened it, using the back of a rake and a long piece of wood.

Around half-way through, our cement deliverer stopped to state how impressed he was with our work. He’d been worried when he arrived, but we were clearly experienced or good at faking it. No bad thing if you can fool an expert.

Cement spread, we had to wait for it to set a little before compacting it. Upstairs Chris continued installing sockets.

I meanwhile continued clearing the other rooms of rubbish and tidying.

Sockets and tidying done we carried on with boarding the ceiling.

And lastly Chris removed a large piece of wood beside the stairs. With this gone we have space for significantly wider stairs without having to start cutting into the floor, something we only realised fairly late in the day.

The cement finally set enough, we used left over pieces of insulation to move across the floor and smooth the surface with a trowel. It will take a month for the floor to dry enough for it to be polished. In the meantime, we look forward to having something solid to walk on.