Two week Transformation (part 1)

Just returned from 2 weeks "holiday" at the chalet. 2 Weeks of hard work building. 2 weeks turning what was really a building site into something livable.
We arrived on Saturday evening and installed our selves.
Priorities were set and established. A kitchen sink and the shower were at the top of these priorities, but it being Sunday and both of these activities required the purchase of stuff we made do with placing the dining room floor. This meant I had to complete all the electrics in the kitchen and dining room before the patchwork of blue insulation could be laid around the cables and have green 22mm chipboard laid on top of it. Sunday night at 1 am (Monday morning) We had a dining room floor.


Covers up the snake pit nicely!

Monday and after a trip down to Voiron's I return to plumb the sink in with what I thought was 8 meters of 40mm diameter waste pipe. This is to carry the waste water from the sink along under the kitchen units then down into what will be the second bathroom and connect into the drain. Easy thing to buy you would think and it should be. I went to the shop requested 8m of 40mm waste pipe in my best French and it was understood (a minor miracle in its self) and I was pointed at a formidable rack of grey pipes that presumably contained my pipe. OK. The rack it turns out contains every diameter of grey waste pipe known to man and several unknown bits and pieces. Well 40mm is 40mm how hard can it be? I spent a literally a 10 minutes trying to decide which pipe was the correct one knowing that I would almost certainly choose the wrong one. Most of the pipes could be ignored as they were obviously too big or too small and it came down to a choice of three, 40mm external diameter (yes I had a tape measure with me) 40 mm internal diameter and some other pipe that said it was 40mm but I couldn't measure 40mm anywhere, 35 internal and 37/8 external, anyway there was not much of this strange pipe around so I chose the 40mm internal diameter pipe on the basis that there was a lot of it and it looked about right (?) Of course when I got this back to the chalet and compared it to a piece of real 40mm pipe I knew I should have chosen the 40mm external diameter! Fine! I knew this would happen I can return it and swap it for some correct pipe. Only fly in that ointment was that this pipe comes in 6 meter lengths and in order to get it into the car I had to saw up a 6 meter length into 3, 2 meter bits and then with great care I had actually hunted about to find a 2(ish) meter length of this stupid wrong pipe to make up to 8 meters. Anyway I was unsure how they would take back there 8 meters pipes when it was in 4 pieces!.

Well it would have to wait until tomorrow, today I had plumbing to do. I had to get the hot and cold water from one side of the chalet to the other. From the "hot room" across the ceiling to under the shower room (through a concrete beam on the way)
Of course for this I would need copper pipe and this morning Voiron's had had none so I scoured Morzine for 16mm copper pipe, I scrounged up about 5, 2 meter lengths of pipe (i needed at least 8) from about three different shops. Right these all have to be soldered up together and taken through a stud wall and a concrete beam to get to the right place.


Through the beam and to the taps...


Then on with the plastic pipe, through the wall, through what will be the second bathroom...


and up into the kitchen under the fridge, round under all the kitchen units and up into the taps


Now the waste has to reverse that journey via a U bend under the kitchen units down into the second bathroom and into the drain.

All this took me until Tuesday to finish, but Siew Ling was very happy with her kitchen as it now had hot and cold running water (like all good kitchens should have!)
Voiron's very gracefully accepted the 4 bits of pipe and allowed me to take another 4 bits of the correct pipe, they also found a few more copper pipes in the back somewhere that I needed.

So running a little late with the list of priorities, Wednesday saw me started on completion of the shower. Wednesday saw the first real disaster (of the whole build really) I was constructing the shower door assembly and holding one of the glass panels when all of a sudden it turned with a snap, from a glass panel into a pile of windscreen glass


I don't really know what happened just it went from one solid piece to thousands of pieces in a split second for no apparent reason, other than I was holding it.
Well this was pretty bad news the 300 Euro shower was pretty much junk now and I was rather annoyed.

Thursday and I went at the studding around the shower and the bedroom. This went well, and despite the last minute change to on suite the door frames all went in well.


Sound insulation and plaster board


Having finally done this piece of studding I could finish the other side of this wall and plater board the section between the two bedrooms. (sorry no photo)

Electrics in the walls takes forever, setting in the lights and plugs and heating cables demands constant thoughts about what is going where and what will be connected to what. The radiator in the second bedroom in wired in and connected up as is the power socket and then the cable runs up to power the entrance plugs. (Slightly unconventional but something I forgot when we floored the dining room) Still it is still within the 8 plug sockets allowed on one line of 2.5mm cable, 3 in each bedroom, one on the landing and one in the entrance makes 8.

Thursday saw blue insulation go down in the entrance and then the afternoon was spent with the family.

Friday was a trip down to Geneva to drop Siew Ling and Hari off at the train station (Ohmri was at camp this week) and on the way back stop off at Thonon to see what they can do about my shower doors.Nothing it appears. I bought it too long ago so they cannot replace it and the one single shower they have of that model (now reduced from 299 to 199) is for sale fully assembled! I cant get it back even if I buy a completely new shower. Well just below the assembled showroom shower is a set of doors that might just fit. I will have them! 199 euros! bugger. This shower that was pretty cheap just got pretty expensive! That afternoon I fitted the new doors together and with Robs help (he turned up with the family on Wednesday (I think it was Wednesday?) The new doors were fitted.


They look OK and apart from some fiddling about with the tops of the old shower they work quite well. I was able to have my first shower and the shower works really well. (thank heavens)

Saturday and I cleared out the second bedroom, swept and hoovered then put the 40mm blue insulation down followed by the last of the 19mm chipboard. I need another 20 odd bits to finish the rest. Then I painted 2 of the walls of the bedroom with the porridge paint from Zürich. Which is not as porridge as it looks. It seems to dry quite white. White enough to probably not need to be painted.

Thats it for now I will continue with the next week in the next post.