We have doors and a driveway!

Finally we have a front a door! Global door popped round and installed the door in a day. I chose a different handle to the one that comes standard with the door so this had to be ordered in from Germany and will be installed this week.

I am very pleased with the end result. From a few meters back you really cannot tell that it is composite and not wood. The frame feels extremely solid and the hinges and fittings feel and look of quality.

The frame is of the same colour as the door but the protective stickers have been left on until the building work is complete.

The bi folds have been installed too and really change the look of the back of the house. I had concerns that 6 meters of bi fold would have been very heavy and would make opening and closing them difficult. I am glad to say , being made of aluminium they are extremely light. From a locked position to fully open takes less than 45 seconds. As you can see from below , I have one traffic door that opens independently to the left and the other 5 open to the right.

The roof lantern also had the glass installed. A big thank you to Dave at CCS Midland, who whilst on holiday arranged for a replacement panel after one of the builders accidentally broke one. Very pleased with the roof lantern. The alternatives were dome lights which would have cost a lot more money and collectively would not have let as much light through. The lantern was £900 incl delivery.
I opted for a blue tint so the sky always looks blue and the glass supplied was also Pilkington self cleaning glass which is convenient! The lantern is 1..5meter by 2.5 meters.

The driveway concrete base has been laid. This will be left to fully cure and once all the major building has been completed I will arrange for the resin to be laid.

Finally inside the wall that separated the two bedrooms at the front of the bungalow has been removed to create one much larger bedroom.

The old sliding doors , kitchen door, and pillar in between have been removed. The old window from what used to be the bathroom has been removed and bricked up as the will divide the new study from the lounge. The old kitchen window has been removed and this wall will be taken down leaving behind just a pillar to make a larger kitchen area.

Front Door - composite or natural wood? Plus updated pictures of the build.

The front door in my opinion is one of the most important features of a home. It makes a statement and can change the whole look of a house .

There's a huge range of doors on the markets ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.  I started researching doors and in particular those of the oak variety. I got in touch with a few suppliers but was slowly getting put off them them. Wooden doors are not maintenance free and will require restaining etc every few year/few years.  Some suppliers even said they shouldn't be in direct sunlight. Worse still some of the Oak Veneer doors I saw , the veneer had started to come away where moisture had got in.  A solid Oak doors cost 3-4 times that of a composite door, and the Oak veneer door was double.

On top of that , wooden doors contract and expand over the winter and summer months. With the door being my only barrier to the outside as I am not having a porch this started to put me off them . I didn't want a door that would let the cold in and leak noise too.

Equally I didn't want a plasticky looking door. I started too look into composite doors. I got in touch with www.globaldoor.co.uk who I found on the internet. Their prices including fitting looked very resonable. First thing I did was order a sample. The sample came through the post and I was pleased with it. From a distance you would be hard pushed to tell the difference between real and wood and the composite.  So you get the benefits of modern technology ; heat retention, noise insulation and completely maintenance fee but the look of wood. Below is a picture of the composite sample against my real wood floors.

My floor is lighter  but ignoring that, the grain is very realistic both printed and the actual feel.

I was sold so this is style I went with.

The side panels and the glass in the door are all double glazed. I chose the thermal glass upgrade option which is basically better insulated windows. 

Global Doors' surveyor came round on Monday and will fit the door on the 10th of July. The door came with a multi point lock and a thumb lock. I chose not to have the eye view as  I am having a video intercom system. From an insulation point of view a composite door will be much better than a natural wood door.  Up close a natural wood door will always look better but for me the benefits of a composite door outweighed that. 

Below is the opening the door will be going to.

On to the house. The roof is coming a long nicely. The structure of the pitched roof on the side extension is up. The membrane, tiles and roof windows should be installed this week. The flat roof along the rear extension has been laid and the first layer of felt is down. The roof lantern has been installed and the glass panes will be installed once the second layer of felt is down. The ground where the patio will be laid has been dug out and made flat. Footings for the foundation of a small retaining wall have also been dug out. The patio and rear wall should be laid this week before the front door and bi folds are installed. The small wall will be rendered and painted white with lights built into them.

The ground where the patio will be laid has been dug out and made flat. Footings for the foundation of a small retaining wall have also been dug out. The patio and rear wall should be laid this week before the front door and bi folds are installed. The small wall will be rendered and painted white with lights built into them. The garden was only 50ft to begin with and we have lost 12ft to the extension. Rather than build a big patio across the entire back, I have built an area which is 3m by 3m where the seating area will be , the rest of the patio only comes out 1.5m.