The balcony

This is the story of the change of our balcony. It all started friday the 13:th of february 2009.

This is the biggest balconyproject in Sweden, almost 900 balcony to replace.

  This is how it looked before the start, in the good old days, when we both had Nita and snow.

                 


           
In the morning, friday the 13:th of february, it´s all empty. 

This is our wonderful view before they put plastic to cover our windows.

Before lunch on friday the fronts/windows were all gone, (you can see our old windows to the left)

So far it was quite OK for the cats? Not that much noice. Next week it will be worse/the worst!!!

Monday 16:th of february
Up under the roof you can see where they have taken away concret.
And you also see the holes they use for taking the wall down with a chain.
Those holes are the most noisy part of the work.

    


Tuesday 17:th of February

  

James is sitting on our whisky barrel from Mackmyra waiting for his new balcony.

Today I´m mad at the balcony people. At  8 o´clock they gave me 5-10 minutes to take the cats away from the apartment before the big noice with drilling concret was going to start. I took the cats out, in the stair the temporary schulder strap broke, so Lili´s cage came to floor. Luckily I just had taken her so it was not high. 
And at the same time Kanes cage just opened. So I had to run back again and get a new better strap and a leich for Kane, if his cage opens again. 
And then out to the car. Drivning around and waiting. After 1 hour I had to ask them, why they not had started?
Oh no, we just changed the plan so we are going to drill away the metal in the concret between floor and wall. So OK I had wait more. 
I asked when they were going to make the holes in the wall contret when they not did in this morning as they told me, well perhaps this afternoon or tomorrow. 
How am I going to plan when they change the plan in less than 5 minutes!!! They have done almost half of the area. They must have routines by now. 
After 15 minutes, they left to lunch at about 9.30:-( :-( : -(:-.  
The workers knows about the cats!!! I have told them and they have seen me and the cats in the car. There is just about 4-5 guys who works with this.
So I have given up. I really hope that the cats survive all noice.  So far 6 pm no holes. But they work until 7 pm. But so far actually the cats have been calmer than expected. But we use A LOT of Feliway, and resuce drops from Håpe´s. The cats wants to be VERY CLOSE to me. 

Wednesday 18:th of february

Yippie! all floors are gone. And the plastic is also gone, and they have made some more holes,
 so now it is only 4 left outside our apartment. We were sitting in the car a little more than one hour while 
they were working just outside our apartment.
Still no time schedule what they plan to do next. But now it only is to make the last whole and 
to take away the last walls. 

 

             James waiting in the car.                                       Lili resting after waiting in the car.

Thursday 19:th of february

Nothing in special happened. Last floor from the neighbours were taken away and the workers left at noon. And will not come back until monday morning. So more than 3 days in peace and quiet.

Monday 23:d of february

      

Between 7.45  and 8.30 am those awful holes finally were made. We waited in Görans car, warm and nice.
So now they start to take down the walls.



Bye, bye wall.

Now we hope for some peace and quiet days before they start to drill for the new floors.

Tuesday 3:d of March
After a week of "mañana" they had to set a day to do the drilling for the new floors, so Today was
THE DRILLING DAY. There were 48 holes to be drilled, 9 balcony´s in our section of the building. 
   

After preparing everything, we took the cats and left at 9,15 - they went to lunch:-(  
But at 10.30 they finally started. And it was 2 guys working at the same time, made it of course much quicker. 
Göran and the cats were waiting in the car while I tried to work. At 14.00 all the drilling was done. 
After that they put some of the holds in it´s place. So now we wait for the floors to arrive. 

But now all the noicy parts are done:-). We can go back to a calmer and more quiet life. 

Tuesday 11:th of March

In the evening a guy started to check if the holds for the floors are absolutley horizontal by using a laser beam.

James was checking so everthing will be OK in HIS balcony.
He is very eager and wait inside and checks everything:-) He is following the development with great interest.

Wednesday 11:th of March

They have started to put the first floors in it´s place at the first floor.
But there is so far not floors enough for us yet.

Wednesday 18:th of March

Today the floors arrived. This is the first floor, outside my study. 

 

Now we have got the floors. The wall to the neighbour at left there is a special wall for that because of the roof. That wall will be built at the same time as the fronts and windows. Except from the drilling for the floors to the neighbour at the other side on next monday?, it will not happen anything now for 3-4 weeks?

Monday 23:d of March

They kept their promises so now the worst drilling is over. Göran sat in the car with the cats about 2 hours. 
When they drilled for the last hole, they hit a water pipe, but nothing that we at least suffers from. 


Monday 6:d of April 

    

Something is happening outside, they are building the elevator. 

The elevator is sooo quiet, you don´t hear it at all. 
Suddenly you just hear someone working outside the window.
And what a dancing floor, if you just cover the gap:-) 
So now we just wait for the new balconies to arrive. 
Perhaps they are already here but we don´t know wich one that are ours. 

Wednesday 8:th of April

Our balconies were here, today they were placed at the elevator.
So now we just wait that they shall start to build them.

Thursday 9:th of April

Today they built the wall to the neighbours and extended the roof those extra 40 cm deep of the new balcony.

Wednesday 15:th of April

Even Lili has started to get interested in our balcony, and has get used to all strange noice outside.

  

After lunch they have built our balcony, still a little too much a.c :-) 

Thursday 16:th of April

Today we got the last wall/window at the left, so now we just wait for the last piecies.


Wednesday 22:d of April, the balcony is ready to use

James is the one who has suffered most from not having a balcony so we had promised him to take the first steps.

       

    

After him Lili came and last Kane

later that evening we had som temporay furniture out on the balcony

     

James really enjoys the fresh air outside.

Late thursday evening our real furniture came from some renovation

     

And on friday evening the new scrating tree was ready for use.

In a couple of month the balcony will be painted in a cream white color and we will have curtains. 

Wednesday 13:th of May

All of a sudden there was a guy outside the windows starting to put the curtains up 
so I had to take Kane and Lili away from the balcony for a while.



They had to wait in the livingroom.

Thursday 14:th of May

A new step was taken, the building elevator went to next balcone somewhere in the area.


Bye, Bye

And here is the final result - The cats don´t like to have the curtains when they cover the scrathing tree.

except from that they parked a skylift here when I came with the camera:-(

So now we just wait for the painters and some electricity and the sunblinds, but that will be later.

Tuesday 19:th of May

The last building elevator was gone. So now we start to wait for new grass, flowers, bushes etc....

10:th of September it was finally ready

     


(the walls are not striped, it´s shadows)

The only thing that we are waiting for now is blinds on the outside, but there is no hurry, better with wait until spring.



We got the outside blinds in beginning of July 2010.



We are very happy for the final result. James is probably the most happy.



So from 2009-02-13 to 2010-07-08, almost 16 month, but now it´s READY!!