A basement porch

This week I've beeen in the process of building a porch over a stairway to a basement.

The rain has not helped!
Raf the plasterer has been going home miserable and looking like a drowned rat.
Sometimes it has felt like a training camp for the Somme.

An old loo had to be taken out, the brickwork made good and raised up to give what will be a full height ante room. The brickwork was in a terrible condition and the render was falling off the walls. Added to that we needed to sink a sump hole right next to an old main sewer pipe.
The basement has flooded several times over the years and so the owners are installing a sump pump to (hopefully) cope with any new flooding. Now that all the ground work is done the next stage is to build the superstructure. This should be completed next week if the weather allows.
I'll be publishing pictures as the project develops and they can be viewed on my photo blog.
To see what's happening follow this link it will be updated daily.