First properly decorated wall!

Well, it's not actually a whole wall, but it is painted!  In an ideal world, we would be having lovely dry, sunny weather and be able to put all the plasterboard in followed by all the insulation, then the plywood and lastly the chestnut cladding on the outside.  But, as you know, this is not an ideal world and the weather is definitely not ideal!  Because the forecast is so rubbish, we are having to do all the layers (except the final cladding) section by section so each bit is waterproof before we move onto the next bit.  Soggy plasterboard would be a bit of a disaster!   You'll see that the chicken building inspectors have checked and approved our work.

I think tomorrow is set for heavy rain so we will probably go researching/shopping for stuff like bathroom suites, kitchen sinks, taps, flooring, etc.  We both have colds after our weekend away and so are a bit lacking in energy, so perhaps shopping would be a good option (ha, ha when is shopping EVER a good option?!).

We had a good time visiting in Peterborough.  I saw my nieces in a musical theatre show and very impressed I was too - how did those two little girls grow up into such talented young people without telling me?  I ate far too much all weekend and felt quite sick driving home - actually, that could be the tempura ice-cream Ben and I shared (yep, that's deep fried ice-cream and pretty disgusting it was too, but I guess you have to try these things).

I've decorated the wall on the floor??!!

Yep, how exciting is that - I've done some real decorating!  I've painted two walls . . . . on the floor.  Ben had real trouble getting his head around that until I explained that these were the plasterboard panels which fit in the oak frame.  Because the green oak will shrink over time, we've cut rebates in it for the plasterboard to fit in.  That way, we won't get a gap between the plasterboard and the oak when it shrinks.  So, it makes sense to paint the plasterboard before it fits into the oak frame, so we won't even get a grey line round the edge when it shrinks.  So, we laid all the pieces (14 in all) out on the floor and I have put the first coat on.  It took us all day to cut the pieces to fit.  There are some fiddly bits around the knee braces (the diagonal timbers across the top corners of the walls) involving slightly curving edges and small triangular pieces and then the end wall has a sloping top and a window hole, also with a sloping top.  We also had to cut bits out for sockets.  Still, they are all precision fits and it was a good job done. 

Once again, we had to stop for lots of chats today.  The delivery driver from the builders merchant always stops for a cuppa and a chat when he's here, then this afternoon the Quarry Manager called on his way back from town ostensibly to check the quarry boundary, but he didn't do much checking and we had quite a chat with him.  Then Roy, one of the neighbours who helped with the oak frame had to stop for a while.  He owns a rescue greyhound who is as soft as anything and always enjoys having her ears tickled while we chat.  It has got to the point that she won't walk past without stopping for a tickle and a chat.  I looked out from where we were working and she'd firmly planted her feet and was refusing to move no matter how much Roy coaxed her.  As soon as Bob said 'Come on then', she trotted over and almost jumped off the retaining wall in an effort to get close enough to be stroked.  She then refused to carry on with her walk and Roy had to pick her up and carry her off!  What a softie!  Then, just as we got back to work someone else walking their dog stopped for a chat.  No wonder this house is taking so long!  Only joking, I really like that part of living here.

Oh, nearly forgot - we had a letter from the Planning Department approving the extra window in the timber-frame room which is really good news, I think it will make a lot of difference in there.

Last night's talk on beekeeping was really interesting and has us all fired up to get a hive and give it a go.  I've read a bit about it over the last few months, but was put off because it all sounds so darned complicated and we'd resigned ourselves to just planting flowers to attract bees and maybe making a few 'bee homes' for solitary bees (we'll still do that).  The chap talking was the President of the Shropshire Beekeepers and was very down-to-earth and understood exactly when I said it all sounded too complicated from the books, but said it wasn't really unless you wanted to get fanatical about it.  Did you know you can actually get artificial insemination kits for bees?  Now, how bizarre is that?!  So, maybe next spring we'll get into beekeeping.

We're off to the Far East this weekend . . . . well, Peterborough.  You know, we feel like real country bumpkins whenever we venture out of our little 15 mile radius.  Big roads, fast cars - we're just not used to it.  It's also funny how the jeans I thought were clean and perfectly presentable when I'm slobbing around here, going to the village shop or builders merchants suddenly look shabby and dirty as soon as we get on the M6!  Anyway, we're visiting Bob's Dad and then I'm going to see my neices in a song and dance show and having a girly evening (not sure I can remember how to do girly!) with them, my sister and Laura while Bob comes back here.  Then on Sunday I'm meeting Ben and getting my car back - I'll have forgotten how to drive it it's been so long.  He did promise to clean and hoover it, fill the tank and supply sweets for my journey home - yum.

Bandstand roof and pig-herding!

We have now finished the roof on the timber-frame extension.  Bob thinks it looks like a bandstand in a municipal park with its open sides . . . . we'll be holding a concert on Sunday afternoon at 3pm!  The roof took us longer than expected - we kept having to stop when neighbours stopped for a chat and a cuppa (three separate visitors on consecutive days), not to worry though, it's so nice to not be working to a tight deadline.  Gifts of eating apples and damsons (I feel a batch of damson vodka coming on!) accompanied two visits, so no complaints there!

The slating itself was also a bit slow going.  Although they are supposed to be exactly the same as the slates on the nextdoor roof, they just didn't seem quite as good.  Quite a few broke, even though they didn't 'ring' when we tapped them (they 'ring' if there is a fault in them).   The last corner was quite awkward as working space got smaller and smaller.  For the second to last bit of lead flashing I had to balance on a corner smaller than the space shown in the picture and then reach as far as my arms would stretch - all a bit precarious and I was very glad when it was done.

Unfortunately, we had to use Spanish slates for these roofs.  Welsh slates are supposed to be among the best in the world and that's what we used on the house roof.  The ones that were on there already (some of which we managed to re-use) were from the Llangynog quarry which is about 10 miles away.  They are really chunky and full of character and make slate experts drool!  The chap who delivered the first batch of reclaim slates said he'd give anything to have a house with those slates on.  At the time, we were a bit bewildered - they were just slates weren't they?  But, now that we too are slate anoraks, we can see why!  So, for the house roof we had reclaim Welsh slates (the ones on the side you can see in the picture above weren't brilliant, but the other side of the roof looks much better).  When we did the lean-to roof we managed to get some Llangynog slates from the people who did the scaffolding for us and they do look lovely.  But, by the time we got round to doing the extension roof, one of the main Welsh slate quarries had closed for health & safety reasons and Welsh slate had become like gold dust - all the decent reclaim stuff was snapped up overnight and so we have had to resort to foreign.  It was quite a hard decision to make, but it would have cost an extra £2,000 which is money we just don't have.  You can get Brazilian or Chinese slate, but they are apparently not good at all - very thin and some have little sparkly bits of metal in them which eventually rust leaving holes on your roof and they just look very flat and boring.  It's a bit like comparing a piece of burry elm with a piece of MDF - both do the job, but you just can't compare the look.  The Spanish slates we chose are approved for use in Snowdonia National Park and so can't be too bad.  There, that's your slate lesson for today - sorry to have bored you, but you just never know when it might come in useful!

Yesterday we ordered all the bits for the walls in the bandstand, even bought paint which is really quite exciting.  We also popped into a new furniture shop in town and bought a little pine chest of drawers for one of the spare bedrooms - think it's reasonably old (it has dovetail joints which newer ones don't have) and it was quite cheap so we bought it, just like that, no going home to think about it, just an impulse buy which we don't usually do, but I think we should do more of!  I'm beginning to get quite excited about living in this house - it's starting to become a real possibility instead of just a building site!

On Monday, we were on standby for pig-herding - how cool is that?  Some friends from the smallholder group we're part of had two weener pigs who were due to visit the abbatoir and they wanted backup on standy in case they had trouble getting them into the trailer.  As it was, they managed without any trouble and didn't need to call us - what a disappointment!  Before you say anything, yes, we do feel a bit of a fraud - does three chickens who don't lay eggs and a weedpatch really count as a smallholding?  Whatever, it's a really friendly group and they have some interesting talks - beekeeeping tomorrow.

Oh, before I go, I just wanted to say hello to Hayley who has just registered as a follower of this blog.  I get quite excited when I see a new follower.  Does that sound a bit sad and Billy-no-mates-like - pleeeease, be my friend! 

Timber frame roof

Well, we're back to roofing again.  It all seems quite familiar now having done the whole of the house roof, the lean-to store at the end of the house, the stone extension and now this one.  Still takes a bit of getting your head around and the first bit takes ages, but worth spending some time on because that lays out the whole roof and a mistake here can cause problems all the way along.  Working out where the first batten should go took us about 2 hours (well actually it took us about 5 minutes with an additional 1 hour 55 mins trying to convince ourselves that we'd got it right first time!).  Once that was on though we whizzed along and finished the whole lot in no time.

The slates arrived today and it was the same story - it took us the rest of the afternoon to lay the few shown in the picture and get the lead soakers right (pieces of lead that lay on each slate and go up the little bit of wall to the next roof and stop water getting in the joint).  Now we've done that though we should be able to just get on tomorrow.  The lad who delivered the slates is also a slater and he was actually quite impressed with the other extension roof and told us we'd done a really good job - that was just so nice to hear (especially from an expert!).

Yesterday, because we'd done so well getting all the battens on the roof on Saturday, we gave ourselves the day off and spent it shovelling horse poo!!  Very relaxing.  A neighbour runs a livery stable and has horse muck coming our of his ears (not literally!) and has said we can take as much as we want.  So we went and collected three trailer loads and piled it on top of the heap of soil we were given a while ago, covered it all with plastic and a tarpaulin and will leave it all to steep for a few months before we spread it all out over the clay and stones we call soil at the moment.  So, the whole place smells of horses at the moment!  After that, we went to the garden centre and bought some plants for in and around the retaining wall and then planted them when we got home.  At the moment it looks lovely mainly because the nettles and other weeds haven't had time to take over yet!

Two of the chickens have been a bit off colour for the last few days - don't know why, probably something they ate.  So we have been feeding them a bit of live yoghurt which (just like Yakult) has the friendly bacteria which seems to sort them out.  Sid wouldn't eat hers though and so we hade to resort to the syringe (no needle, don't worry) so we could squirt it down her throat - easier said than done and it takes two of us and we all (chicken included) get in a bit of a mess.  Have you ever tried prising a chicken's beak open with one hand, yoghurt dribbling down the other hand and trying to fend of another other chicken who does like yogurt? Anyway, it seems to do the trick and they're looking better.  Keep you posted.

Time to catch up!

I can't believe nearly two weeks have gone by - so, sorry for not writing anything for a while (Laura did tell me off for not updating this often enough!).


Well, we didn't get too much done over the weekend - Laura was here so we went to the Welsh Food Festival which was really good with loads of free tasters of all sorts of local produce - scrum-yum!  Then to a local canal festival - not quite so tasty, but it was a lovely sunny day so a stroll along the canal was very nice.  Laura had a go at plastering on Sunday which was quite good fun and very messy and then we went shopping in Shrewsbury on her birthday on Monday which made a nice change (although shopping is not really my thing!).    Then on Tuesday, Ben and Lucy called in on their way back from Aberystwyth where Lucy had just taken, and passed, her driving test - well done her!  They were at Uni in Aberystwyth and that's where she learnt and that's why she went back there to take her test.

Big news on the building front is that we put the timber-frame extension up on Wednesday morning.  We enlisted the help of some willing neighbours (five of us in all) which made it a fairly straightforward job.  Starting with a 'site meeting' (well, a cuppa and a chat), it took about an hour and a half with no real glitches.

The joints are all mortice and tenon joints - a square hole in one piece with a square peg on the end of the other which fits into it.  Then some of those joints are pegged - a hole goes through the whole lot and a tight-fitting round wooden peg is knocked in.  As the main timbers dry out, they tighten around the peg to make a really tight joint.  My job last week (as the apprentice) was to make the 'draw pegs'.  Instead of sawing the wood, I split inch square (well roughly inch square) pegs from a piece of oak.  As the wood splits along the grain instead of it being cut through it makes the finished pegs much stronger.  I then used a draw knife to roughly round the pegs and then used a rounding plane (like a giant pencil sharpener) to round them to a consistent size.  I really enjoyed this whole job - it felt as though I was doing something just as it used to be done.

Over the last couple of days, and in between torrential rain, we have put up all the roof timbers and the building inspector has been out to check (and approve) them.

During the rain this morning we went and ordered the slates which should be delivered on Monday.  So the plan is, weather permitting, to put the waterproof breather membrane and battens on over the weekend and then get on with slating next week.  Whenever we have been doing slating, the weather has been absolutely fantastic (too hot to touch the slates on more than one occasion), but I'm not holding out much hope that our luck will hold out for next week, we'll see.  Fingers crossed!

Completely changing the subject, we have tried the first plums from the tree we planted 18 months ago.  Its little branches are completely weighed down, bless it!  They were delicious which is a relief.  We only bought it because of its name (Marjorie which was Bob's mum's name), rather than because we knew how delicious the fruit would be.  That's just not the way you'ree supposed to do things you know, but we got away with it this time!  We also planted a damson at the same time - just before about a hundred other damsons sprang up all over the garden!  So today we picked the whole crop from that . . . .about 15.  I was really surprised at how nice they are to eat raw, I always thought you had to cook them in some way with loads of sugar.  One of the hundreds of other 'damsons' also has fruit on and we have been waiting for the green fruit to turn purple, but they seem to be turning yellow instead.  So, I tried one of them and it was lovely . . . . having looked in the books, we think it must be a greengage.  Never had them before, so that was a nice surprise.  So, we now have a bowl of our own fruit to pick at - fantastic.