Door No 2

Yet more excitement on the building site!  We now have a kitchen door . . . . well nearly.  Once again we are waiting for varnish to dry!  Bob took the old door frame out and cleaned up and re-pointed the hole - looks better already.  I think the chickens are probably a bit disappointed that the old door has gone, they were quite partial to a bit of lead-based paint to peck at!  They'll be even more disappointed when they realised that they can't limbo under the new door to get in the house.

So, the new door is made and has one coat of varnish on which is just about dry - if it's sunny tomorrow, we'll give it another coat but if not it'll have to wait.  This afternoon we tried it in place and put the hinges on and with just a little bit of tweeking it fits beautifully.  The arched piece is made and awaiting another coat of paint before it is attached to the top of the door frame.  It just looks sooooo different with a nice, solid door there that actually reaches the ground - all the mod cons here you know!  We might even get electricity one day!!

The stair hole has now had it's first coat of plaster and looks much better for it - but that is also taking rather a long time to dry.  It has been a beautiful sunny-blue-sky day today, but bitterly cold but I don't suppose plaster, varnish and paint take any notice of the colour of the sky when deciding whether to dry or not.

The smallholder quiz was a good laugh as expected.  The finish was so close - at the end of the quiz we were tied first place and so had to answer a tie-breaker question.  The quizmaster had clocked the mileage from the nearest crossroads to the hall and we had to say how far.  We said 1.76 miles, the other team said 1.78 . . . . the answer was 1.8, so we were just pipped to the post - couldn't have been much closer though.  We were actually quite proud of our score though because the questions this year were all smallholding-related and between the whole of our team we have six chickens . . . . that's all.  The other team are all proper smallholders with pigs, sheep, chickens, orchards and everything, so we didn't do too badly.

The stair hole's done

We have finished knocking through the hole for the stairs.  We actually finished the knocking through yesterday after a full day at it (that's the stage shown in the photo.  Then this morning Bob got the angle grinder to the stones that were well-embedded in the wall that's staying, but stuck out into the stair hole.  That done, we have both spent the afternoon re-building it!  Don't worry, there weren't any disasters, but we had to 'make good' the edges and fill in gaps - doesn't sound much, but it took us until 7pm.  It's a bit scrappy looking now, but also looks fairly solid.  Most of it will get a layer of our rough plaster like the kitchen and bedroom - angle ground (angle grinded?) edges don't look at all pretty so need covering up.  This will then blend into the painted-only stones that will make up the hall side of the wall.  We have had a few very long days of real hard work and are both now a bit achy and knackered!!  Oh, for a hot bath! 

Tomorrow we are off to defend our title as quiz champions at the Smallholders Group - should be a laugh and everyone brings lovely food!  I hope they don't mix the teams up because I think we owe our win last year more to our team-mates than ourselves. 

Boulders (Part II)

Yes, we were supposed to carry on with the stair hole on Thursday, but the weather turned quite cold, too cold for mortar and so we had to leave it until today.  It was also too cold to paint door frames, oil the inside of the door, plaster, etc, etc.  So instead we hung the front door (just have to be careful with wheelbarrows!) and put the kitchen door together.  It does seem strange to have a door to close at the end of the day.  Some friends came round this afternoon and knocked on it (at least the first people weren't Jehovah's Witnesses!).

Anyway, today we got on with the other side of the hole.  Bob went off to the shops for milk and a paper and then went to

borrow something from a neighbour, so I thought I'd make a start.  Half way through bashing away at the wall and pulling out big rocks I suddenly thought 'blimey, I would never, never have dared to do this sort of thing on my own before'.  By the time Bob got back, I'd broken though and could wave from the other side of the wall and we then got on with it together.   There were some quite big stones above our hole which we really wanted to stay in place and most of them did.  One was a bit loose though and would have been a pain if it fell out.  Luckily the wall strap (a metal strap we'd put in ages ago to hold the plate the rafters sit on in place) was in just the right place to screw into it.  So while I held the rock up and stopped it moving, Bob drilled a hole in it, put in a wall plug and then screwed the strap on, bent the strap underneath and, hey presto, the stone stayed where it was.  This also has the advantage of building the strap into the wall for extra strength.

Bob then built up under his side with bricks and we put the two lintels in, mortarred (?? think I've queried this spelling before and it still doesn't look right) them in and temporarily propped the stones above up with other stones.  Phew, no mishaps and we will now leave that all to set before we start bashing away at the stones below.

I need to ring Mum now and tell her she can come back from Swaffam.  Aparently, while they were building their bungalow, if anything scarey or dangerous was being done she would have to go into town because she couldn't look and she told me these lintels were one of those sort of jobs and she would've had to take herself off to Swaffam until it was safe!

The snowdrops are out!

Boulders in my bra!

No, I'm not talking about my figure, I mean real boulders! We started knocking the hole through for the stairs today and bits of rock kept falling down the neck of my sweatchirt and finding their way into all sorts of places! Not very comfortable I can tell you! The things we girl-builders have to put up with!

After thinking about it for sometime, Bob makes the first move.  The idea is to take the stones out at the top of the hole first, then work downwards. 

This has got to be about the most solid bit of wall in the whole house and it took quite a while to chip away the mortar and loosen the stones, some of them quite big.  The walls are basically two skins of stone with rubble in the middle.  So we have started on the hall side and taken out the big outer-skin stones and as much of the middle rubble to clear the hole we need.  Luckily, the stones above stayed in place (one advantage of this being a solid wall) - they could so easily have fallen down when we took the ones below out.  Now, that would have been a bit of a nuisance, because that is what the stone extension roof is attached to, so best avoided if possible.


Before we could put the first lintel in you have to make sure there is something for it to sit on.  On one side, we managed to leave a stone in place that had a ledge for the lintel - that's good, because it means it is all tied into the rest of the wall.  On the other side, the way the stones were, meant that we had to build up from lower down where there was a good stone sticking out.  It is all an odd thing to do - you're kind of building the sides of the opening from the top down.






So, with a platform on each side you can then put the lintel in place, check it's straight and level and then leave well alone for the mortar to dry. Phew, stage one accomplished with no mishaps!

Tomorrow, we will do the same on the other side of the wall.  Then when that's set in place, we can get on with taking out the rest of the stone, knowing that the top of the wall is supported by the concrete lintels.  The sides will then need tidying up with stones or bricks to make a reasonably even opening and the lintel will need disguising in some way.  It's all going to be painted, but it'll still need 'naturalising' somehow.

You'll be pleased to know that we have three coats of varnish on the door . . . . . and they're all dry!  It's a bit of an odd finish, some bits seem to have soaked in and given a matt finish and other bits seem to have stayed on the surface and given a shiny finish?!  We may have to give it a quick buff with some wire wool to even it out a bit.  Course, at the moment it is lying on trestles and we're peering along its length, moving our heads this way and that to get the light shining on it - when it's upright, with only natural light it may look fine.  Anyway, it's now ready to hang, but we thought it'd be a bit silly to hang it and then start squeezing past it with wheelbarrows full of rocks - just be patient and wait a day or two Janet!  The other door is ready to nail together, but has to wait in the queue for the first door to move out of the way.  The frame for the second door is put together and painted (and dry!), so ready to go in whenever.  I have done some more plastering in the kitchen, so the wires are now hidden and there's even a flat bit for the tiles above the worktops to be attached to. 

I was very excited today when a delivery arrived from John Lewis!  Ordered on t'internet on Monday, no delivery charge and delivered today - jolly good service I'd say.  It was the light for over the kitchen table . . . . it's brilliant (in my opinion).  It's a brass shade with a pulley system for altering the height and a brass weight to counterbalance it.  We've had a play!  It's really heavy and looks well made (or engineered I should say), soooo exciting! 

120 hours and the varnish is dry!

That's right, 120 hours for the varnish on the door to dry enough for the second coat!  The conditions really weren't ideal.  To start with it was quite cold and very wet and then when it did warm up, it was still raining and because of the fairly sudden temperature change it was actually warmer outside than in and everywhere ended up covered in condensation.  We had condensation on the OUTSIDE of the windows for goodness sake!  Anyway, today the door felt dry and so I put the second coat on - should be dry by about Wednesday!

We had a bit of a crappy day yesterday.  The Building Inspector came round to look at the insulation which he was more than happy with and passed with barely a second glance.  He was not so happy with the plumbing though.  In some places, the pipes run between the stone walls and the insulation and, even though they are lagged, he said he didn't think that was such a good idea.  I can see his point - the insulation is designed to stop warmth getting out, so the pipes are on the cold side.  I would have thought that 18" stone should stop them freezing though.  There is a bit where the pipes run along the top of the wall under the roof and this is the bit that Bob is now worried about.  We got some insulation between the roof and the pipes, the pipes are lagged and I've stuffed offcuts wherever I can, but it is a bit of a weakpoint.  My solution would be to leave some gaps in the insulation between the room and the pipes which would allow them some warmth from inside (obviously if we're away in winter we'd leave some heating on for exactly that reason).  I guess eco folk would throw their hands up in horror, but I think you have to find a balance.  I managed not to need a tumble dryer for 20 years because the warm pipes in the airing cupboard were exposed and I could dry a washer load in there overnight.  Anyway, the plumber should be coming round soon to talk it through and see what needs to be done.  The Inspector (not our usual one by the way) was just voicing his thoughts and said he wouldn't fail it, but will put a note on the file.  They can be doom-merchants you know.  When we were discussing underpinning and damp proofing with one, he ended up telling us all sorts of tales about houses sliding down hills faster than their owners could run because the foundations weren't good enough!  All in all though we felt a little fed-up after he'd gone and were glad when some friends walked past and came in for a cup of tea, chocolate biscuits and a chat to cheer us up!

We now have three laying chickens.  Bonny finally decided to get on with her job and laid her first egg on Wednesday.  Today's offering is massive - about twice the size of the others - so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a double yolker.  Bob's turn to have it this time.  No more signs of the fox (except a pile of pigeon feathers at the end of the lane).  The chickens have taken to wandering during the day though which is a bit of a worry.  I think it is the new ones leading the other two astray because we never really had any problems before.  They find the wood across the lane very interesting and keep going a bit further each time.  They do usually come back when you call them though and come running down the hill and under the fence and stand expectantly at your feet waiting for the treat they think we should always give them - they do make me laugh.  We give them something every few times, just so they keep coming back!  This afternoon Bob had to go into the wood to round them up and that looked like a real comedy sketch as he ran round flapping his arms chasing chickens all over the place.

We have a door . . . nearly!

Yes, the door is really nearly finished.  This is it just propped in place, checking for fit etc.  Then we put the hinges on and hung it for real to make sure you can open it without it catching anywhere, and you can which is good.  We have taken it down again though because you can do a better job of varnishing it when it's lying flat - less dripping and the varnish should go into the knots, etc.  We have some varnish recommended by the chap at the timber yard where we got the oak from - it is a cross between and oil and a varnish, so it should soak into the wood and doesn't give a gloss finish.  It is supposed to take 4-6 hours to dry . . . . I did it 29 hours ago and it's still a bit tacky!!  Guess cold and raining doesn't give ideal drying conditions - it's going to take a while to get three coats on at this rate though!  So, we've sealed the kitchen off and left it alone.  We had to seal it off because I've been doing the insulation in the utility room roof today (yep, we like the shiny silver look so much we're having it throughout!) and that's a really dusty job.  That'd look nice wouldn't it - handmade, traditional oak doors with  insulation dust finish!

We had a look at the weather forecast for the next few days and it was really strange to see both the maximum and minimum temperatures for Wednesday in double figures and with no minus sign in front of them!  That's almost 30 degrees warmer than it was before Christmas!!! What will we do with ourselves - shorts and a barbeque?!

Fox alert!!!!!



Bob and his girls in the snow

 Well, we got the snow that was forecast this morning and quite a bit of it too.  It's now turned drippy, a bit slushy and very slippery!  The chickens weren't too bothered about it - especially when leftover pasta was on offer (yes, that's why they are flocking round Bob!).  It was still snowing when we got up this morning and when Bob went up to open the chicken house before breakfast there were fresh fox prints in front of the run!  PANIC!!!!  ALARM BELLS!!!!!  Calming down a bit though, they went along the path several feet away from the door then turned back on themselves and up into the woods.  Strangely, they didn't veer closer to the chicken run door so presumably our visitor wasn't too interested.  Could be that Bob coming out of the caravan scared it off (not a bad thing) because the tracks were very new - they were very clear and in falling snow they don't stay that way for long.  For all we know, the fox trots along through our garden every morning and normally we just don't know anything about it.  Anyway, we left the chucks shut safely in the run for a bit longer than we usually do today.  Glad they have the old pigsty as a run - with its stone walls and brick floor it is unlikely a predator could dig its way in.

Today we have both been working on the door.  Nailing it together is definitely a two man job, but Bob had to make do with me!  There's quite a bit of do a bit on one side, turn it over, do a bit on the other side, turn it back and so on and as the doors are quite thick oak, they weigh an awful lot.  As with everything, this job took at least twice as long as we expected (hopefully the next one will be quicker now we know what we're doing!).  It is now all nailed together and clenched of course!  The hinges are ready for us to collect, so we'll get those tomorrow when I go to give blood.  Then we can cut the door to length, fit the hinges and try it on for size.  It will be sooooooo strange to have a real door.  At the moment we 'lock up' by unrolling a sheet of burlgar-proof plastic and tucking it into the wall cavity!

Shiny space-age house

Upstairs in the house now looks really weird.  Alongside the old brick fireplace, we now have metallic, shiny silver walls!  Very bizarre looking.  It does actually feel warmer up there than downstairs which is encouraging and it seems lighter too.  Guess if you have mirror walls it should do!!

So, the ceiling has 2" insulation board between the rafters and then 3" or 4" below the rafters.  The walls have 1" between the studwork and another 1" on the roomside.  Then I've stuffed rockwool in any little nooks and crannies around wonky bricks, etc and taped all the joints with special foil tape.  That's weird stuff - it's like sticky tinfoil and, oh, don't ever pull the backing paper off a strip all at once, it curls up on itself before you can blink and then you get in a right pickle trying to sort it out . . . . . . not that I've done that at all of course, no, not me!!  All in all, we should be fairly toasty up there I think.  We now have to get the building inspector to take a look and then we can plasterboard . . . . . well, after the plumber has done the pipes for the radiator  . . . . . and there is one more oak post to go in first.  Oh, there's always something else to do before we can do the next thing!

While I've been insulating, Bob has been carrying on with the doors.  We had a bit of a palaver getting the nails.  We wanted traditional rose-head nails - the ones you see on old doors that look like little studs on the outside and on the inside you see the ends bent over and back into the wood.  Bob found the only company in Britain still making them - it's in Glasgow, but the Period House shop in Shrewsbury is one of their stockists.  On New Year's Eve Bob rang them to make sure they had some in stock - yes, loads.  So on Tuesday we went to get them.  They didn't have any 3", only 21/2" - the chap on the phone had made a mistake.  But, the lady running the shop could pick some up from their Ludlow shop and bring them with her the next day.  So, Bob went back the next day - oops! she'd forgotten them!  Her partner was driving over with them, so Bob went off for a coffee while he waited.  When he got home we excitedly (doesn't take much!) opened the boxes to have a look.  The first one we got out was only 21/2" long, and the next, and the next and so on.  Out of 11/2kg of nails we only had 30 that were the right length!  Anyway, a couple of phonecalls later and the poor girl at the Ludlow shop was sorting through their big box of nails to find  11/2kg of 3" nails and then posted them to us and they arrived special delivery this afternoon.

Now we have to learn how to clench!  No, it's not a post-Christmas exercise for firming the buttocks!  It's when the nail is knocked through the wood with the pointy end sticking out the other side and then the end is bent over and knocked back into the wood a bit like a staple which fixes the joint.  It's not that easy, but by the time the doors are finished we should have the hang of it.  The nails are really quite soft which is good for bending them over, but means that the pilot holes have to be just right or the nails bend all over the place as you knock them in.  The other problem is that when you knock the pointy end back into the wood it can knock the head end back out.  Following some internet research, tomorrow we will try holding a sturdy hammer against the head while the pointy bit is knocked back in . . . let you know how we get on.

The chickens have finished their Christmas stalk of sprouts and so are glad that the snow's gone and the garden has thawed out enough for them to peck at the greenery.  I haven't told them that more snow is forecast for tomorrow yet!  Still no eggs from Bonny, but her comb is definitely bigger which apparently happens when they are ready to start laying, so we have high hopes for the next few days.  Did I tell you Peggy laid a lovely double-yolker just before Christmas - just my sort of egg, lots of yolk and not much white and delicious in my bacon butty!  They have all taken to wandering around the bit of woodland across the lane which is owned by the quarry.  Yesterday, the quarry manager came round to take some photos of the Keep Out signs for some report or other and said that if the chickens are in the picture, he'll put in his bio-diversity report that there are wild chickens in their woods!  Well, it'll make a change from great crested newts and horseshoe bats!

Happy New Year to you

Yes, Happy New Year to everyone and hope you all enjoyed your celebrations.  We went to Ben's for New Year's Eve and had a lovely time - scrummy roast dinner, plenty of beer and wine and chocolate Christmas pudding - we also helped them out quite a bit with their chocolate mountain!  Entertainment included Jools Hootenanny in the background, a game of Trivial Pursuit won by the Bob and Lucy team, Ben and I let them win of course and several rounds of crib swapping teams each time.  Of the three rounds - young vs. old, boys vs. girls and me and Ben vs. newcomers to the family, I was on every winning team!  Amazing as I have only played a few times and not for about two years - definitely beginners luck rather than any skill on my part I think!  We also did 'first footings' which I think is a northern tradition and which Ben was dead keen to continue.  For those who don't know, all the men have to go outside (OK by me and Lucy!) just before midnight and then come back in after midnight first throwing in a piece of coal, bread and some money.  This is to ensure you have enough fuel, food and money in the brand new year and, as Ben's were wrapped in a plastic bag, they shouldn't be short of those either this year.   I guess the bloke bit is to ensure that we poor, helpless females always have a good strong man around to take the bins out or something!  We did the same when we got home over the cottage threshold - Bob did offer to carry me over the threshold too, but I pointed out that was a different tradtion and that it might void the strong male to look afer me bit by rendering him incapacitated for quite some time!

Back to New Year's Eve, we went to bed at about 3am and we were on a blow up bed in the living room.  This was fine for a while, but after a few hours Bob whispered 'Are you lying on the floor?'  and, yes, I was.  The lilo had almost completely deflated so we had to blow it up again - luckily it was a posh one with an electric pump.  So, not much sleep, but not to worry - we more than made up for it by a long nap when we got home.  No traumas on arriving back this time - water, electric, everything worked just fine.

Today we have marked out where the opening for the stairs needs to go - that will be the last major structural thing to do, but we need to get three concrete lintels before we can start that.  Best just to take the top bit out first and then put the lintels in (three because the walls are about 18" thick) and then once the wall above is supported by the lintels you can take out the stone below without worrying about the wall collapsing.  We also wrote a list of what needs doing before we can get the electrician and plumber back . . . . lots!  Then we went for a walk, met a new neighbour and had quite a chat with him, walked on a bit more and bumped into some other neighbours so went back with them for a cuppa and then it was dark and another day gone!  Well, it is the weekend and we promise to do some work tomorrow, honest!

Oh, look, I found a plan of the house on the computer and thought it might be interesting for those of you who haven't been here - give you an idea of the layout when I'm talking about this barn or that.  The lounge and bed (full height), aka padded cell, were once barns.  The ground at that end of the house is about 6 feet higher than inside which is why the bedroom has had to be tanked and there is a door on the end wall at that level because there was a hayloft above the barn - that will become a door-shaped window.  The other bedroom is the oak-frame extension and the utility and bathroom are in the stone extension.  There was a tumbledown stone lean-to here before (just a bit smaller than ours) which was the scullery and dairy.  The 'store' at the end is a stone lean-to which will be the 'boiler room' and will house the heat store (that's a new sort of hot water tank), chest freezer, tumble dryer, boots and so on.  The only upstairs bit is above the kitchen and will be our bedroom and en-suite.  We always feel a little guilty that this was a family home and probably quite a number of people lived in the little bit that was the old cottage (and they kept one half of what we will have as the kitchen as the parlour only to be used on special days!) and here we are, just the two of us, deciding we really need to convert the barns and add extensions to make more space!