Secure workshop

The workshop is locked up!

Woo hoo! that means we can move stuff out of the lounge . . . . . oh, no - I forgot we still have to paint the floor with garage floor paint and it would be a good idea to do that before we start filling it up I suppose.  Oh well, nearly at the point where we can get going on the lounge . . . . .so close! 

We had a celebratory beer anyway!!!!  Cheers

A week of accidents!

The workshop all painted.  The bikestore is the box bit
on the left.

Now that M&S have taken on lots of temporary staff in readiness for Christmas, I am not doing anywhere near so many extra hours . . . . in fact, no extra hours.  This is good from the point of view of getting things done here, but I'm not sure how it'll be come payday!  So, I had last week off as holiday and then had to go in for my normal Sunday and Monday and have then been off for the rest of the week and back in this afternoon.  So, we have made good progress on the workshop in that time and I think we are just about ready for Dave, the electrician, to come on Tuesday.  How exciting that'll be.  It gets dark so early now we have to have builders lights on plugged into an extension, but then when you go to tidy up you can't see a thing once the extension is reeled in.  We are putting a couple of outside lights on the workshop with a motion sensor.  This will make it much easier when we go up in the evening to tuck the chickens up as well as when I have to take Bob's tea up to him in the workshop so he doesn't have to stop working!

The bike store - it'll never look this tidy again!

The bike store is now boxed in and everything is boarded, insulated and painted (just a couple of bits need a second coat of paint which I can do tomorrow).  Bob needs to go round and mark where all the sockets and lights are going which won't take two ticks, then a bit of a tidy up, make a cake and we're ready for sparky.  Everything is being surface-mounted with the cables running through trunking which makes it much easier and quicker and so he should get it all done in one day.  It'll also mean that it's easier to add or change things later on and there's no worries about hitting a cable when putting up shelves, etc.

While he's here, Dave is also going to put a heater in the bathroom.  We weren't sure if we'd need one, but got him to put the cables in for it when he wired the house anyway.  Most of the time we don't need any extra heat in there, but the chances are that when you really want a hot bath it's because you're feeling cold and achy and a warm bathroom is needed too.  So, on Thursday we cut a hole in the wall and managed to fish out the cable.  I electrocuted myself in the process!!!  I got the cable and managed to pull the clip off it, but we were surprised that the end wasn't taped over as it should be live.  So with Bob's electrician's screwdriver I touched one wire and it glowed a bit . . . I then accidentally moved it slightly and it must have bridged the two wires resulting in a bang and a flash and a melted screwdriver!  Ooops!  Apart from a bit of a shock of the non-electrical type (it did certainly make me jump!) I was fine and at least we now know it is definitely live and which trip switch to flick on Tuesday!  Bob has made a really good job of making good round the hole and you wouldn't know it wasn't done with the original stuff.

My other accident of the week was yesterday while we were plasterboarding the ceiling of the bike store.  Once again we were trying to put up whole 8' x 4' sheets and I was holding it up while Bob ran round putting some screws in - we thought there were enough in to hold it so I could let go and help put screws in, but as I turned away and stepped down from the ladder a sheet of plasterboard landed on my head!  It must have looked quite funny I suppose . . . . I'd have laughed if it'd been someone else I'm sure.

Oh, and my other accident (just a little one this time) was to slip on the mud by the front door while carrying a full washing basket meaning that half the washing had to go straight back in the machine!  Apart from that, the week's been fine!  I did need that hot bath last night though with my jarred back from the slip, cricked neck from the plasterboard and aching shoulder from all the painting - it worked wonders!

On Wednesday we had a day off and went to an auction at Montgomery.  We ended up being there most of the day because there were a couple of things we were interested in but which were hours apart in the listing.  In between we went to the wool shop to get a pattern and then back to the auction and then to Bishops Castle for lunch and back.  On one of the trips we got lost and couldn't work out where we were on the map, but knew we needed to turn left and cross the river so we turned down a little lane and came to a ford.  Wow, it was a real raging torrent and about three times wider than it should be - needless to say, we didn't drive through it!  Quite dramatic though.

Insulation, door frames, insulation, door frames, more insulation, door, yet more insulation, paint door and ,yes, yet more insulation.  That just about sums things up for Bob and I for the last few weeks! 

We have been getting a little fed up with how long the workshop seems to be taking and there hasn't been much to take photos of to show you I'm afraid.  But, we have made progress and it now has all its doors and all its insulation.  There are no locks or handles on the doors as we are still trying to work out what sort of lock you are supposed to have on double opening, outward opening wooden doors - nothing in the shops seems to do the job.  I think the bike store bit will have a chunky hasp and padlock, but the workshop needs something you can close without locking.  We're working on that one and the lady in the decorators merchants (who also sell door furniture and also the little slate floor tiles we have used  in the hall, etc) is going to ask the door experts she knows.  We can't be the only people wanting to do this!  We have the glass for the workshop doors, but we forgot about the beading to hold it in place, so Bob needs to make that and then it'll need painting before the glass can go in.  When we were putting the bike store doors on, one side went in like a dream and took about 5 mins to do - fantastic.  The other balanced it out though and took ages fiddling about trying to get it to hang right.  In the end we had to take it off and trim a bit off - course, that meant the cut bit then needed wood preserver, undercoat and green paint putting on.  So, three days later it was ready!  All the doors really need another coat of paint, but we were too impatient for that - next spring when we have beautiful, hot sunny weather (aaahhh, can you just imagine it?) we'll give them another lick of green.

So, my job when not at M&S and while Bob was doing the doors has been insulation which I quite enjoyed doing to start.  There was quite a lot of it though and, although we'd deliberately spaced some of the studwork to fit whole sheets, a lot needed trimming to size.  The roof was fiddly as well, but Bob did quite a bit of that.  We have spent the last few days screwing the plasterboard in place in the roof - also an awkward, fiddly job.  We did start off trying to use whole 8' x 4' sheets, but gave up after two sheets - just too dificult to manhandle into place while climbing ladders and balancing and then just too heavy for one person to hold in place while the other whacks some screws in.  So, we resorted to cutting sheets in half which is, obviously, much easier but doesn't look so neat.  We finished that this afternoon and have filled all the holes where we missed the timbers with the screws (more than once or twice I'm afraid!) and so that is ready to paint which is my job for tomorrow morning.  Hopefully it'll look neater once it's all one colour.  Anyway, we're mightily relieved to have finished that part of the job and so guess what we're having this evening . . . . yep, a beer and a curry!  The walls should be a doddle in comparison.  They're having OSB on them rather than plasterboard as it's a bit more robust.  The electrician is coming the week after next, so we have to have all this done before then which shouldn't be a problem (fingers crossed/touch wood/etc).

What seems like ages ago we put the ridge pieces on the roof which was another good job to get done.  This means that the rain no longer gathers in pools on the sagging breather membrane meaning you have to poke it with a stick from inside to get it to run off - we always stood in the wrong place when doing this and got a good soaking!  We now just need to design some fancy bits of wood or something to cover the gap at the apex at each end where the ridge ends and then we can have our topping out ceremony - oh, no not another beer!

On the non-workshop front, I have finished the hoodie I was knitting from my birthday wool.  It is soooooo cosy being made with thick wool which you actually knit double!  I now blend perfectly into my surroundings as the colours are an exact match for the colour of our woods and the falling leaves at the moment . . .you wouldn't know I was there!  We had Carol and Graham to stay which was nice, if a little brief.  We managed to squeeze our walk in before some really heavy rain which was good.  We did the same walk this week with Ben and Lucy while they were staying.  This time there was no rain, but we only just got back to the car before it got dark.  This walk is from here to the Peregrine Rocks (as we now call them) - we take a car and leave it in the carpark there and then walk from here to it.  We were lucky and saw the Peregrine again - this time it was flying around before it went to bed and so was much easier to spot than when we took Mum and Dad.

Do you know, there are still tomatoes on our plant and they are just turning orange and the sweet peas which I've been waiting to pull up for weks and weeks have now shot up another foot and have flower buds on which are opening!  Amazing for mid-November!