Here's our new helper - Peggy was quite interested in the pointing I was doing around the kitchen door. Actually, she was more interested in eating the mortar I think! She had previously been up nearly to the top of the scaffold tower to see what was going on up there.
The plumber didn't come on Thursday or Friday. He's a nice bloke, but he's awful at organising his time, answering phone calls, etc. I guess it's hard to know exactly how long a job will take and plumbers often have emergencies to attend to which must play havoc with schedules, but I don't think he quite realises what it's like at the other end of things trying to plan around him. Anyway, he's promised he'll be here Tuesday morning. So, we have been getting on with all sorts of little jobs that need doing before we can plasterboard. Bob has put in two plywood window sills - we were going to have oak or something, but money's getting short! Not really, it's not quite that bad yet - these sills are in the kitchen behind the sink and in the utility room, so they will be tiled. It's surprising the difference a neat flat surface (even if it is only plywood) makes - just looks much more finished and tidy. Bob cut right through the saw-horse doing one of those! He did think it was taking a while to saw through the ply, but just didn't click! So, we now have a slightly shorter saw-horse. He has also done three pretend oak lintels. As we have had to insulate the outside wall in the kitchen the wall is much further into the room than the original wall and so the original oak lintels will get lost in the wall, so we have put another (non-structural) piece of oak in front to keep the look. The one above the door to the hall is to cover the metal joist-hangers and new concrete lintels. That one was a bit tricky as it had to have cut-outs for the ends of the joists and he had almost finished shaping it when the end piece split off - aaarrghhh! Again, this is just decorative and not structural so we just glued it back together. The building inspector is coming on Monday to check the oak beams, etc - it'd be really funny if he thought that was a structural lintel that we'd glued together! I helped Bob put it into place, but as we were trying to get it into place it felldown (think I'll have quite a bruise on my arm where I tried to catch it). You've guessed it - the end piece flew off again as it crashed on the floor! So now we've put it in place separately, glued and clamped it in place and will see tomorrow if it looks OK. I have been doing a bit more studwork - all sorts of fiddly bits like the triangular pieces to the roof upstairs and round the window, pipes and cables in the utility room. As you've seen, Peggy and I have also pointed around the kitchen and extension doorframes - they look much more part of the building once the join is covered up. I mortarred in the ends of the latest oak beams in the kitchen and covered over the top of the bread oven (above it, not inside it). The inside of the bread oven is a lovely brick dome, but on top of it is just filled in with rubble and dust. So the layer of mortar tidies that up and we will be able to use the space between that and the ceiling as some sort of really awkward cupboard. It is a good arms-length deep, but only about a foot high, so I think we'll have to come up with some cunning sliding thing for storing baking trays or similar.
We did give ourselves some time off this afternoon to watch England beat the pants of the Italians in the Six Nations - yeah!! Last year we went to the pub in the village to watch the England/Wales match - although we are about three miles inside England, there was only us and one other chap shouting for England! After watching this afternoon, we went for a walk around our 'estate'. Spring is definitely in the air and all sorts of things are shooting up in the garden - I just wish I could remember what/where everything is. At least then I'd have a chance of knowing whether the little green things are supposed to be there or are going to turn into some monster weed! I made a ginger cake this afternoon (started at half time and finished after the rugby) so when we got back to the caravan, there was a lovely warm, gingery, cakey fug - that has to be one of the most homely smells I know, yum!
I think I've left you with the cliffhanger about how we spent last Sunday for long enough. We have neighbours, Bill and Maggie, who moved here a couple of months before us and are doing a similar renovation. They have teenage children living at home so lived in three static caravans while they did up the cottage and outbuildings. They moved into the cottage before Christmas and so wanted to get rid of at least one of their caravans - free to anyone who'd move it. We have other neighbours, Barb and Darren, who bought the cottage down the bridleway from us, ready renovated, last August and have been visiting at weekends, but are hoping to move in properly in the next few weeks. She's the one who takes the three-legged alsation for a walk in the pushchair. As their cottage is tiny (just one bedroom but with planning permission to extend) they need somewhere to store some of their stuff. And so a deal was done, they'd have Maggie and Bill's van and the local farmer would move it with his tractor for a few quid. So, on Sunday morning we were having a coffee and heard the tractor labouring along and then saw the caravan sail past the end of our lane. From our bit of woodland you can look across a small field to Barb and Darren's cottage, so we went up there to watch the caravan being delivered. All seemed to go well to start and the tractor did a good job, no problem with the steep slope down to the cottage. Towards the bottom though the lane narrows and twists and . . . . . you can guess, I'm sure. I was amazed to watch them continue on until the caravan was stuck skewed across the lane with one side up on the bank and the other through the new fence on the other. And then they carried on a bit more until one corner was jammed behind a tree and it was even more stuck! We decided that they might need a bit of help manhandling it back up the hill a little before trying to straighten it up and so we walked round the bridleway to offer. By the time we got there, their neighbour (Mr P) who owns the fence the caravan had gone through and who they have already had numerous fallings-out with, was on the scene. He has a bit of a reputation for a fiery temper and had all guns blazing banning Darren from setting foot on his land. There was all sorts of name-calling, none too sweet language and accusations flying and Mrs P had called the police. Bill, Bob and I were a bit reluctant to just leave them to it as it could really have got out of hand and with Darren banned from Mr P's land they would need someone else to help unstick the van. Anyway, the police arrived and listened to everyone's side of the story and it turned out that the person they could arrest for criminal damage would be the farmer as he was driving. Now the farmer is also renowned for his fiery temper and that didn't go down well at all! In the end the police lady got them to agree to move the caravan between them, Darren to provide materials to renew the fence and Mr P and the farmer to do the work. Once that was resolved everyone did actually work quite well together (albeit with a good deal of swearing, mutterings and derogatory remarks and Darren still not allowed on their land). The fence posts had to be pulled out, concrete and all which Mr P did with his big digger - a bit heartbreaking for him as it's not long since he'd put them in. They then managed to reverse the van a bit, staighten it up with a few (not so) gentle nudges from the digger and then they just dragged it forward. With tree trunks, branches and bits of fence dragging along the side it made an awful, screeching noise. It got stuck again and had to be forced through with the help of the digger behind, then the axle broke and so it was also being dragged along the ground. When they finally got it into the field it was certainly a sorry sight with corners missing, holes in the side and listing badly to one side because of the axle. A fair few metres of new fencing was heaped in a pile for firewood and Darren's new gatepost lay ripped from it's concrete base next to the deep gouges in the lane. The police had stayed to make sure the lane was cleared without any further trouble between the neighbours and once that was done, they left and everyone went their separate ways. The joys of living in the nice, quiet, peaceful countryside where everyone is friendly and helps each other out, eh?! Don't think that relationship will ever be patched up somehow, which is a real shame. I don't think the farmer would be too keen either if we asked him to move our caravan when we're ready to get rid of it!
On the house front, we have finished putting the kitchen door in and are really please with it. No silly mistakes with the knobs this time. So, now we have to lock two doors at night and our special burglar-proof plastic is redundant. We do still use that in the oak-frame bedroom windows and the end barn door! We have put some plasterboard on the bit of ceiling above the stairway - we weren't sure if we'd still be able to put the scaffold tower up once the rest of the oak beams were in place and so tried to get as much done up there as we could. As it happens, I think the tower will just fit which is actually a relief because there's still a fair bit to do there. I thought once the plasterboard was up the ceiling would look a bit more 'finished', but with all the screws and joints showing it doesn't. The oakwork is almost finished - we should get the last chamfers and sanding done tomorrow and then we can go and get the timber for the studwork for the en-suite, get that up and we'll be ready for the plumber at the end of the week.
We are going to have a go at making our own paint! To buy breathable paint for the stone walls would cost a fortune - you're talking Farrow & Ball prices rather than Dulux - and we'll need loads. So, we've done some research into limewash which is basically lime putty watered down and put on in lots of very thin coats. Very traditional and exactly what would have been on the walls originally. You can add artists pigments to make whatever colour you want. Luckily for us, the builders merchants has had some big tubs of lime putty in their yard for ages. On the tub it says to protect from frost, but this wasn't and has been out in all the freezing weather. Bob checked with the manufacturers (Castle Cement) and apparently it doesn't matter if it freezes so long as it defrosts slowly and fully before you use it and it is actually better the longer it is kept. Most literature recommends you buy it at least 6 months before you want to use it! We had a chat with the Manager and he let us have a tub for a fiver! What a bargain - it should make loads and so save us loads (I might ask him if we can have another tub). It is definitely 'in keeping' and I can't wait to have a go, but we must remember that this is the dangerous stuff that dissolves your skin - protective clothing must definitely be worn.
Well, this is the 50th post and has been a long one and no pictures! I'll have to find some photos for the next one. Guess what, as well as someone as far away as New Zealand, I now have a Catholic nun who reads my blog - so, hello to Sister Mags. As Laura is to become a Buddhist nun at Easter, this is turning out to have quite a multi-national/cultural/religious readership! The more the merrier I say.
