We had to get up very early!

Yes, we had to be up before 7am today . . . and because I knew that I woke up every two hours through the night thinking it was time to get up and, of course, fell into a real deep sleep at about 6.15am!  It was a very exciting reason to have to get up early though.

Look . . .

Yeah, we have a cooker.  We ordered it yesterday lunchtime from Appliances Online and they offer a very efficient service, and it was one of the cheapest, I can highly recommend them!  Free next day delivery - they place the order and then during the evening you get an automated phone call telling you which 4 hour slot your delivery will be in.  So at 9.45pm last night the phone rang with a message saying the cooker would be with us between 7 and 11 am and at 8.30 this morning two very friendly and efficient delivery men arrived, unloaded and were off again within 10 minutes.  Poor things had left Bury, Lancashire at 5am so I shouldn't really complain about having to be up early should I?  I'm dying to unpack the cooker, but while we're still doing building things in the kitchen it makes sense to leave it safely wrapped and padded - we did sneak a look at the top though.  It is a modern cooker that gives a nod to cottage style by being cream and having curved bits here and there.  It has a double electric oven and gas top which we will have to convert to bottled gas, but the kit for that should be included so it shouldn't be a problem.

Today, as the day has been somewhat longer than usual, we have got on with loads of bits and pieces.  Mostly the sort of things that only we will notice like boxing in pipes here and there and painting in the alcove above the bread oven.  I also coated the bare bricks, which looked very dry and dusty, with a mixture of linseed oil and turps in an effort to liven them up a bit.  It has certainly brought the colour out, but they now look a bit dark - we'll have to wait and see what they're like once the oil has soaked right in although I'm not sure what we could do if we don't like them!.

This afternoon we did some skimming . . . . we nearly had to come and read this blog to remind ourselves what to do!  I skimmed all the bits of pipe boxing (quite fiddly) and Bob did the fire surround in the kitchen (we cement rendered it yeasterday) and it looks completely different.  We now need to find some new tiles for down the sides and then we can decide what colour to paint the plaster - in the meantime, a coat of magnolia like everywhere else I think.  I really don't like the highly decorated Victorian tiles that are supposed to go round fireplaces, so it'll have to be something different.  We did see some really lovely tiles in Fired Earth a while ago, but at £25 a pop for the picture tiles (line drawings of chickens) and over £5 each for the plain ones we had to leave them!

Tee hee - we've been playing house

Yep, we've been playing house for the last couple of days.  When we got up yesterday, it was absolutely tiddling down, chilly and dark so we thought it'd be a good day to give the Ironheart woodburner its second firing.  This time we loaded it up a bit more and got it burning really well . . . . . as we did, the sun came out!  So, we had the woodburner and the solar panels heating the water at the same time.  We did think the solar might not do much if the water in the tank was hotter, but it seems that they do.  The temperature reading on the roof got hotter than in the past, so it was still sending hot to the tank.  We can only assume that the heat doesn't get pulled into the tank as quickly which allows it to heat up more on the roof???  We also got the oven up to moderate.  There isn't a temperature guage as such, but a dial with Cool, Mod, Hot and Very Hot readings.  The first time we lit the woodburner we were Cool, yesterday we were Mod . . . . we're thinking of renaming the next setting Rocker!  So, there we were with a tank of nice hot water and it seemed a shame to waste it so we tried out the en-suite shower.  Oh, what bliss!  You can stretch your arms out, bend down to pick the soap up, even walk around a bit if you want to and the shower head delivers a good drenching - luvverly.  It did seem a bit odd padding down the drive with towel and shampoo under arm - just like being on a caravan holiday.  Let me tell you, this morning's shower in the caravan really was a disappointment after that.  By the way, I didn't take any photos of this milestone you'll be glad to know!

Today was another miserable day and, as we were going to be working in the kitchen, we lit the woodburner again this afternoon - you really shouldn't have to do this in July should you?  This time I put the washing to dry in front of it.  It all looked very homely and it got nice and cosy in there. 

The homely end of the room . . . . . .


 

. . . . and the building site end of the room!

Bob has been working on the fireplace at the other end of the room.  This won't be a working fireplace, but desparately needs tidying up.  We have re-pointed the top half of the bricks and they look quite nice, but the bottom half was covered in concrete (which is rock hard and almost impossible to get off) and looks a real mess.  There was one horrible brick among the nice ones which Bob managed to get out (hence the black hole in the picture) and replace with a similar brick to the rest.  So, we are going to plaster and paint the bottom half.  Bob has made an oak mantle-piece from offcuts from the doors.  We then need to find some nicer tiles for the sides and something to make-good the bottom half of the back, black the ironwork and , dah dah - it should look completely different.  It's not so obvious from this photo, but the chimney breast really leans over to the right and it completely throws your eye when you look at anything else next to it.  When we were putting the centre post in the kitchen we kept standing back to look at it and being convinced it wasn't upright, despite what the spirit level said.  Today, when Bob put the oak shelf in place it looked really wonky, but it wasn't.  I think we'll have to look out for a nice spirit level - you know, the old rosewood and brass type, just a little one - to put on the mantlepiece as an ornament so that when people say 'Surely that's not level!'  they can check for themselves!

While Bob was doing that, I did some more tiling - well, it's a while since I've done any you know!  So, I had to do some more carefully planned randomness with the colours.  Phil and Ann came round for a chat when I was in the middle of it and Ann pointed out a dark patch where there weren't any cream tiles darn it!  We all decided you wouldn't really notice later on.  When they'd gone though I thought, 'Yes, I will notice now' and so I did a bit of rearranging.  Good job the adhesive hadn't set, eh?

While we had the oven nice and hot, it seemed a waste not to use it and so we cooked our first ever meal on the woodburner.  Homemade chicken pie from the freezer, baby baked potatoes, carrots and brocolli.  I hadn't a clue how the oven settings relate to conventional settings - we had it just into Hot and I think it could have done with being a tad hotter, so that was probably Gas Mk 4 or 5.  As with the padding down the drive for a shower, it was a bit bizarre to trek back up to the caravan with a pan of veg, a tray of pie and potato and two warmed plates.  It was so nice and toasty in the house, it was a wrench to go back up to the caravan which hadn't even had the benefit of the oven being on to cook tea to warm it up.  Bob also had a shower in the house.  So, for free today we have dried the washing, been warm while we work, cooked tea and showered - not bad, eh?



First beer in the house by the fire - a taste of things to come!



 Thought I'd do lots of pictures this time and not much words.  So, here's step-by-step pictures for the kitchen sink area:-



It's not easy to do 'random' you know - it all has to be very
carefully planned so you don't end up with lots of one colour
left or the same order throughout 





Doing the easy ones first - I'll think about
cutting the diagonal edge ones later.  They
were actually really tough to cut.



So, who decided to put curved reveals round these windows?!
Certainly didn't make things easy - Bob managed to cut curves in the window sill
tiles and the upright ones just have to sit as they sit.  We did try it without any
upright ones, but it looked a little odd.  Think it'll be alright once its
grouted - that's tomorrow's job.



So, here it is with the sink in place - looks quite posh doesn't it?
Somehow Bob and I seem to be surprised every time we do
something like this,  as if we weren't really sure what it was
going to look like.



We might need another sink in the kitchen so we thought we'd
put this island unit in.  What do you think?  We're aiming for the
'workmanlike look' which I'm sure is going to be next
year's trend . . . . . .



. . . .  then we thought 'Nah, maybe not' and put it in the utility
room instead.  The washing machine will go under the drainer
side and an upright freezer to the right.  I need to put some more
carefully thought-out random tiles on the wall for a splashback.

So, there you go - our life for the past few days in pictures.  In addition we went to a property auction yesterday afternoon.  A cottage and land just down the lane was one of the lots and we thought it'd be interesting to see who buys it, but it evidently didn't reach the reserve price and so they didn't sell it (unless they came to some arrangement after the auction).  It certainly wasn't as 'buzzing' as the auctions we've been to before the 'downturn' and nothing went for much over the guide price.  I've had a girly day today with a visit from three friends from way back when I used to work in a school - 13 years ago, unbelievable.  After a cuppa and a look round the house (including one climbing the ladder in high-heeled sandals!) we went out for lunch - Bob went to the woodyard!

Rabbit wars!

Look, we have a new work bench!  Quite useful really.  We have plugged the washer in (it says 'Hello' on the digital display when you turn it on), just to see what it can do.  Blimey they've got complicated all of a sudden.  You can choose the temperature, spin speed, etc, etc.  I used to just run our old washing machine on the same programme for just about everything.  Mind you, I just used to put everything in the oven at Gas Mark 6 too.  I think Laura and Ben grew up thinking that those were the only settings you could have!  No doubt once we've palyed with this machine a few times we'll find a new standard setting.  It is one of the larger sizes (8kg), but it looks absolutely tiny inside - I've got used to the 35kg machine we use at the launderette . . . . . . must remember not to put a whole weeks worth in in one go!

I was using the washing machine as a work bench while I tiled the surround for the sink in the utility room.  Mmmm, looking at that picture, there's not actually much surround at all is there?  Bob has been building the carcass for the cupboard underneath and that is now put together and has had one coat of paint (it's only plywood, so we can't leave it as bare wood).  Tommorrow we will try it in place and put some battens on the wall to support the bit over the washing machine and then put another coat of paint on it.  We could also attach the sink to the top so that when the paint's dry it can all just pop into place.  That will then be ready for the plumber to sort out the pipes underneath.  The sycamore work tops around the kitchen sink have had their two coats of 'Seal & Finish', so they should be heat, grease and waterproof after tomorrow.  I caught a glimpse of that corner of the kitchen through the hole for the stairs this afternoon and it looked just lovely (I thought) - very cottagey.  I went to get the tiles for the splashback this morning - 20% off, so that was good timing and while I was there I noticed that they also had 25% off Little Green Paint Company's mixer paints (English Heritage approved colours, no less - how posh are we?!!).  They have a colour - soft, pale, olive green - that would look right on the cupboard doors in the utility so that was good too (so long as they still have it when we go back).

WARNING:  The next paragraph contains tales of a violent nature, please don't read it if you are squeamish

The rabbit wars have started.  We have put up with rabbits eating things in the garden for the last two years.  We've put chicken wire around the flower bed which looks lovely as you can imagine.  We've put chicken wire around the hedge and the vegetable plot.  We've clapped our hands at them to scare them off, made allowances for the baby rabbit we found in the flower bed, we even moved their babies carefully to persuade them to live elsewhere.  But, enough is enough and they are really taking the mickey now.  They live inside the wire in the flower bed, they've eaten the tops off all the leeks (they've never even liked them before) and have completely stripped the flowers off a 15 foot length of planting.  Yesterday we decided that the baby rabbit that used to run straight through the small holes in the chicken wire must now be too big to fit through and so it would be safe to plant some veg in the gaps in the flower border.  As we looked at one such gap a rabbit ambled into it, saw us and went and hid under the holly bush.  That was the last straw and Bob got his air rifle and made short work of it.  I know, I know, they're cute, but we have a constant battle with them and they don't seem to understand the rules!  Anyway, it didn't look as though there was much meat on it so I took it up to the clearing at the edge of the quarry across the lane and left it for the buzzards.  An hour later it had gone (and I'm pretty sure it hadn't made a miraculous recovery) so last night I think the buzzard chicks had a tasty rabbit supper.  Unfortunately, I found another blessed rabbit in the flower patch today . . . . oh, why don't they stick to the woods, there's loads of lush greenery?!  hold on, maybe that rabbit did make a miraculous recovery and has moved back in!

UNWARNING:  OK, you can open your eyes now, the violence is over.

We have other wild life which is not such a nuisance.  The family of woodpeckers are around most of the time and the kids do an awful lot of squabbling.  There were three of them on the top of the telegraph pole yesterday making a huge amount of noise.  I think that was two young and their mum - young have a red cap, adult females don't have any red on their heads and adult males have a red patch at the back of their neck.  The young nuthatches have definitely worked out how to get peanuts out of the feeders and we regularly have three around.  You can't tell the difference between the young and the adults except that the young are not quite so 'busy' and spend far more time just looking around.  We had a young jay on the feeder a couple of days ago - they just look huge hanging off the nuts.  Again, the young just look like the adults, but act differently.  Once this once got a peanut out, it didn't really know what to do with it so it went and spent five minutes eating sand from the pile in front of the caravan!  Most mornings we are woken at about 5.30am by the bird olympics on the caravan roof - I think a crow or raven likes the sound of its feet running the length of the van.  This morning though I don't know what was on the roof - sounded like a grizzly bear bumbling around!  It sounded big enough for Bob to get up to have a look, but whatever it was had gone.  A mystery, but I hope it doesn't wake us in the same way tomorrow!

Wrens nesting

So, what have we been up to since I last blagged, blug . . . . maybe it's just blogged?  Well, last Thursday we went for a cuppa at Bill and Maggie's.  We felt really bad because they had come to visit earlier in the day with tales of woe about their heating system, but we were at a critical stage of skimming and so couldn't really stop to lend an ear and so they went home with no cup of tea or anything.  Poor things!  So, as soon as we'd finished we went round to theirs bearing cookies to give solace in their hour of need.  They really have had a tough time with their cutting edge ground source heat pump.  That works by pumping glycol through underground pipes, this absorbs the heat and then, by some sort of magic, the heat is transferred and increased and is pumped around the underfloor heating system.  It works in the same way as a fridge exchanges heat for cold, but the opposite way round.  Anyway, Bill put the underground pipes in ages ago, the underfloor heating has been installed for ages and the two just need to be connected.  This stage involves their plumber and electrician and the chap from the ground source company, so not easy to get them all together at once.  The first date for this was arranged at the beginning of December and about five times since, but each time something has gone wrong.  Parts haven't been available, they had the wrong water tank, the engineer didn't bring enough glycol, pipes have been crossed at the manifold, the engineer broke down on the motorway, the engineer called in sick, you name it it's gone wrong . . . and still it goes on.  So, they have had a whole winter without their underfloor heating and using electric to heat all their water.  Quite understandably, they were well and truly down in the dumps about it.  Everyone's booked again for next week I think, so watch this space!

On Friday and Saturday, we helped Ben and Lucy move into their new flat.  Very nice it is too, clean, spacious and modern - the only trouble is that it's up two flights of stairs.  No problem at all normally, but I dread to think how many trips up and down them we made over the two days carrying boxes, bags, TVs, wardrobes, sofa, etc.  When we got home my calf muscles had just about given up the ghost!  Don't think I need to go to the gym this week!

On Sunday, we had a day off and went to the garden centre.  We bought seed potatoes, shallots and beetroot and leek seeds.  We are somewhat limited in what we can plant at the moment on account of the multitude of giant rabbits that visit our garden!  We have a heap of soil in the garden which we covered with horse muck and a tarpaulin last year - it will eventually get spread out over part of the garden, but not until we have time to do something with it, so we thought we could poke a few potatoes in there in the meantime.  So, we pulled back some of the tarpaulin and planted them and this morning . . . . a flippin' rabbit has burrowed into the heap, aaarrrrgh!  I'm going to look up some rabbit casserole recipes I think!

We have done some more skimming.  I had the first go at doing a ceiling yesterday - I didn't get as messy as I thought I would . . . well not quite!  So, now all the utility's done except the ceiling, all the bathroom's done and Bob has made a start on the upstairs.  We also did some good, old-fashioned lime plaster yesterday, finishing off all sorts of bits - it seemed really strange slapping it on with your hands after doing the ultra-thin, very smooth skimming.  Today we had an exciting morning choosing tiles and light fittings.  We have ordered our bedroom light and the one for the end barn bedroom (which I've had my eye on for ages, but only just persuaded Bob about) and finally got the last two lights for the kitchen.  We chose some lovely tiles for the bathroom walls (just around the bath/shower) - plain white, but with a texture that reminds me of slate, so as we have slate for the floors that should all tie-in nicely.  We'll then brighten it all up with red towels or something.  I think we've also decided on the floor in the hall.  We wanted a hard floor so that people can come in in their boots, etc and originally we were thinking quarry tile type thing, but it's all soooo expensive!  We found some ceramic tiles we quite liked for £25 a square metre, but then went in the paint shop and they had a pallet of slate mosaic tiles for just £8.50 a square metre . . . that's a difference of over £200 for the hall and utility!  So, we laid some slate in the hall and the samples of the ceramic tile and asked Pam the postlady what she thought.  She was adamant it should be the slate.  We then asked the chickens, but they couldn't make up their minds really, so I think we'll go with Pam's decision.  We'll probably have to go and get them tomorrow because I think they're a one-off and when they're gone they're gone.

This is the beautiful little nest a wren built in the middle barn (which will be the lounge) last spring.  Apparently, they build several and then select one to use and they didn't actually use this one.  Since then, we have built the timber extension which blocks off the little draught hole they used to use to get in.  The only way in for them now is to walk under the temporary chipboard door into the 'lounge', or to fly though the little gap in the door to the nextdoor barn and then through to the 'lounge'.  So, Bob was very surprised when he went in there yesterday to find two wrens checking out the nest.  One gave him a really hard time, sitting on the ladder chirping angrily at him!  We thought they wouldn't come back after being disturbed, but one was there again this morning when I went in.  It must be the same pair as last year who've remembered it was there and worked out how to get to it a different way - very impressive really.  It would be quite nice if they nested in there - we won't be doing any work in there before they've finished.  We have said, though, that we'll make sure we go in and out a few times each day.  That way, it's their choice if they decide to nest where humans are in and out.  Better that than let them think we don't go in there and then they get disturbed later with chicks in the nest.  The reason we left the nest is that I'd quite like to keep it in the wall - we could put perspex over it and a frame around it - I think it may be where a light is going though so we'll have to see.