Channeling the inner snail...

Hi there folks.
I am sure you can guess by the title of this post that not much progress has been happening recently.
Still, everything that happens is a little step closer isn't it.

There has been one thing that has made a big difference though........... for months we have been generating piles of rubbish and rubble as you can imagine

 In the lounge.

 The kitchen.

 Even a bit in the dining room

Finally we figured we had enough for.....

A skip!

Though it was hard work, I cannot tell you how exciting it is to finally be able to see the floor again.

 The kitchen was the last of the 9 fireplaces to see the light of day. The stone lintel is beautiful and just over 2m long. Unfortunately we will not be able to keep it exposed but I am glad we were able to see it)

 Still a couple of bags for the tip that definitely would not fit in the skip but the lounge feels so much bigger.

Upstairs is looking nicer too.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, I am settling myself down with coffee, pen and ink and paper for the rest of the weekend.....whatever you are up to I hope you enjoy yourselves.

Ending the week with progress.

Good evening friends.
Well, after a slow start to the week I am pleased to say that we did manage a bit of progress as the week ended.
At the moment we are focused on getting two of the rooms upstairs to a stage that they can be used as a place to store furniture. The electrician came round and got all the new sockets boxed in place.

Next, the old wall supports were removed as they were not in great shape.

New supports were added with thicker treated timbers.

 Still have to add cross supports next week but it is already much more stable.

An essential yet horrible job was also tackled; treating the beams with paste to ensure no remain beasties remain alive once we close everything up. You put it on like spreading butter and it absorbs in over a few days....

Then it was time to tank around the window area to ensure no future damp issues should arise.

There's a few different processes to do so I left that bit to the expert lol.

Then, finally, the moment I was waiting for.

One wall covered up. Now, we are not boarding every room but we have to find a balance between keeping character and creating a space that is energy efficient too. So we have taken each wall individually and worked out what would be best.  All the external walls will have a thick thermal insulation board to retain heat. The other walls to be boarded have been selected based on the overall condition. I think it's driving the electrician a little crazy as he has to make sure that the right depth box is put on the correct wall for the thickness, some need to be chiseled in, others can be flush fitted etc, you get the picture I'm sure.

Hopefully next week we will get a little further.....I'll let you know. Until then, take care.

It's alright in the slow lane.....

Good afternoon.
Well, after the excitement of my previous post I have to say, there's not been much more in the way of building up this last week. I have to keep reminding myself that life in the slow lane is what we signed up with, so take a deep breath and relax.....
To distract myself I turned myself back to chipping away plaster lol. This time in the kitchen and utility. Of course, I knew what was going to come to light on this particular wall (to the left of the alcove)

You guessed it, the fireplace! This brings the total number fireplaces discovered in this 3 bed house to a whopping nine! You can see the edge of the lintel here. It measures just over two meters in length and is intact. Sadly, though we entertained the idea of opening the fireplace up and having a range cooker, when I measured it the height is too low to comply with requirements. That means we will have to cover it all up again which is a bit of a pity as it is amazing. We do have to be practical about some things though.

The utility area has also been chipped away as well so slowly but surely we are getting everything that needs to be cleared, cleared. Then we can get a skip and clear the space properly.

The other morning I arrived to discover that another small section of plaster had been done between me leaving at five the previous day and my arrival the next morning.
The artist in me thinks the combination of textures, shades and colour looks pretty cool...

This morning I pottered around a bit at the house but then I went to look out of the window....

 There was a light dusting of snow on the hills and I decided it was time to take a wander. Though there was a bit of a nip in the air I really enjoyed stretching my legs a bit .

 The beck was coming down swiftly after yesterday's rain.

 Up at the castle the views are stunning. I don't think I will ever get tired of looking at it.

 I finished off with a moment of quiet in the church where the sun was shining beautifully through.

Back home again refreshed and revitalised and ready to sit down to create the next lot of journals I am working on.....then tomorrow it's back to making a mess at the house.
Till then, enjoy the rest of your day.

Weekly roundup

Good afternoon folks.

This week has been exciting for me. Why? It's because we are finally doing something to begin to put the house back together..... since we bought the place we seem to have done nothing other than break down and strip back so I cannot tell you how exciting it is to be able to do this.

 Starting in the two front bedrooms the first thing to do was to cover the exposed lintels over the old fireplaces with some kind of "plasticised" cement which allows the plaster to adhere properly.

 Then, a layer of plaster goes on while it is still wet. So now we are saying goodbye once more to the old fireplace areas.

Once the scratch coat of plaster is in place we turned our attention to the old original plaster that was sound enough to remain (Thank goodness as I have to confess to be heartily sick of removing old plaster and as I still have more to remove anything that stays is a treat!)
Enter stage left, blue grit..... this was fun to apply as it is basically a texture paste that needs to go on thinly but without rubbing the grit off. And if it's too thickly applied then it creates problems when skimming plaster later.

 It took me a good few hours but I got there in the end.

 Next week we can start the process of tanking, insulating and rebuilding the wall in this room and getting it ready to plaster and skim. Exciting times.

We've started the second bedroom too so we can look forward to a busy couple of weeks ahead but by the end we should have two spaces that are more finished. I do use the term finished loosely of course as the windows will need to be replaced later and a few other bits too but still, it is progress.

Then, as it was such a glorious day on Friday, we finished early and I headed off to the hills with a flask and a sandwich and had myself a brilliant wander......

A lovely treat to end the week.
Hope you are all enjoying your weekend too.

Getting stuck back in.

Good evening friends
Well, after the delightful little interlude of the previous post, today saw me getting back to dust and grime.
This morning I had a good long site meeting to develop a plan of action for the next few weeks which culminated as it usually does with ordering a bunch of materials and my bank balance taking a battering....

This evening I thought I'd just share a bit of a roundup of the progress made.
First up, the doorway from the kitchen to the utility has been moved. This turned out to be a more complicated process than hoped though we weren't prepared to not move it as it makes a big (positive) difference to the kitchen space

 So, what was so complicating about it you ask. Well the thickness of the wall and the fact that it is load bearing was an issue. We had to use four lintels to support the opening. Then the fact that we had to support the whole wall from down on the cellar stairs as the floor is not structurally strong enough to carry the weight. So the whole job had to be done slowly and carefully and time of course means money!
It also didn't help that when  knocking out the wall for the opening the builder discovered that there was a chimney flue there too which created some complications too.  Thankfully it is all sorted now.

We also had the opportunity to create an alcove in the new wall to "hide" the  electric meter and board which I am happy about.

Now that the kitchen sink unit and plaster has been removed you can clearly see where the original doorway was which was turned into one of the windows. Yet another snapshot of the past.

Doing all this has naturally created yet another pile of rubble.......

Moving upstairs the massive bathroom window has been reduced down to a  more practical size to allow us to add a shower

The new wiring is going in now too, at least now we are going from one plug per room to between six to eight as well as usb plugs so we should have enough lol!

Still a very long road ahead but it's important to get it right because we definitely don't intend to do it again .....
Tomorrow I am back to chipping some more plaster off the walls and then preparing some walls ready for the next stage. Wish me luck.
Take care.