Tom timed his holiday perfectly with the weather, today the sunshine and warmth is back. We also timed it well with the flagstone floor clean and seal, the warm weather has helped to dry it all out.
George is tasked with carrying all the oak for the dormer windows up to the roof via the scaffolding (no-one is allowed across the sitting room floor until we have covered it over, we left it uncovered over night to dry).
Each one of these is surprisingly heavy.
Isabella, the Irish Wolfhound, was on a walk through the village and, as the gate was open, came running into the garden looking for Jasper and was heading for the newly cleaned sitting room floor with her muddy feet! I was up the scaffolding at the time so Dan blocked the front door to stop her, not an easy feat, Isabella is HUGE and very strong. So as I caught up with Brad, her owner, she lay down in the middle of the road instead.
Today Dan is reinstating the beams in Zanna’s bedroom. There are two in the ceiling and one that stood in the corner. These beams have been hanging around on the floor for a while and are covered in stone dust, so they need a good hoover. Poor Dan had to carry both hoovers up the scaffolding and in through the roof as he can’t go across the sitting room floor yet.
The stones in the corridor looking amazing. These all came out of the garden, flagstones that had very probably been removed from here a long time ago as they are a very good fit!
Cat sanding the beam from the corner of Zanna’s bedroom.
George is continuing to rake out the concrete pointing on the front of the house.
It is mostly done by hand with a pick, but the really super hard concrete requires a drill to remove it.
Jasper trying to shelter from the sun.
How to keep a dog cool.
The floor looks better than we even imagined. You couldn’t buy a floor like this, it is truly unique.
Floor covered in Ram Board again to protect it.
The hole is clearly cut out this time, hopefully this will prevent Zanna from falling down it again…
The two beams reinstated in Zanna’s bedroom ceiling in exactly the same position as they were originally.
These will need a sand and will then be oiled.
The corner beam awaiting its installation.
Zanna and Cat have spent the day clearing the dining room of rubbish and rubble, and cleaning the thick dust off everything. We have the cast iron radiators arriving this week and they will be stored here. These two beams on the floor will be used as shelves in the study. One was holding the ceiling up above the buttress in Zanna’s bedroom and the other one came from Tom’s garden – it is very similar and is a great match with ours.
George and Cat holding one of these beams up in the study to see what they will look like.
They are very chunky (bloody heavy), gnarly and very old. If we can work out how to attach them, without the wall coming down, they will look great!
As George needed to jet wash the walls after removing the pointing, we covered over the window with a sheet of plastic. We may need to do this to all the windows if it rains next week.
Colin popped by to see how the house is coming along and got roped into the very last bits of destruction. The window upstairs at the back is cut in two by a partition wall between Zanna’s bedroom and the landing. This will still have to be partitioned but we are hoping to do this in glass, so you can see the old window as it should be seen. Colin is all too happy to grab a crow bar and remove this.
The partition is built with pine tongue and groove and on top of this was this awful polystyrene!
Woo hoo, we have never seen this window complete!
The corner beam installed by Dan.
Dan has used metal strapping to secure the beam to the walls. These will be hidden under the plaster. Ingenious.
This is the last of the cement to be removed from the interior and is on the wall under the front window in Zanna’s bedroom. Removing this has exposed many holes through the stone to the outside. Tom will repair this when he points the outside wall at the front.
The window that was split in two by the door frame of Zanna’s bedroom.
Some thought needs to go into how to glaze this partition, and how and what to secure it to.