A phrase coined by our good friend Laura, yesterday, and it’s perfect. Everyone who has worked on the house is our building hero. Nothing on this house has been easy or straightforward, it has fought us the whole way, but everyone who has accepted the challenge has worked tirelessly to conquer it. Heroes. The biggest hero of them all is Cat. Cat has worked EVERY SINGLE DAY for 5 months, doing all the tasks that no-one else can or wants to do. She is definitely my hero.
Our plastering heroes, Charlie, Alan and Mitch, are starting to board out the attic space. It has instantly got bigger and lighter from just a few boards, it has been so dark up here since the dark blue felt was put on the roof.
Another hero (for many reasons), Colin drops by for a check up on progress.
Hero Dan is finishing insulating the inside of the dormer windows.
Hero Cat is tanking the cement board for the shower walls. All joins need sealing with a special tanking tape, then the whole lot needs tanking with a seal that you brush on. Trouble is the tape won’t stick to the cement board because the board is dusty. Cat will try painting the seal on first, then stick the tape to this…
Hero Tom says he isn’t very photogenic. I don’t know what he means (sorry Tom but it is a corker of a photo!)
Tom is back pointing the front of the house. The weather is changing rapidly so we have just enough time to get the lime pointing finished before the frosts start as you can’t use lime in freezing conditions.
Hero George is finishing the pointing on the gable end wall. Today George is really bloody cold. He is working on the top of the scaffolding, not moving around much, and there is a freezing cold wind.
Hero Josh is back for the day to finish off cleaning up and oiling the dining room beams.
Our ceiling hatch (that we discovered in the old bathroom ceiling), freshly oiled, looking quirky and fab.
Some of the joists in the dining room ceiling still have the bark on them!
Heroes Roger, Pete and Bo are progressing very well, the back of the roof isn’t far off now!
The lead cheeks on the second dormer window are being added.
We need oak for our window seat in the bathroom so Zanna pays a visit to Doug Hutsby to see what he has. This rather special piece is filled with burrs and is long enough to do two window seats.
Doug also has some rather rare elm, felled this year (so not yet dried), but it would be fabulous for our desks…
Cat has painted the (bright blue!) tanking seal onto the cement board and can now get the tape to stick to the joints.
And then she ran out of tape… Believe it or not this took 3 metres! We are going to need another 12…
Now the bathroom plaster is finished, we need to dry it out so it can be painted before next week (when the bathroom gets fitted).
One day with a heater and it’s nearly dry! Hero heater and hero Henry Hoover!
Wow! It’s turning into a proper room!
The window at the top of the stairwell. We are leaving the top of the wall as exposed stone, so the plaster finishes at the top of the window.
The gaps that are too small for plasterboard get filled with expanding foam.
After everyone goes home for the day, Cat (who has been up since 6.30am) starts painting the sitting room ceiling. She can’t paint when everyone is working in the house as there is still dust being created everywhere that will settle in the paint.
Cat is painting a mist coat over the plaster (3 parts white emulsion to one part water).
I came round to the house to see where Cat was only to find her painting the ceiling in the dark whilst wearing a bin bag.
Building hero.
AND when Cat had finished painting next door she paints another coat on to the metal windows!
Phew! 😅What a lot of hard work – all definitely heroes!!
Aren’t they!
Have you opened the secret hatch yet? Or is it still all covered up on top?
It’s still covered up upstairs under a carpet in the eaves of Cat’s bedroom… When we are back in we shall take the carpet up and open it and go up and down it via a ladder 🙂