I am sure Cat will find this funny when she returns on Friday.
This is so true.
Even Jasper got a BIG mention.
It’s that time of year when fence posts grow gloves.
Dan is cutting the elm floor board to fit the edge of the tread that he is repairing.
He is extending it around the end where there is currently a big gap between the post of the door frame.
The repaired tread with the piece cut and shaped to fit into the gap at the end. He will now cut pieces to fit vertically into the end to finish it off and cover the gap.
The architrave around the exterior of the sitting room door, scribed to fit tightly into the stone.
The trench for the French drain at the back is dug underneath the new poo pipe.
The big Jack hammer is back to dig up a previous land drain that was underneath the patio (in the way of the new pipework). The crazy paved patio was cemented on top of a previous one where the correct levels for the exterior should be. This should make a big difference to the damp floors inside, they should now be able to breath and dry out.
Tom is digging a massive hole in the middle of the back garden (5 metres away from the house) for a soak away that will take the rain water from the gutters.
Nothing interesting was found apart from a few animal bones, it is all good top soil that appears to have been added for the garden and it’s a couple of feet down to the clay base. Just like the front of the house, the garden is significantly higher than the ground levels, with a retaining wall built around the lawn.
Dan is scribing a strip of oak for the door architrave between the sitting room and the dining room.
Over the last 6 months we’ve kept everything that we’ve found in the house so have a garage filled with old bits of floor boards, joists, etc. plus all the extra boards that we purchased along the way, all for this exact reason – to repair things like door frames and stairs. This was a piece of oak floorboard that we were gifted by a developer and collected from Jewson’s car park in Banbury!
The piece of oak scribed into the dining room door. Just needs a sand and oil.
The repaired stair end, with the one bit of floorboard cut up and used to repair all the gaps in this corner. It will need a bit of work, sanding and oiling, but then we have a great deal of work to tidy up the staircase again… It has quite a lot of plaster ingrained, not unsurprisingly.
The finished architrave around the new sitting room back door. Dan has also added a piece of oak underneath the old lintels where there was a big gap. This looks so very smart now and is finally sealed from the elements.
A particularly lovely part of the new oak architrave.
Tom and George have added the new land drain pipework at the back of the house.
They can now remove the concrete that has been added at the bottom of the stone walls. And in true Pear Tree Cottage style, this concrete is ridiculously hard and almost impossible to remove. It has to come off as it is damaging the walls, the stones behind it are in a very bad state and some will need to be replaced.
George tackling some particularly hard concrete, we had some on the front wall that was like this that took ages to remove. This is another damp area inside so will benefit hugely from this being removed as the walls will be able to dry out.
I have moved the fan up to the landing as the only windows now that are still quite wet in the mornings are the ones here.
I received a lovely gift through the post today, hand painted by Sophie! The boost I needed after a tough week! Love you Soph xxx
Such beautiful work on the wood
The repaired stair looks amazing and I am loving the new back door and frame – a far cry from the grotty ‘60s/‘70s one that was there!
I know, Dan is doing a great job! So great to finally be seeing things getting finished 🙂