Is that a room I see?

October 16, 2016 by Caroline In Ethel's House, Renovations Tagged framing, kitchen, plasterboard, studwork Leave a comment

Dougie turned up on Thursday and got David to plasterboard the two kitchen walls which will have units on them for him so he could draw out the kitchen on the walls and mark where all the sockets and switches are going to go.

It turned out I had a couple of decisions to make about things I hadn’t even thought about – like did I want all the switches for the appliances separately by each appliance or wired to one block of switches (as it’s a small kitchen, I went for the block – less wall space) and where did I want the control unit for the central heating (it’s ended up on the wall outside the bathroom door)? Dougie’s advised me I need to ask Derek to move the water for the sink a few inches, as it’s currently straddling the sink and the washing machine, and also to lengthen the stopcock or I’m going to be reaching through a hatch in the back of the sink unit *and* through a hole in the plasterboard to turn off the water. We need to remember to leave access for the boiler’s filler loop too.

Mick has spent the weekend down there and did a bit more plasterboarding and the kitchen is actually starting to look like a room again.

Upstairs, David has made cracking progress with the framing and Mick has been able to get some more insulation in.

Where the dwangs are gives an idea of the panelling height, although I need to ask David about the fireplace because he’s framed over it rather than doing a return to show off the stone – this is likely my fault for saying I was panelling all round the room and not clarifying that I still wanted the fireplace exposed. I may not be popular when I see him next… I don’t know whether he’ll be getting to us next week, but looking at the weather forecast only Tuesday is scheduled to be wet, so fingers crossed we might see Magnus getting started on the painting.

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The roof’s nearly done

August 7, 2016 by Caroline In Ethel's House, Renovations Tagged downpipes, dwang, electricity, framing, guttering, roof, studwork 2 Comments

I was working away for a couple of days this week, so it was nice to come home and see progress. The roof is now very nearly finished – the ridge tiles are on, the guttering has all been hung and the downpipes attached. There was only a drain for one downpipe on the back, but Pete has advised a roof of this size needs two, so he’s fitted one and when we get Kev in to do the groundworks, we need to ask him to dig us a channel so we can put one in. They’ve re-harled the track where the old power cable used to run and all that’s left to do is the chimneys, so they’re currently moving the scaffolding around to the gable ends.

I got a call from SSE PD (Power Distribution) while I was away to say that they’d had a cancellation out my way and could fit my job in, if that was acceptable. More than! Fortunately Dougie was available to let them in and work alongside them. The cable in has been completely replaced and we now have about a metre more clearance under it.

David managed to get here for half a day as well and the framing is coming along nicely. I now know what a dwang is! (The horizontal brace piece between the vertical studs.)

Dougie nearly gave Mick a heart attack by saying he was sure that 100mm Quinn Therm needed a 50mm air gap rather than a 25mm – we’ve only just got 25mm for where it’s going in the rafters. So Mick did a bit of Googling, and yes, it does need a 50mm air gap if you’re using tar paper as your roof underlay, but if you have a breathable membrane like ours, 25mm is fine. Phew. I think Rembrand would probably have exchanged it for us, but it would have been a hassle!

We’ve also done a nice bit of materials recycling by asking James and Connor to dump the old roof into the big tractor ruts, which were getting on for a foot deep in places.

So what next? Well, Dougie’s away on holiday, which will hopefully give David a chance to get ahead a bit. We’re going to start fitting the insulation into the roof today to make some space in the living room. ERG rang me to say that my windows and doors could be installed on 25th and 26th August, so I’d like to have David around on at least the first day if possible. Pete’s going to give me the number of a guy called Magnus who has an air-free paint spraying system and who can paint the house for me – whether I can get that done before the windows go in is debatable, but we’ll try! Kev is hopefully coming over this afternoon to talk groundworks for both here and home – in other words, it’s all getting expensive! Fortunately the last Barclaycard balance transfer offer has reappeared, so I cleared the card last week and will apply for the transfer on Monday, which gives me another £11,400. That should finish paying for Pete and Dougie and the windows and Magnus with hopefully a bit left over towards Derek the heating engineer, who I should probably ring to find out what his availability is going to be over the next few weeks!

Progress update

July 31, 2016 by Caroline In Ethel's House, Renovations Tagged byres, ridge tiles, roof, slating, studwork Leave a comment

It’s been a week of steady progress. This afternoon Mick and I went down and finished clearing out the byre. The hay might still be on the ground getting steadily wetter, but at least we have somewhere to put it and Ronald, who I’ve been told is one of the best hay makers in the area and lives opposite Ethel’s House, has reassured me that I haven’t lost it yet, I just need to hold my nerve. The byre looks an awful lot better, anyway.

I found this under several years of dirt on the floor – hopefully it’s a good omen!

I also have an update on the two photographs. I tagged a couple of neighbours on Facebook to see if they had any idea and someone tagged a relative of Ethel’s, who very kindly messaged me with this:

Hello , I believe you have purchased ,my late mothers family home ,used to love going there for my holidays late forties early fifties .the photo of the man you found , is my late maternal grandfather , Hugh MacDonald , he died very young , in his thirties , possibly around 1910 era ( burst appendix ) leaving my granny with three young children ,and pregnant with the fourth , my late uncle Harry .we are not sure who the lady in photograph is , but think it may be my fathers sister Ina . If you find any more photos could be interesting .

So that means one of those photos is possibly over 100 years old – incredible! I’m going to see if my Photoshop skills are good enough to retouch them, if not I may get it professionally done. I’d like to get the originals and cleaned-up copies put in one frame to hang in the house. The Uncle Harry referred to was Ethel’s husband.

Travis Perkins were supposed to deliver the ridge tiles on Wednesday, but rang Pete to say their crane was being inspected, so it would be Thursday. Turned out there was a fault on the crane, which was fixed on Thursday, but then the lorry came west without our order on it. They said they’d bring it on Friday, but had to go to Wick first, so Pete hooked up his trailer and went to get it himself. Of course, it promptly rained, but they did manage to make a start and Mick has been up the scaffolding to get some close-up photos of our beautiful, beautiful roof.