The Donated House

Started yesterday by inventing a “scaffolding” system that allowed us to get on and off the roof without having to do so from the bottom.

Mackenzie loved it. I was scared sh!tless. Yes, Michelle, he is tied on at all times.

Set up the whole system to accommodate all the rest of the tiles, since it would be a massive pain to get them on the roof after we no longer had access from the lower scaffolding. My little tables have been such a blessing. But they have now served their purpose and one got flung from the roof today.

Forethought! Brought up all the ridge tiles and stacked them on the yet-unridged ridge.

And then did the roofing equivalent of painting oneself into a corner.

Got a bit farther than you see above, just 50 tiles shy of finishing. But then ran out of tiles, nails and rivets almost simultaneously, which is what I’d sort of planned for because I’d rather have to go to Halifax and buy 50 more than be left with 50 I’d paid for and didn’t use. Apparently that’s the opposite of what most builders do, but I’m too poor to be overbuying!

We’ll finish this tomorrow and then render render render!

Stopped roofing for a bit. Decided to work on rendering. John from one of the straw bale courses came back and helped with some experimentation to discover how to avoid cracking.

I had a list of things that might have potentially been wrong with the mix, so we tried adding horse hair (massive pain in the *%&*$* to work with) and using different sand, as well as really, thoroughly, alarmingly wetting the surface to be rendered. The results are conclusive that all of those things need to be done if it’s not going to crack.

But at least we got it to not crack, which is nice. And we got a bit further along what is going to be a long, tiresome, boring job.

Grapes from my neighbour’s allotment and tiny olives from Catalonia. Don’t mistake one for the other while casually snacking… rude awakening.

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Roof roof roof roof roof.

Ridge ridge ridge, roof roof roof roof.

Been working like demons for the last several days, inbetween serious rain showers, or indoors during them, getting ready to go away and leave three lovely, somewhat inexperienced but eminently sensible young men in charge of my project while I bugger off to Catalonia.

The render mix was coming up a bit wet, so we have been batch drying the sand in the sunny spot in front of the window.

That made it hold up a bit better, though we are having cracking problems now. I think it’s one or more of three things: too lime-rich, no horse hair or sand too fine. So I’ve left the guys with instructions to make up 8 batches with all variations on those variables and try them on a section of wall and we’ll see what we come up with. Above is Gill mixing up a batch to help me get a first coat on the back of the building. This was before we knew all that about the cracking. Blissful ignorance.

Meanwhile, Liz, who prefers not to get covered in render, de-nailed the rest of the panelling. Thanks, Liz!

I mentioned that at some point it would be good if we split some firewood, you know, a bit here and there between other things, and immediately CJ and Mackenzie split it all. I love men.

Anna models a rather fine bomber jacket while I compress the first floor wall in the background.

James contemplates the Chinese puzzle of the ratchet strap during the compression.

We decided that after a year it was time for a modicum of health and safety, so we put up some rails to stop people falling from height quite so easily.

This is me demonstrating another aspect of the health and safety attitude we have.

And finally: here’s me holding a jigglypuff in Hebden last weekend. If you don’t get it, ask the nearest person in their early 20’s to tell you about Pokemon Go.

Finished the cladding of that one bit today. I’m really happy with it. First time in absolutely ages I’ve looked at some part of this building and really loved it.