The Donated House

Antony came round to help me fit the first roof window, which went remarkably smoothly, mainly due to Antony knowing what he was doing. This is a view of what will one day, God willing, be my bedroom.

Outside the window, David continues to make excellent progress on the roof. I have spent the day not actually on the roof because it’s bloody uncomfortable work and if others are willing to do it while I frame in windows and cut bits of wood for this and that, well who am I to complain. Mackenzie, son of my good friend Michelle finally succumbed to her badgering and dropped by to help.

Alec, despite the photographic evidence, spent all day cutting tiles to order for the guys on the roof, and not sitting around on straw.

Here’s the roof approximately 1/10th done, and David looking pleased with that, quite rightly.

It was crazy-hot on the roof, so I was pleased to be able to work inside, framing and making a hole for the next roof window.

I then managed to fit that window all by my very own self. With only minor, easily rectifiable mistakes.

And the view across the valley to the pub is everything I hoped it would be.

Over the course of the past month or so I’ve been doing an assessment of my chances of completing this build, and along with the conclusion that I’m definitely not going to be living in it this year, whatever happens, I’ve also come to the realisation that I need serious motivational help to push through  two of the massive obstacles between here and weather-tightness, that is roofing and rendering.

With that in mind, I’m going to announce a series of work weekends and I’m going to hope with all my might that my friends (and their friends, and some complete strangers) will come and help me. And that the fact of an upcoming work weekend will motivate me to *properly* plan and organise the work. Some days that seems guaranteed to work and sometimes it seems recklessly optimistic. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

So here goes:

24-26 June
8-10 July
12-24 August
9-11 September

I really hope I’ll be done with most of the roofing by the first one, but all of these parties are likely involve preparing the exterior walls and rendering them, which is messy, so bring clothes you would paint in. There might also be landscaping and gardening, if anybody prefers that. It’s low on my list of priorities, but I actually find that having the garden looking better boosts my mood a lot and makes me feel more productive and positive about the place.

If you haven’t been here for a long time, you are particularly welcome. If you’ve never come before you are particularly-particularly welcome. If you have friends who might be interested in helping out, they are very welcome.

All types of gin, as usual, are welcome.

There’s a fair amount of fairly comfortable on-site accommodation, so camping is unlikely to be necessary these days, unless everyone in the world shows up at once.

Please help me get off my sorry, self-pitying ass and get on with it. Email me if you can come. Thanks guys.

Not blogged in ages, which is basically about being psychologically unable to handle more than pushing forward with the build on a daily basis. Sorry. Had hoped to be properly documenting all events and feelings as I went along, but it’s not going to happen.

Three of my builder-saviour-friends were on site at once the other day.

Ben and Helene made time before they left to help with the finishing of the annex walls and ring beam, and then the compression.

Ben contorted himself into a tiny space in order to stick the ring beam together.

Helene was master of the white nylon strap tightener-thingy.

Rob and Nicola came over and helped with gardeny  stuff, which needed doing, although it never makes it to the top of my to-do list these days. But they also helped get the digger up from the lower level to the upper level where it can be sold without having to worry how to get it out.

Wildlife identification quiz, please submit answers to my email address.

This one we identified, as a wasp nest. Probably hibernating wasp I guess?

We had to prevent a swarm, so Nic and Rob helped make frames.

Anna and I suited up.

And we did the scariest bee stuff ever. Couldn’t find the queen so we dumped them ALL out onto a board which led up to an empty chamber with a queen excluder over it to isolate her. They didn’t like it much. I had to walk away several times to stop panicking.

Meanwhile Nic and Rob did some much needed and much appreciated remedial work on the supposed flower beds. We’ll have to find some replacement flowers to put in, as they’d all been killed off by weeds.

They stayed in the Wendy House in bluebell season, which I’ve not managed to do yet. Meant to. Next year.

This is what it looks like here now.

We walked downtown and there was a market on and we bought strawberries at it. Which we cut up and covered in gin. Total favourite, can’t wait. Must wait, because it’s better the longer you leave it.

Jack has developed a liking for straw.

And roofing continues at a fairly slow pace. I have discovered that I don’t really care for it, as an activity. Unfomfortable, fiddly, awkward and slow. But I have the hugest roof in history and there’s really nothing to be done but keep going.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you all about massive f**k-up number 37-46b, where I didn’t allow for any particular valley system in my roofing, so we had to design our own. St Andy and St Antony helped design it, and it involves a continuous gutter of flashing tape down the valley, followed by sheets of DPC laid between courses of tile, which are cut to as-close-as-possible meet down the middle of the valley.

Cutting the bastards is difficult except with my tile saw, which is either going to mean setting it up on the roof or endless trips up and down the ladder. But it does seem to work. And thanks very much to Chris who came and helped on this most thankless of tasks.

My newest friend David, who works at the builders’ merchant downtown, finally came up to see the place and took the opportunity to show off his rather lovely hammock, designed and made by a friend of his. It is a rather niftily designed piece of kit, packs down to almost nothing and is very easy to put up and take down.

And finally, here are some of the people who’ve been staying this week for a lime rendering course across the valley. They were busy most of the time, so they didn’t have much energy left to do work at mine, but I hope they had a nice stay and I hope they’ll come back.

Anna got new bees.

And I put the first few tiles on the roof, thanks to the Blessed Saint Andy Bolton, patron of feckless, underqualified self-builders. Thanks Andy.

Also nearly done with straw walls in the annex and have a plan for the ring beam and its interface with the roof trusses I broke down and bought from a fabricator because I’ve had enough of doing my own carpentry for the time being. It was cheaper than the parts would have been anyway.

Powering on…