The Donated House

At the weekend it was lovely to have the assistance and company of several of my friends I hadn’t seen in a while. I was laid up with a foot injury, so I couldn’t take part as fully as I would have liked, but it was sure lovely to see everybody.

Lots of them got on with straw baling, getting within two bale courses of the top of the walls in the annex.

And meanwhile, we slaked another day’s worth of lime, bringing us to about the halfway point in slaking. Having refined the technique, I reckon another two days should do it.

So the saga of the load-bearing extension continues. The end wall, which was supposed to carry a truss that carried purlins that carried the roof turns out to be leaning out at an angle which is not alarming to the casual viewer, but is alarming to structural engineers. Or at least we guess it would be. So we’re redesigning the roof to use scissor trusses so that the weight is born by the much straigher side walls.

At any rate, the big tarp had been hastily strung up at a height appropriate for building the bottom walls, but it needed to be raised significantly for the next floor to be built.

I only had the bare bones of a plan, but whatever was happening, we had to take the tarp down completely, and today’s weather was definitely the right time to do it.

Once we’d got it down, and could see the lay of the land, so to speak, we decided to cut all the overshot battens to flush and try to hang the tarp from the roof.

Theoretically this would mean it wouldn’t need moving again, as we could build the extension roof off it.

Sunny and lovely though it was, the roof was a very uncomfortable place to hang out. I fear that I will not make a very good roofer in future. Scratch that from the potential career path idea list.

We rolled the huge tarp up longways into a sausage and put it up over the ridge at the edge of the roof. Ben and I drilled and screwed battens on to hold it by one edge and we pushed it off.

Being very stiff, it was reluctant to roll out, but we managed eventually.

After significant pegging and guying, it did provide a very satisfactory temporary roof.

It’ll still have to go up a bit when we actually build the roof, but for now, there’s plenty of room to build another five courses of bales.

I am at the pub, partly because I don’t have wifi at home anymore (until Friday!) but also to celebrate the peaceful and successful conclusion of two straw wall building courses.

At the end of the first course, the house had nearly all of the ground floor walls built.  Amanda… (I love the below picture, I can just hear David Attenborough’s voiceover) … demonstrates that this week, we got right up to the eaves.

Rae explains some principle of straw building…

And Sara practices whatever it was.

The upstairs is looking pretty crowded these days.

Ben, looking a bit like Jesus, explains about the ring beam he built. Helene the disciple looks either contemplative of the Good News, or possibly just distracted.

Sophie, Josh and Manuel listen to Ben explaining how we’re going to raise, finish, and drop the ring beam on the extension.

We built a straw staircase to heft the sections of Ben’s ring beam into place before fixing them together into one long box beam and lowering it onto the wall. Mammoth team effort. Totally successful.

We got the ring beam stuffed, ready for capping, but we didn’t have time to actually cap it. So guess what I’m doing this week?

I delivered cookies at regular intervals throughout the course because I believe it encourages quality building as well as general wellbeing.

As is tradition where I come from, we spent Easter Sunday dying easter eggs. My  neighbour Charlotte came round, though I forgot to take a picture, so here is one of Anna, Helene and Ben instead.

And me in the background reading a book, having both been there and done that.

However, around here, we are not able to take a bank holiday weekend at leisure.

I have been building scaffolding so that we can get up to the outside of the east side of the house for building and then for rendering.

Ben gamely helped me push the bits of wood out into place so that I could hover in mid-air and screw bits of wood to other bits of wood up high.

Me, hovering in the air, fixing the top of my scaffolding post.

Helene learned how to use tools today while helping Ben to make bits of box beam.

But the most important thing about Easter is eating well, which we have done.

It’s my favourite part of the day.

Sorry for not commentating much on the below pictures, internet still down at home so am stealing some from work…

Ben’s wall plates were installed to compress the walls. The first section was easy enough.

…break for lunch…

The second section of wall plate was a bit more complicated, needing to go the other side of two supporting posts and to be lowered over the door and window posts.

Ben designed it in two pieces which joined over the door so that we could wrestle it out there, then complete it, then drop it down into place.

A little last minute fettling was necessary.

But then it went absolutely beautifully.

And earned Ben a round of applause.

The group photo.

And the house all tarped and ready for me to have a day off by coming to the Royal Exchange to do a bit of sewing. Heaven!