The Donated House

Pictures. No words, got people to feed.

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This hard…

Saint Antony lent me all his plumbing gear and showed me the basics. It looked dead easy when he did it, but turning the cutty thingy turned out to be a bit more of a struggle for me.

It’s pretty cool, though, just a little sprung blade wheel in a jig that you clip on and then turn round and round about 3 or 4 times until the end of the copper pipe just pops off!

Job number one, as usual, lay out all the gear. Job number two, make stuff really hot and stick it together with solder.

My first plumbing job turns out to be a candle holder.

It went really well though, it was easy in the end. I quite enjoyed it. I suppose the test will be whether my actual plumbing holds water, so to speak, but I’m quietly confident.

Meanwhile… the weather has been lovely.

And watch this space, because the masonry heater builders are on site and next post will be pictures of all that. Amazing.

Been clearing out straw, which was surplus to requirement, now that I have a pretty good idea what requirement will be for that last gable wall.

Found the home of those bees that took up residence in the pile of bales last summer. Luckily they’d vacated quite naturally at the end of summer.

Got a great little wing back chair on freegle. That cover’s not the nicest, but it’s a beautiful sage green and dark wood underneath, and the cover will keep it clean while I finish the house.

And we have finished insulating that one room. So I hung some curtains (bolt of fabric I’d been given a few years ago) and we’re having a room-warming party in there later.

Anna has been tidying up the garden, which is very very overdue and necessary and she is a saint. We burned some bits of old, wet scrap wood, including the two-seater that was seriously on its last legs. This does mean I’ll need to build another bench.

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A selection of photos of the views and the build activity by our illustrious house photographer Richard.

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Getting the insulation done, which requires a certain amount of crawling around in awkward spaces and trying to measure awkward bits of space.

But is resulting in a nearly-finished bit of house, which is amazing.

Even Alec is getting in on the act!

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