The Donated House

In what would have been a very clear breach of health and safety law on any normal build site, but out of necessity and with two of us and with three points of contact at all times (hi, Mum) we put up the rickety old decorator’s ladder on top of the rickety old scaffolding and finished off the gable end.

It looks rather fine. It will look even better when we put windows in all the window holes and finish the rendering. In other news, the delicious, wonderful stove doors turned up from Finland, along with all the other parts of the masonry heater.

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Been doing some fun puzzles…

This is the bit of under-eave bird-proofing with ventilation holes and bug screen I made to block the space between roof trusses in the annex.

Fit like a glove, though it was a bit awkward to fit, with Richard outside on a ladder and me inside on the wall plate.

But it did the job, so we could start insulating the gable and roof in there. We’ll have to make about 100 more of them before we’re done. I bought 2m of bug screen and a job lot of hot glue sticks.

Kind of hard to see what’s going on here, but that’s 9 inches of kingspan overlapping in various ways in the gable. Take that, building regs.

I got a haircut. I thought you might like to know.

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It was kind of a passably nice day in parts, so it didn’t seem so bad climbing in and out of that godforsaken window 300 times. For the most part.

And look! Cladding! Which is the final outer layer on this gable, which means when we finish, this gable will be enclosed.

Sadly we ran out of cladding, so we’ll have to wait for Friday for another delivery.

I finally got over the latest type of irrational terror at doing something I’ve never done before and ordered some insulation, which I am about to go out and try to fit to the gable end of the building.

It arrived on Tuesday, which prevented me from going to the costume shop to do theraputic sewing as I normally do every week, but it was worth it because it was a beautiful day for working.

I got it from the very lovely Arthur at Seconds and Co in York, which is a company that buys overstock or slightly damaged or otherwise not-quite-good-enough-for-proper-builders insulation boards and sells them for pretty damn cheap. Arthur took me seriously when I said they couldn’t be delivered in a big lorry (hallelujah, they normally don’t) and was kind enough to deliver it on his transit, which looked amazing, about 2/3 insulation, 1/3 vehicle.

Richard and I carried them down to the house and hoisted them toward Alec, who stacked them in the gallery area, the only place we had any room to put any more stuff.

I seriously need to get using some of these materials or we won’t fit in this house anymore.

In other news, I’m getting ready for Sten to come and build a masonry heater for us, in late March. I wanted to build it out of reclaimed bricks, and while searching for them, I found some paving bricks (not proper bricks, made of cement, but I don’t care, they look like bricks and function like bricks and are reclaimed and local) on ebay for an incredible price. I bought them immediately and have spent two mostly enjoyable mornings  with Antony collecting them. I say mostly enjoyable because although the company is excellent, my forearms and lower back need a break. Last load to be collected tomorrow.

Last weekend Anna and I sloped off to do some sight seeing instead of working on site, as it was a beautiful day that was at least sunny if not actually warm. We went up to the Singing Ringing Tree art installation near Burnley, which is pretty cool. It’s made of pipes that have been tuned to hum in the wind and the sound changes as the wind moves around. Also quite beautiful. Highly recommended.

And finally: a gravity-defying cat.

Been a couple of windy days and a slightly stormy night forecast, with both rain and wind at the same time. I decided the frilly, decaying tarps had had it and replaced the two gable ends today in anticipation of said storm.

While taking down the old tarps, we found some tenants we hadn’t realised had moved in. Hundreds of ladybugs (or ladybirds as they’re called here) most of which seemed to be still alive, if somewhat sluggish. We tried to disturb them as little as possible and gave them a new tarp.

Meanwhile Nora and I keep working on these bloody windows. I’m less excited about them now. They’re taking a long time. Still, I remind myself it’s a huge job and one that only has to be done once. At least once in this 25 or 30 years.

In unrelated news, I got some plumbing experience when the recent deep frost took out the power shower. The relief valve, turns out, is not designed to be frozen. Who’s have thought. So now it relieves the system full time instead of just in emergencies. Antony says I can just blank it off. It’s mainly there in case of hard water furring up the shower head to the point where it won’t run, but we have quite soft water, so I’m not worried about it.

In the next month or so I need to install a hot water cylinder and enough plumbing to get the heat exchanger in my masonry heater hooked up in early April. This’ll be an adventure. Plumbing with push-fit plastic bits is one thing. Plumbing with pipe welding is quite another.