Shed Stuff

So we started removing the old shelving from inside the outbuildings, to reorganise and start the bike room etc, and found a slight problem;

Dry rot - and a massive leak down the street side wall through the roof.

So we are now back in a destruction phase, with builders back to re-do the outbuildings, which includes rebuilding an entire wall, redoing most of the wooden beams for the roof and redoing all the slates - here is where we are at....


Only a little work for the builders (!) - oh and no yard and lots of skips again.......

some garden stuff

The front garden in toto:

And the detailed versions: everlasting peas, then buddleia,wallflower, lavenders, passionflower, more lavender, fuchsia, chamomile. The pots have some sedum and a tiny fig cutting. Mmmm.

And the elephant ears (bleurrgh, but good ground cover), something purple whose name I've forgotten, and pretty feathery astilbe.

A look up the garden to the shed when we'd just planted out herbs (from Riverford, where we get our veg box).

That was then - this is now. The shed has become a bus shelter, and the broad beans and herbs have gone BANANAS!


The raspberry crop, and the loganberry survives! (Both cuttings from my Dad):


And the new little shed. Should we grow a clematis over it? Clare's done a dry-stone-wall next to it to control one of the wood piles.

Working outside

So its been ages since our last post. Rather unsuprisingly the decorating hasn't moved much further on, not quite sure why, but I have plans for next weekend, this one being rather filled with another triathlon and then a friends birthday party!

Outside, however things are moving a bit.
We removed the shelving in the bike shed, to find a little bit of damp (or rather a massive leak from the roof all along that side of the outbuildings!?)

After the last week of rain, imagine all of that old original, tie a horse to it, wall wet and add the inside of the sauna area too....luckily we have Scott and Matt, who worked on the house as part of the woodsends team, coming to re-do the roof, remove the flooring, remove shed 5 (I think its 5, might have to check previous shed post), plumb in the washing machine and sink and move some electrics, so the sheds should be watertight and functional in a few weeks time.

Hopefully no more rotting sheds.

Talking about sheds we have also built a new shed in the swimming pool area (Dolores / Dads name for the small sunken area near our neighbours garden) and will be finishing the demolition of shed 1 after the triathlon and party this weekend!


I also tidied up with the spare bulwell stone removed from around the windows when they were extended, and have built a little dry stone wall and wood store area.

And with some help from George and Sue (again!) we have done some gardening and got things a little bit under control.
Herbs and Broadbeans
Outside our bedroom outside the front and general weeding and pruning

Also realised we hadn't posted pictures of the fantastic gable end cladding, that makes us feel nautical!


We are also meeting Gil next week to look at plans for the balcony, hoping to submit them to planning asap and get on with that too.....
We will try to keep you posted!?

Builders gone under

So I recieved a rather suprising text on Monday morning from the builder who was doing the most of the work on our house - Darren, to say that Woodsends, the family building company who have been doing this job, and have been established for ages had folded due to the recession. I was firstly really sorry for them, and then hugely relieved that they finished the rendering and plastering last week, and that there are only two minor jobs left to be done, and that we hadn't paid in advance on the last bill for work they hadn't done yet! Also that this hadn't happened 9 months ago in the middle of the build.
We will put pictures up of the finished roofing and rendering soon - and let you know how we get on getting the final bits done, and planning for the next phases (when we have more cash) of the balcony, out buildings, PV panels, decorating, kitchen unit, plumbing to outbuildings so we can have a washing machine, parquet floor laying etc.........
A friend did suggest that maybe we need a five year plan!

I just would like to say Thanks to Woodsends for a great job on our house - and good luck to all the builders, plasterers, joiners etc that they employed in getting new work - rather depressing times.

Painting and Christmas

So since the last post we had a week off, during which I imagined we would get downstairs painted - I obviously need a reality check - but we did get the spare room and both bathrooms done, ready for all our guests for christmas - but it was hard, slow work, especially the ceilings

But the finished results are worth it;

We also got a bit more organised with all the visitors coming - and emptied all the book boxes onto bookshelves, and treated and uncovered the fantastic stairs.



Christmas was great - we had a house-full, kept warm easily, and had a needle-less christmas tree making clearing up much easier!


Now the builders are back, finishing the wooden gable end, and hopefully also doing the roof tiling around the windows, modification to the outside of the MVHR so we can change the filter, rendering to the downstairs windows, the final bit of plastering internally, and sealing around the joists between the floors to help sort out the air-tightness better.....
Now really looking forward to getting rid of the builders so that we can sort out the sheds and get rid of the porta loo! Obviously things have been a bit delayed because of the cold and ice - although we kept warm mostly (!) we did have one casualty the pipes to the sheds froze and have all burst, so we will have to get that replumbed, but no point until we get rid of the builders, work out where we want the washing machine etc, and then we can get it all plumbed together. The burst pipe probably accounts for a rather entertainingly shaped icicle I found in our garage. I will leave you with the icicle image, and post more after I have recovered from a cold, and we have had most of a week of next week to do more painting, with our new platform ladder from George and Sue.
Happy New Year

Upstairs and the Snow

So it has been ages since we posted properly about what has been happening on the inside of our house - partly due to being in it and not noticing as much, and partly due to weddings that have kept us busy for a few weekends in a row!
Things have moved on - even if we haven't started decorating, we have started sorting, and living in the house and finding out how it all works. The space is fantastic, works really well for us - roll on a bit more cash and the balcony and the place will be awesome.




The solar water heating and immersion are great - as long as Emily doesn't have a giant bath and empty the hot water - although there is a top up immersion function so not that bad really!? It will be very satisfying when we have solar electric as well to run the immersion.
Heating is slightly less great at the moment - we need the stove on, most of the time
that we are here.
Upstairs gets warm within a few hours, downstairs not really. Sleeping is fine, we are warm in bed, and in the morning after keeping the house warm during the day, the warmth has spread more evenly through the house overnight, warming downstairs a little bit more, so clearly the MVHR does work. Apparently according to both the architect and the MVHR man, this year will be colder than any other whilst we get the thermal mass of the place warmed up - and with it minus degrees outside that is clearly harder than at other times! It does give us an opportunity, however, of some great snow photos.

Do you like our guard-owl?

Very glad we did go for a stove, and not have nothing at all, as was originally suggested otherwise we would have been really cold.....


The metal work around the windows has also started now. It was originally going to be light grey, then changed to dark grey to match the window colour, but accidentally has been done the light colour. We "hummed and hahed" for a day as to whether the light colour was right (the fact that it would be another 4 weeks at least if it wasn't helped the decision), but actually the light colour looks good, and increases the light coming in to the house lots. Unfortunately the weather has stopped them finishing it, and also means the rendering won't happen for a while, as the temp needs to be 4 degrees minimum for the rendering to happen......



We have a week off coming up soon, so hopefully will get some painting done, and be able to show some more photos, particularly of downstairs, ready for the family invasion at christmas!
Finally feeling for our builders in this weather....

A splash of joyous Sydney colour!

A parcel arrived yesterday, it was sitting on the doorstep after we walked home from town. We'd seen "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (excellent) and when we came out - it was still snowing, and the buses were all cancelled. (No problem for us, we live pretty near town).

And this morning we looked in the parcel and experienced a flash of Australian summery colour.


(I know they're Marimekko, and hence Finnish, but look at this!)



A lovely house-warming gift from M-H and Sandra!