floored

Over the Easter weekend and the following week,we  ’did’ the floor of my son’s bedroom.It was horribly wobbly and some bits of the floor gave way a little underfoot, and as my lad is adult and not small… we worried about just how safe it was.

And our son is keen to decorate his room.  Before we moved here, when he was still a kid, we had promised we would decorate his room straight away, because we bought a decrepit house and had to go back on that promise due to other more pressing things getting in the way first. He was ace about that, and waited and helped with other projects. He stripped the old lady style wall paper – not hard in places as it was hanging off and badly put up in the first place, to reveal many patches of different plaster and lack of plaster etc.  He was a bit previous with that, and had to live with this new decor all this time, and frankly it looked like something you see on DIY SOS, when the presenter says ‘how can a family live in this?’ – we like to watch that program and chortle.

So we moved him out, and squeezed him and his furniture and all his possessions into the rest of the house – no mean feat, and pulled up the carpet to reveal the full glory of the ‘floor’ that was in place.  A combination of a distinct lack of joists, thanks to the beetles, and non floor grade board thanks to cowboy builders was the problem.  Along one side of the floor, there was no joist to meet the edge of the floorboards, so a series of L brackets were used to attach the floor to the skirting board.  In other words, that side of the floor was held up by the skirting board, which in turn was attached to a lath and plaster wall.

Yes. Really.

Anyhow..it’s all good now, with adequate joists and flooring, it is the most solid and straight floor we have  in the upstairs of our home now.

Unfortunate that himself slipped off a joist with one foot whilst putting the very last board down – and he crashed the one leg through the hall ceiling – and it would seem has possibly cracked or badly bruised a rib.  The oddity is I was sure it would be me who did that… poor him, but he will live, and  no one was standing below when he did it, and he missed the electrics so…. could be worse!

The interesting thing about house renovation is seeing some of the history of the house.  We have what is left of the original roof  in our attic, inside a much newer roof (although these things are relative… the current roof is old and needs replacing really..), The old old roof shows when the house started life about 400 years ago, as a two up two down, and a line in the old plaster all around the room, lining up with the walk in cupboard shows the original height of the upstairs rooms, before the back of the house was build perhaps 200 years later  The bedrooms would have been pretty low  - and this perhaps explains why the downstairs rooms have low ceilings and the upstairs are really tall (because the house was extended upwards as well as out)… And the reason our house is not listed (yay!) because it has been changed and altered all along – and we are just part of the ongoing story.

Our contribution has been to put in namby pamby strong safe features.

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pergola

Last week we built a new pergola.  We had a cherry laurel tree there, with an ancient clematis growing through it, but the tree was getting bigger and bigger, and severely shading the garden next door, and our garden underneath was dark and only really good for ivy.. of  which we have too much already.

The plan was to keep the clematis  - which was only flowering on the top of the

tree anyway, and put it on the pergola. The shade at lunchtime was very welcome in mid summer.

But after a lot of umming and arring and contacting the park authority, it would seem to be a bit of a grey area as to whether a pergola needed planning permission or not  (it could be argued it is a fence?) – so to resolve this, we moved the planned location slightly closer to the house, so it fell into permitted development, and then just wouldn’t be a problem.
Once the pergola was up – with a little ‘help’ from the cats – we tried in vain to shift the clematis over.. but it is too old and stiff and in the end, settled for a harsh pruning.

I read everywhere that the time to prune it is  after the flowers – but I think this is just to avoid having a flower free year. I hope so anyway.  Pruning an old clematis will either kill it or revive it.. we are obviously hoping for the latter.  To  hedge our bets (sorry for that pun) we planted a couple of new ones too.

And I have ordered a Rose Kiftsgate – a massive vigorous white rose we have grown successfully before, to cloth the ugly wall.

We hardly ever do gardening, as opposed to working the veg patches, and it feels really good. Helped by getting some sunshine and having the cats out playing alongside.

Fingers crossed the old clematis makes it.

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the room of doom

Over the last couple of days we have been tackling the room of doom aka the spare room.

‘Spare’ makes it seem surplus to requirements – not so – we have both worked from home in that room, it is the main storage area of our home dyed wool, in various stages of  process, our dvd and cd library, and alas, a general dumping area.

The cats, Molly and Pete have been helping.  And by helping I means curling up and lying down in the middle of everything  - in Pete’s case, and playing happy adventures climbing through the loom and over teetering boxes with glee in Molly’s.

But, after many days, lots of sorting out, being ruthless, building shelves and reorganising, we now have a large space in the middle of the room – revealing the hideous swirling brown and orange nightmare carpet we inherited in all its ‘glory’.  One day we shall change it.. but it seems far down the priority list at the moment.

Ultimately our plans are to make a study / craft room.  With a big table to sew/model/craft at, my desk an paperwork mountain in the corner,  a little wood burner installed in the fireplace, the sofa bed will double as guest sleepage, and a chair so we can spin or weave or  knit or craft and keep each other company as we craft , listening to the radio or music etc.  I did wonder if I had over subscribed the room with too many uses, but now we have shifted everything about, it actually seems possible, as it is a large room, and all that shelving takes advantage of the high ceilings.   (Why do we have high ceilings upstairs and low ceilings downstairs?)

but before we play musical tables and set ourselves up there, we have to tackle our son’s room – or more to the point the floor – which is decidedly bouncey and if anything like the floor that came with the room of doom, the joists  will have been eaten by the delightful death watch beetle, and will need replacing – with all that that entails.

So – we have been opening boxes of things not yet unpacked since we moved in, and making decisions and freecycling etc, because the floor of my son’s room needs replacing. you know how it is.

There is a goal at the end of all this hard graft, and it is that craft room, with the wood burner and sofa and all the craft things… and then no doubt the room of doom will become the room of loom.

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new cats: Molly and Pete

After  brief debacle, in the getting new cats front, whereby a mad cat woman tried to palm us off with a feral cat, we went to cat protection and after lots of umming and arring (Cat’s can live to twentyish  - so this is a two decade decision), we came home with Molly and Pete.

Molly is one years old and still has a fair bit of kitten in her, but is fairly affectionate and cuddly too.

Pete is 2, and more cautious, but already into talking to us, and greets us enthusiastically.  He is really beautiful, such an intense velvet black, with huge eyes. He is also affectionate, likes a good stroke,  and loves to sit on the sofa behind us with a paw stretched out to touch.

and it has been going stunningly well.  No howling on the way home in the car, they were sprawled on the sofa the evening we brought them home, and each love the sheepskin rugs.  I’m totally sold on having older cats now.  We always had kittens before, but everyone wants kittens, the older ones get left behind.  And our house, in a state of renovation, is not ideal for kittens.  We could imagine losing them inside a wall or something.

Molly and Pete are taking it in their stride.  They were startled at the wood burner, as clearly have never seen a fire before, but rapidly got used to that.  Every day life, such as mixers, chop saws (DIY is fairly everyday for us) etc, doesn’t phase them.

We kept them in one room at first, until they were used to us, and now they have the run of the house.  A few weeks before we let them outside though, so I’m glad it is not summer and we want the doors closed.

They seem to have settled in well…

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hedging window closes

Since Autumn we have been hedging in earnest.  And we are not talking a bit of clipping here, but small tree felling.  The hedges had been let go for some years before we came here, and we are slowly working our way around, cutting out the overgrown trees, laying the smaller stuff, and trying to get the hedge back.

It’s quite encouraging, to see the work we did a few years ago, how much growth has appeared, although it looks like it needs redoing – and we haven’t had a first swipe at the rest of the hedges yet.

We have 2 acres here, but it is arranged long and thin, apparently because it was medieval strip fields, so there are a lot of hedges. And we only have hand tools.

And the mild winter means the window of opportunity is shorter than ever, and it is pretty short here in the westcountry anyway.  The elder is sprouting, honeysuckle is in leaf, and we have spotted birds flying about with nest material in their beaks.  So, that’s it. Time up.

Good job too, as the orchard and the top of the big field are strewn with branches and trees.  Time to start the clearing up, bean pole and pea stick harvesting, and the log pile grows.

They say it is better for wildlife, to only do a small proportion of the hedges at time, and this year we did more than ever, but probably only 25% of the lot.  Still, just think, we might be bored otherwise!

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living room

Before

after

Why, I said to himself, has it taken us so long to get around to painting this room? It has been five long years.
Then I remembered. We’ve done a lot. First there was the ceiling/upstairs floor that had to come out due to the death watch beetle eating the joists.. we replaced that. And whilst we were at it, the room was rewired, so we had more than the one plug we started with.

Next we took out the hideous fake fire surround and hearth and installed a new hearth using reclaimed granite, and a woodburner went it.
And then we started to take the wall paper and found a distinct lack of wall behind, worrying as it was a supporting wal. Sooo a new wall went in, and was plastered.

Then we repointed and plastered all the many holes and cracks and frankly missing bits of wall. And moved the radiator.

Interupted all the time by the work we do outside, which takes up most of our time, aside from work and home ed.

Then finally, this year, we applied paint. Special breathable will go on all materials from masonary to wood expensive clay paint.
And tada! Sooo that’s why it took us so long.
And yes, its a shade of white, and plain. And we love the plainness of it – compared to the grottiness of before.

The pictures will go up, but now we have the Christmas trees and lights up, and its enough for us to enjoy the one room of the house that is truly finished and snug and warm.
Sanctuary

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indoors outdoors

Much that I like the concept of hiberating indoors, come winter, there is too much to be done out there still – and we are finding ourselves spread between indoor and outdoor work.

The days are short, and although there are few days where the weather is so bad you cant get out and stuff done – particularly with waterproof gear on – those seem like the ideal days to concentrate on all the house renovation that needs doing inside.  But we are having mild weather, and sunshine.  And good weather means we never get the house stuff done.

For some reason, that defies logic, it is often colder at 2 pm then in the morning.  I don’t understand it.. the sun is higher, and the day will have warmed up?  maybe it is just by then we have been out long enough to get chilly. So today we came in at lunchtime and stayed in to do some painting.

This morning, dedicated to major hedging – the hedges have been neglected too long and it is more tree felling than hedging – we cut out the large/ ivy clad/ diseased ones, lay the thinner trees and make slow progress down the lane.  This is a hedge that makes up our boundary, and thankfully, our lovely neighbours on that side are on pretty much the same page as us, the grown up son joins in – and joy of joys, brings his chainsaw with him.

And the sheep are happy, now on winter rations, with less grass, and grass with less goodness in it, they are very happy to scoff buds, catkins and ivy.

This afternoon we progressed with the living room – trying to elevate the look from hovel  - grubby walls, patches of different plaster, bare plaster walls and ceiling… bare stone.. holes.  We have been plastering and filling, moving radiators and fixing problems.  And we are finally at the point of applying paint.  We are keen to get the inside and outside of the chimney done while we can still manage without heating – and thankfully it has been so mild.  Once that is dry, we can have fires in the woodburner again.

The room is being transformed, slowly, from grubby and dark and patchy to creamy white and cottagey.

Happily tired.

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it must be autumn

As we have put the rayburn on again.  And it’s ace – the heart of the home back again.  And we have hot water. lots of lovely hot water.

Particularly poignant after a summer of putting the immersion on for a bath or shower… mostly using cold to wash hands etc.. and then a few days of no hot water at all whilst plumbing was underway.

We have had a plumber in this week, as part of our big hot water plan – he has plumbed in the huge thermal store, and the rayburn, idling away, is making lots of hot water.

Obviously the kitchen is a bit more broken, as is our bedroom, where the store resides, and the many demijohns moved out of the box room and are now scattered in various locations, as in there, we are going to have a new efficient gas boiler.

We did um and arr a lot about whether to have a boiler – the plan is to switch the rayburn for a wood fired one, and have the solar tubes, and do we need more?  Many get by with electric or the immersions.. but we went for the boiler in the end.. it will stick it’s big toe in the water, and if we have made it hot enough with woodburning and solar efforts, then it wont be needed, but it can top it up, or make hot water from scratch if necessary, if we are ill etc.

Being tied to having to cut wood for heat and hot water is very depressing, doing it to save money and energy  is rewarding.

After this, when funds allow, we shall put in the solar tubes for hot water.. but we have been waylaid by considering PV panels too, and how to position everything and what to have etc – we have decided to have the tubes on the south facing bit of roof, and the PV panels on the west (where they will be 8% less output then if facing south, we are told).  All well and good.. but for the money. And the fact we probably need a new roof…

Still, progress is being made.

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