You might know it. School holidays and the weather has been much wetter. We have managed to finish the cladding on the north wall and have got the base coats of render on. What a difference! It really looks like a house.
We lost a few days when John’s mother died. It was as unexpected as it can be when someone is 94. She died in her sleep, a lovely way to go. We went to Morecambe with Emily for the funeral, wondering if Mick might have finished the slating on the north side by the time we got back.
We were worried that we might not have time to finish the cladding and rendering before we would have to move the scaffolding for him at the weekend. But the rain kept him away and on the Friday, which was fine, his car broke down. We leant him our land rover so that he could keep going but by the time he’d got his back on the road we’d managed to finish the cladding and basecoat render . Phew!
When the weather hasn’t been good we have been working indoors. The OSB on the insides of the ladder studs is going on and we’ve made contact with the folks who are going to do the insulation. It will have to be done in two stages, one when the windows are in and two, when we have the boards on the cathedral ceilings.
We have been pricing clay boards and getting a bit of a shock. Might use painted timber cladding on the cathedral ceilings instead. It will be easier to put up and a lot cheaper.
We have also made some decisions about the interiors and have bought travertine marble tiles for the hall and reclaimed hardwood for the other rooms. There has been some debate about using solid hardwood on the floors because of the underfloor heating. Some people say you can’t do it and have to use an engineered board. But as we don’t expect to use the underfloor heating anyway, and the flooring will be well used, we believe that it will be all right. We just have to get it all up here.
We had an extra trip to Glasgow to pick up some extra slates and all of the ridge cappings, straps etc. We also used the opportunity to check out kitchens and bathrooms. It’s quite weird for us starting to think about the inside but suddenly all these things are creeping up on us.
The stainless steel gutters and down pipes arrived today and we got the first one up to protect the render from the dust and chalk coming off the roof when it rains. John is just off to see if it works because as you might have guessed, it’s pelting down – again.
The schools are back this week so the weather should improve. We are taking a couple of days off to go orienteering at Oban, then we have to collect the flooring – fingers crossed all this can be accomplished without too much of the wet stuff. Looking forward to seeing people next week.