Yesterday was a good day!

Nothing went wrong and we made lots of progress. Those kind of days don't come along every day you know! Richard is spreading his misery and germs elsewhere at the moment so a strange, eerie sense of joy and wellbeing swept though the house. Its as if this whole project has suddenly gone bipolar....

We started off with this box of multi-coloured spaghetti. Ratty turned up early before Arne had gone to school, and he just had time to give Ratty a hand and tell him what to do.

By the end of the day, it looked like this. All the new sockets and many of the lights are now live.

Meanwhile, I painted the ceiling in Arne's room, the leftover paint being enough to also paint half a wall.

After lunch, I set about some plastering. I fixed up this small hole in Arne's wall...

...but I was really chuffed with how this turned out. Lots of trial and error, but I got it looking smooth and flat with a nice sharp edge. I'll not be attempting any ceilings just yet though....

Expanding foam and Kryptonite

When we ripped out all the gaudy tropical hardwood window surrounds, we found that the wondow frames fitted by Country Window Systems in Dunkeswell, Devon, were actually only held in by silicone and thin air. Great job guys, I thought you did it quickly. So we've splurged in about ten quids worth of expanding foam into each window surround to hold the blighters in.

Now the expaded foam will hold it tight, and insulate the gap. RIchard would prefer if it was fixed in with eight inch titanium bolts anchored into Kryptonite, but he's a belt and braces kind of guy.

Here's Richard plastering away again in Miles's room (long story), which as previously mentioned, is not his favourite job. But its Friday, and he's off camping for the weekend with some of the boys from Culmstock, so I expect to see him here at about eleven on Monday morning, with large gaps in his memory.

Latest progress

Once again, blogfans, I am practically buried under a deluge of stroppy emails from frustrated viewers demanding an update. Highly remiss of me to have kept you all waiting so long.


All the water and heating pipes have been run, and will be
hidden behind skirting and insulation board.

The lobby/dressing room area won't have the full-height sloping ceilings so the
stud wall has been insulated against the cold void which will be behind it.

The dressing room area will be lit during daylight by a sun pipe. That's a highly reflective pipe that links the ceiling with a hole in the roof covered with perspex to let in daylight.

Things are starting to look nice and tidy around the skylights. The ceilings have foam board insulation between the rafters, and are further covered in insulated plasterboard.

The outside walls are covered in that too.

The corner round the hot water tank will be neatly boxed in and the sink will go next to it.

Spot of bother looming for the portholes: I had some bendy board to line the holes with but it was just too short. Need to find another method, so any sensible suggestions are welcome. In fact it's so long since I had a meaningful number of comments on a post, I'll happily accept stupid ones too.

Porthole

I've been working on fitting the porthole windows over the weekend and while Richard fits the second skylight today.

First I made a former from bits of scrap wood and nailed it in place from the outside. Then I squidged some render and bits of brick into the gaps from the inside, which I forgot to take a picture of. When that had set, I could take the former off from the outside leaving a lovely round hole for the window frame.

The frame was then wedged in place and all the gaps filled with expanding foam, the greatest building material ever invented.

Here's the window from the outside after I'd sealed the the bare render with watered down paint.

Double vision

Like a giant face looking at you. I'd love to paint a huge pair of glasses on it but I don't think Janine will let me.

Eyes and teeth

More toothing out for Richard as he prepares to block up another hideous window...

whilst I got on with making an eye socket for one of two circular windows which will make the outside of the building look like it has a face. Maybe I'll get Richard to build a nose out of bricks.

Now you know what the bricks are for.

The two existing windows are to become non-existing. To this end, Richard is filling the orifice with my nice clean bricks. I've been cleaning up more today. I'm off to Boots in a minute for some more hand cream.

After lunch Richard got serious and put up his scaffold tower.

Toothing out

I never liked this window. By the end of the day, it will be wall. Richard is toothing out the brickwork so that when we block it up it will meld seamlessly with the rest of the wall and be nice and strong. Probably a good idea to replace the lintel while we're about it.

Up close and personal

Not much happening right now as I'm working and Richard is off fixing Dave's ceiling for a bit. But I thought maybe you might enjoy zooming in on some details. Or alternatively, maybe they will bore you rigid.
A coat of bitumen paint applied to the window reveal as the wall here is particularly wet, and this will serve as a moisture barrier when new plasterboard is put up.

An interesting detail (well okay, I'm scraping the barrel here) is this box with a wire in it. It is where the light switch for the bathroom will go.

More light

Part of the plan was to take out a section of outside wall and install full height windows and patio doors, allowing light to flood into the workspace, and in the summer I can work with the doors open. Mike the builder has just started by taking out the small window that was there and removing some brickwork. He also did really good shadow puppets.
Mike made a big hole and a big mess....
What a difference a day makes, twenty four little hours.....