Whilst James was playing on his digger I went to Cardigan to scout out a tile place recommended by our neighbour who has just done his house out completely!!
Think we might go with these bad boys through the whole of the ground floor!!
As well as the building work last weekend James hired a mini digger (too mini for the job he wanted it for as it turned out)
As I left to go into cardigan to look at tiles he was a happy husband playing diggers and building a path down into orchard field from the yard!
Upon my return…..
A digger minus the treads on one side!!
Luckily our neighbour at the top of the hill used to work on diggers so he came up and fixed it…..
James had about another hour or two of digger play before it happened again…
He gave up! And luckily our neighbour came back just before we left to fix it again before it had to go back to the hire company!
Last weekend we went up to the farm to see what the builders had started!! We arrived to two builders in the kitchen of the barn chatting about various things and two plumbers finishing installing two solar thermal panels on the roof as the light was beginning to fade!!
The builders had tanked the kitchen utility wall, DPC’d the windows, built up most of the door frames and inspected a few areas telling us about some roofing brackets that were backwards and a wall that is sat on a steel beam which then holds the roof up which is possibly not safe!!! Argh!!! And the plumbers had installed the panels and the wiring down to the utility from them!!!
We also have had our hot water cylinder delivered!
It’s sat in the front part of the hovel!!
And the builders have built a little house for the electric box to be dropped into!!
Exciting times!!!
Last week we lost our beautiful Polly dog……
After 15 amazing years she had one final weekend racing about the farm and she came home and suffered a small stroke… Then a few days later another more significant one…. And we had to take her to the emergency vets at four am Friday morning….
Later that day we took her back to the farm for her final resting place….
She has a stone cairn and we have sown some wildflower seeds too!!
Last Wednesday we had our first site meet on the farm!!! I drove down with the dogs and and big apple cake (recipe over at my Elliefants Delight blog under recipes) and a six o’clock builders, electricians, plumbers all began to arrive!!!
But people……
The best news is……
Work starts proper in about two weeks!!!!!!!!!!!!! Squee!!!!!!!!
Doorways are being built up at the bottom to accommodate underfloor heating and insulation, walls are being moved, DPC is being fitted round windows and trenching for pipes and cables……
Once the door frames are sorted and DPC in then the windows guys can take final measurements for windows and doors and then…… Then…… A five week lead in and we have windows!!!!!!!!!!!
But before the windows….. The plumber reckons the underfloor heating should be laid and screed as the screed will cure better with gapey open holes!!!! Hurrah!!!!! It’s all soooooooo exciting!!!!!!
Say bye bye to gapey hole building and hello building site!!!!
Last weekend we went to the farm with my Mum and Dad, so naturally we got a few jobs done!!
Mum and I did some extreme sloe picking, meaning the hedgerow needed cutting back from the gate a smidge and we could reach some of the really good sloes so…. Stihl motor plus extendy chain saw attachment…. And I cut them good branches down!!! Whilst Mum picked them clean!!!
Meanwhile back in the barn where our tank for the borehole is Dad and apprentice James were building “the coffin”
This is a wooden box which will eventually be stuffed with fleeces/wool to insulate the water tank!!! And it also doubles as a work bench!!
Dad and James built it using a load of the wood left from taking down the housing from my Granny’s swimming pool!!
Mum and I were then trusted to take out Ally the gator into the fields for a drive round the hedgerows…. Where we picked blackberries, rose hips and also found we have honeysuckle in the hedgerows!! So pretty!! We also had a sneaky game of slalom racing round the haylage bales!!! Te he!!!