Wrestling with a big blue snake

I ordered the stuff for the Heat recovery ventilation system last week and made a start on it. What will happen is that it will extract air from the kitchen and bathrooms and extract the heat from it to warm up the fresh air coming in from outside before the stale air is expelled outside. Well that's the theory of it! It's the first time for me and my initiation ceremony was that I have had to wrestle with a long blue coil of pipe and get it up into the loft space!

At last the brickwork for the garden wall is finished and Stuart has now started cutting the stone for the patio. It's a stone called Fossil Mint, from India I think, and here and there the slabs have black fossilised ferns in them. We will be using the same stone to cut up for a coping stone to go on the top of the brick walls.

Garden Walls Continued,

Stuart commented today that he has to keep stopping to talk to people inquiring about what he is doing! Today more than most days as it was market day. Ours is no longer the house that no-one notices!

Meanwhile I have finished plasterboarding the kitchen (apart from a piece on the inside of the door reveal) Just have to cut out the holes for the sockets now. The room looks a lot bigger now all the blocks are covered, and it's great not to see any of the old house walls anymore. I have made a 'pocket' - a space where a big door between the kitchen and lounge can slide out of sight.

We had cavity wall insulation put in to the exterior walls today. As the interior walls have all been insulated and dry-lined too this should be the warmest house we have ever lived in. I haven't insulated the loft yet - need to wait until all the pipes and cables are in place.

Getting plastered in the Studio!

If only!

The tricky ceiling has been finished. Unfortunately today (Sunday) the plasterers had to finish early due to a family illness so the studio won't get finished until next week.

Meanwhile I have reached the kitchen and am half way through putting up the plasterboard. A milestone - I have put up my last ceiling! Not sorry to no longer have to balance 8x4ft sheets of plasterboard on my head!

Garden walls started

Stuart has been braving the elements - it's very cold! He has taken away the old garden wall, in its ugly dirty coloured brick, and has started replacing it with the reclaimed red brick that we recycled from the renovation down the road at Garners gallery. Its quite a complicated design because as the house is set back at an angle it has to angle itself towards the front door. Its going to have a space within it where we can grow plants.

Windows

A long long time ago I was plasterboarding the rooms and decided to just leave the right size hole so the windows could be popped in later and the 'reveals' to the windows plasterboarded up. Only it didn't work out quite like that - too much guess work and none of the holes were in the right place - all too big. So I have spent quite a lot of time over January working my way through all the windows, removing the corner beads and making them the right size so the plasterers can come in later and finish them off. Certainly shan't do that again!