Week Forty-three – Part Two

It’s Wednesday and today we are going to continue working on the window sills and reveals. We are making good progress on the guest bathroom window and so have started on our bathroom window.

We need to move on to finishing the prep on the roof window supports because we have asked our friend Gary to come and help lift them into place tomorrow, weather permitting.

Pete is chiselling a wee section out of the vertical supports to allow for the brackets that will hold the windows in place. With that done we can now fit the bracketes onto the windows ready for tomorrow.

We are now on the scaffolding in the house, finishing the taping on the lower part of the north roof. We’ve got that done but have run out of tape to do the equivalent on the south roof, that will have to wait until we can get more supplies.

We are up bright and early so we are ready for Gary but the rain has started already, even though the forecast is for it to be dry until lunchtime. We are keeping our fingers crossed for the rain to stop.

It’s 10am, the rain has stopped and Gary has arrived to help lift the two remaining roof windows into place. They’re heavy but hopefully between the three of us it won’t be too onerous.

We have worked out a plan and Gary, Molly and Pete all know what part they have to play in the operation.

Amazingly, with Gary’s help, it has only taken about an hour in total to get them onto the roof and fitted and it hasn’t been too back breaking. This feels like significant progress and we are very happy about it. Thanks Gary, we couldn’t have done it without you.

We have come into the house to admire our work from the inside to find a robin inside.

This is probably the same robin that once got into the caravan and another time got stuck in the awning and needed coaxing out, not an easy task.

We are trying to encourage it out but it keeps flying into the glass of the roof windows, which we can’t open yet, and not through the open window or door.

After quite some time it has finally found its way out, what a relief.

After that distraction we need to get these windows all taped up to keep them watertight and fit the drip detail before the rain starts again.

Unbelievably it has turned out to be a really nice day after all.

We are going to Oban this afternoon because we are expecting visitors on Friday and we will need to get some supplies.

It’s Friday and Andrew is coming today. We had hoped to start learning how to fit the tin on the roof of the house but it still hasn’t arrived so we’ll ask him to help us build the wall on the return staircase.

Andrew has arrived. Molly is off to do some errands so Pete and Andrew have a site meeting. Things are moving fast towards starting the interior work. As soon as the roof is on the ventilation system can go in, followed by the plumbing and then the electrics.

Then on the outside of the building the solar panels and battery can be installed and we can start the cladding. There’s a lot to talk about.

Molly is back and we are going to build the wall. The top of it has to go up at an angle so that it can be used as the handrail. We are discussing how to do this and Andrew’s plan sounds good and fairly straight forward.

We have established the height of the handrail and mezzanine wall to conform with regulations. We can now fix two vertical timbers in place temporarily. We measure up the appropriate height on each, then fix another timber between them. This gives us the angle the vertical studs will need to be cut to form the support for the handrail. We can now add more studs and mark them up for cutting.

We cut the angles with our mitre saw in the megashed and bring the timbers back into the house to assemble into a frame. With that all nailed together we lift it into position, check it’s level and true, and fix it to the staircase. And Bob’s your uncle, we have it!

With this wall frame in place it creates a new feel to our space and helps us understand better how our open plan livingroom/kitchen will be.

Before Andrew has to leave we can have a detailed discussion about where all the ventilation ducts are going and how we can conceal them. We are going to run them under the mezzanine floors between the joists and then along bulkheads attached to the north and south walls. It’s a good plan and should be relatively easy to carry out.

Our last wee job of the day is to finish the reveals on the two bathroom windows before we go and meet our visitors, Zadjil and Carolyn, for dinner in Tyndrum.

It’s taken us an hour to get to Tyndrum because the main road was closed and we had to take a long detour. Sadly, this is because there has been a fatal accident.

The roads around here are dangerous and you have to take care because you never know when another driver will risk overtaking when approaching a bend in the road. We don’t know the cause of the accident but we have seen many very risky manouvers on these roads. Our thoughts are with those involved.

It’s a nice slow relaxed start today and we are having a good old catch-up on what’s been happening in our lives.

Zadjil and Carolyn are great to have around because they are both so enthusiastic about our house build and are keen to be involved.

After a delicious bruscetta lunch we are going to tackle fitting a sill on our bedroom window. We only have two more windows to do so this is a great help.

We promised our grandchildren that we would put up another rope swing and Zadjil is keen to help so we have the ladder out. We can also put our timelapse camera back on the tree, ready for when we fit the tin on the roof.

After a pre-dinner stroll and with the lighter nights and the warmer weather, 8º-10º, we have decided to eat outside tonight and a nice fire will help set the ambiance.

Pete has cooked a tasty tagine, one with a bit of a kick, and we grill the naan bread over the fire. Very tasty indeed.

Another leisurely start to the day and lots more chat about the house build and all the things we’ve yet to do.

We’ve had our lunch so we are going to create a launching platform for the new rope swing. Pete has lots of big stones put aside for building walls so we can use some of them. We just have to make sure everything is the right height for Niven and Caitlin. To test everything is working as it should be our test pilots, Zadjil and Carolyn, give it a go.

Thanks Carolyn, for sharing your photos and allowing us to use them in this blog post.