Week Ninety-two

Week beginning 4th March 2024.

It’s a beautiful sunny, and not too cold, Monday morning. It’s perfect for working outside. Craig has arrived to continue with the paving slabs and we are going to see if we can finish the south elevation of the mega-shed.

We don’t have too much to do but we are very tired so we are just taking our time. The big thing is to match the boards to the ones above as best we can. We are adding a couple of boards to the east to fill the gap then to the west, checking the gap as we go along.

We are on our last board now and we are going to have to custom cut it to fit. With most of the boards being a bit bent, as usual, we have ended up with a narrower gap at the bottom than the top. Our first attempt is still a bit wide at the top so we are making a wee correction.

Bingo! the last board is in and the south elevation is complete, just in time for lunch.

We have just started measuring up the French doors to fit the reveals and a couple of passers-by have shouted up from the road how much they like our buildings so we have invited them to come and have a look.

Robbie and Angela are from Glasgow and have started thinking about building a house in the area. They are very interested in the concept of the house and particularly love the larch cladding and the shape of the house. It’s nice when strangers show an interest in what we are doing and like the result, very reassuring.

Back to the task at hand. The first thing to do is tape between the slab and the OSB on the house frame to keep the water out. Pete had previously painted some specialist primer so the tape will adhere to the slab and be fixed permanently (as far as that can ever be true).

The reveals are 200mm wide at this opening due to the way the door has been fitted and the depth of the insulation so we can use full width boards here. Firstly we need to fix the head board in place and with that done we can fit the side boards. We are using Ilbruck Compriband to seal where the boards meet the door frame and at the bottom where they meet the slab.

While all this has been going on, Craig has made a lot of progress on the paving and is almost ready to fit the threshold into the mega-shed. We are both heading to Edinburgh early tomorrow, Pete for work and Molly for a funeral, so Craig can do the threshold in peace and when we get back on Wednesday it will all be set and we can walk on it.

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It’s Tuesday and Pete is working in Edinburgh, Molly has come too to catch up with Nicky and Graham and to do some shopping. We are staying the night with Pete’s mum so Molly can attend the funeral of Peter Laport, who we used to go walking with, and Pete can head to Perth for work.

Being in Edinburgh a bit longer than usual gives Molly a chance to visit the exhibition at Modern One with Nicky and Graham. It is a lovely afternoon of chat, coffee and a walk round the gallery to look at the interesting artwork created by Do Ho Suh, a Korean artist who works mostly with textiles to create intricate sculptures.

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It’s Wednesday and whilst Pete has headed off to Perth for work Molly is going to a funeral late morning. Although this is a sad occasion it is nice to see some of the other mourners and share our stories of the great walks we had with Peter over many years.

It’s just after 4pm and Pete has arrived back at Gar Bothan to find that Craig has almost finished laying the slabs and they are looking great. There are some Pete musn’t walk on but not too many and he can get into the shed and the house no problem. Craig is heading off now and will be back to get the job finished by the end of the week.

Molly is heading back to Gar Bothan with Ross and Kathleen who are coming to give us a hand for a few days. Pete is getting the sleeping arrangements prepared and giving the place a tidy and clean. They haven’t been here since the week when the concrete grinder/polisher arrived so they’ll see big changes.

It’s 6.30 and they have finally arrived. It’s great to see them again so after settling in we are sitting down to dinner and a good old chin wag.

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It’s Thursday and Pete is off to work early doors. Molly, Ross and Kathleen start a bit later and Craig is here again to do more work on the patio.

Molly, Ross and Kathleen are cladding around the French door as the weather is good and with the reveals in place it should be a fairly easy job. With this being the first time Ross and Kathleen have done cladding Molly explains the different processes before starting, then it’s all hands on deck to source the right width if timber, measure and cut it before nailing it into place.

After morning coffee Kathleen is cutting and sanding the palett wood that will make the tops of the storage spaces inside the house while Molly and Ross continue cladding the front of the house. This is another new experience for Kathleen and she is an enthusiastic learner, especially when it comes to doing the Shou Sugi Ban burning technique.

Pete has arrived back from work just in time for an unexpected delivery of the crushed stone that Kevin has brought. The stones will cover our drive and fill the troughs around the house and shed. After a chat about the best place to unload the stones, Kevin deposits the twenty tons in two mounds behind the house and mega-shed.

With that excitement over Pete goes to check out what work has been going on today and is delighted to see that the front of the house around the French doors is almost all clad. Ross and Molly have done a really neat job of it and it looks really good.

By dinner time the front of the house is fully clad so that from the road the house and mega-shed look finished and we can finally see how they sit in the environment.

While dinner is being prepared, Ross is getting an outside fire going with our off-cuts of larch and palett wood. Happy days!

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It’s Friday so Pete can join the workers and make his contribution to the build. Craig is back to finish the pointing between the slabs and start filling the troughs with the stones. After a chat with Craig we have decided it’s best to stay out of his way as far as possible so we are not going to do the reveals and cladding on the two remaining doors. Instead, Molly and Kathleen are working on the palett wood for the storage on the mezzanines and Pete and Ross are going to move the remaining timber from the area in front of the caravan to an area beside the track that Margaret, our neighbour, has kindly let us use as temporary storage.

Kathleen is now a confident member of team build Gar Bothan and working hard to complete all the palett wood tops for the storage spaces.

Pete and Ross are having to do quite a bit of heavy lifting – there is quite a bit of larch to move including a few decking boards, some long, wide, deep boards to move and two big posts. First they have to prepare the area so it is level and solid using paletts and bits of random timber.

With the posts and boards carefully stacked they now have to move the remaining corrugated roofing tin – two full sheets of 1m x 5m and some half sheets and off cuts.

It’s taken Pete and Ross more than half the day to do this work and they can feel it in their muscles and bones but the area around the caravan is almost clear now, ready for when Kevin can come to create a ramp for us to get the caravan down onto the drive.

After a coffee break we are all taking on different tasks – Ross and Kathleen are filling the troughs with stones, Molly is tidying the mega-shed by bagging wood off-cuts and rubbish for the dump. Pete is cutting up some of the endless paletts we have accumulated. Boards from the blue paletts will hopefully be good enough to make into a bench for the boot room but the rest will be made into kindling.

Craig has finished and is packing up for the last time. We are really happy with what he has achieved and the result makes the two buildings more unified and the whole scheme makes more sense. Thanks Craig for all your hard work, you’ve done a top notch job.

It’s time for us to stop working now and it’s been a very productive day, though not in an obvious kind of way. Our plot is much tidier, the shed is much tidier, the palett wood for the storage is almost all ready for fixing and the stones are in the troughs around the house.

Ross is getting another outside fire going tonight and Molly and Kathleen are cooking dinner. Steve is coming to join us for food tonight so we are looking forward to a nice sociable evening.

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It’s Saturday morning and we are off to a slow start after yesterday’s efforts. We are only going to work until lunchtime because we are all heading off to Edinburgh for a Mother’s Day dinner at Eddie and Mary’s. Ross and Kathleen are our co-grandparents so it’ll be nice for us all to spend the evening with our children and grandchildren.

We are getting on with more wee tasks, finishing off some of what we were doing yesterday. Pete is preparing some of the ground where he is going to build a drystone wall and Ross is adding a few more stones to the troughs. Molly is cleaning the caravan fridge, which in our abscence has got rather smelly and Kathleen is sanding the last of the palett wood.

After a nice bowl of home made minestrone soup we are all off to Edinburgh. We are so grateful to Ross and Kathleen for their enthusiasm and all the hard work they do when they come and visit. Without the help and support of family and friends we wouldn’t have been able to get this far and it would have been much harder to keep going.