Week Forty

Week beginning 6th March 2023.

We had a nice weekend, especially on Sunday when we went to Ardferrn for a day of yoga, massage, good food and good company organised by Keri. Interestingly, Pete felt much less tired and more energised after that and is raring to go this week.

The week is starting with another beautifuil sunny day, albeit very cold. Our first task is to unpack and install our new bit of kit, a sliding mitre saw. It’s been in storage since we bought it in December because we haven’t really needed it until now.

Unfortunately our bench is too close to the wall to fit the saw so, as a temporary measure, we are building a wee extention to the bench for it. Later we’ll pull the bench out and refit it for the saw.

Now that the saw is set up we are preparing a load of pieces, cut at 45º at each end to fit at the bottom of the roof. These will provide a vertical flat surface to screw the fascia onto, just like we did on the south elevation.

Molly’s sister, Ishbel, has just arrived to help us some more but first it’s time for coffee and cake. We need our morning break around 10.30 to give us an extra boost, especially when it is as cold as this.

We’ve finished our coffee and are ready to get back to work and it has just started snowing so we’ll stay indoors and get on with sealing the return staircase, Ishbel’s task, and continuing with the airtightness taping.

This afternoon we are going to fit the soffit on the south elevation, underneath where Andrew showed us how to fit the fascias.

It’s great that Ishbel is here to help us with this task as it is a bit tricky for just two people. Andrew said that normally he fits the soffit first but because he was showing us how to fit the fascia, that came first.

We’re almost done but there are hailstones falling from the sky and we have to stop for a while.

The hailstones stopped after a while and we have now finished fitting the first soffit with Ishbel’s help. We still have to fit soffits and fascias on the other three elevations of the house and on the mega-shed.

Ishbel’s off to catch her bus so we are checking our list to take stock of what we still have to do in the immediate future, outside tasks when it’s dry and inside tasks when it’s wet. Thanks for all your help today Ishbel.

It’s another dry sunny day, we can’t believe our luck, but it is really cold and there’s a frosty scaffolding for working on. We are going to try and fit the soffit and fascia on the north elevation but first we need to fit the insect mesh onto the trusses and the top of the wall. It’s not too difficult and it helps if you try and imagine you’re a wasp and how you might try and get behind the mesh.

We are fitting the soffit and it’s going much better without the fascias in the way which is just as well because it’s just the two of us today. We are working well as a team but we still have the odd misunderstanding about how to approach tasks. We look at things in different ways and sometimes things are ‘lost in translation’!

Luckily no such problems today and we have made short work of the soffit.

We are onto the fascia now. First we are screwing on the angled pieces for attaching the fascias to and with that done we can start on the bottom row of fascia boards. We are trying to make sure that the bottom edge of the boards is 5mm lower than the level of the soffit, as instructed by Andrew. We can’t remeber for sure but we think Andrew said it was so that when the boards dry out, they will shrink and that will give a neater finish.

It’s getting dark and it’s time to stop for the day. Not only did we get the soffit and fascia fitted on the north elevation today but we also made a start on fitting the soffits on the west gable. That’s a satisfying day’s work.

It’s a real freezer this morning and the sun is out again. We’ve been sleeping in the mega-shed attic for the last few nights because it is much warmer there but we still come to the caravan in the morning for breakfast. It is so, so cold in the caravan, there is a dribble of water in the tap that has frozen. Luckily we emptied the pipes last night to prevent damage from freezing water

We are getting on with fitting the soffits on the gables. With only two of us to do the job we are using our clamps to help us hold the boards while we position them before screwing in place. We are doing the best we can to make them flush to the edge of the end truss. Not untypically, the boards can be a bit wonky and need some ‘persuading’ to fit with a decent finish but we are getting good at that by now.

With the gable soffits fitted we are now working on fitting the gable fascias. This is a bit more tricky because the timbers have to be cut to 45º at the bottom and the top and we have to try and make them meet nicely together at the apex of the roof.

Our first attempt hasn’t gone too well but we worked out why our measurement was wrong and have fixed it. It has taken us a while to get both gables done nicely but that’s done, and they look nice.

We have chosen to use rough cut, unsanded larch as our finish and we love it. Once the buildings are clad they will soon look as though they have been here for a good long while and will give a big nod to the agricultural buildings and old sheds that have inspired our design.