Week Forty-five

Week beginning 10th April 2023.

This week our son and grandchildren are coming to stay with my sister from Italy so we have a bit of work to do in preparation.

We need to finish building the mezzanine walls so it is safe for the kids to go up there without us having to worry about their safety.

We’ve made the frame but when we put it in place it wobbles and it turns out that Pete is having to plane the floor to make it flat.

The planed floor is nice and flat and the frame is fixed securely to the floor and the perpendicular wall. We are checking it is level and true before moving on to the east mezzanine.

The final wall on the east mezzanine has presented a bit of a problem. The wall at the back of the staircase is 40mm back to allow for OSB and battens. To get the wall to be at the same level all the way up to the top of the mezzanine wall we are fixing the frame with an overlap. Luckily we are using 145mm x 45mm timber on this frame so the wall can still be fixed securely, and once the OSB and battens are fixed tightly under it everything will be good.

With those jobs done and an hour or so until dinner time we are doing a big tidy and clean-up ready for our visitors.

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Today we are going to fix our sliding mitre saw bench. When we first got the saw we realised that the bench is too close to the wall to allow for the saw to extend along its sliders so we built a temporary extension out from the bench. It worked okay but made cutting long lengths difficult.

We are clearing all our stuff on and around the bench then adding the spacers Pete has made that will bring the bench out from the wall.

It’s taken us practically all day to sort the bench and put everything back but it’s worth it because it will make our lives much easier.

We’re heading off to Oban now to get supplies to feed our visitors.

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This morning we are going to organise the sleeping arrangements. Eddie, Niven and Caitlin will be in the mega-shed, Anita in the caravan and we will camp in our future bedroom in the house.

Our friend Martin has just popped by to pick up his roof ladders and a chat. We talk about the roof, again, and he says he still wants to help to put the tin up.

Molly is off to our storage container to pick up our sleeping bags and mats and Pete is cleaning and tidying.

The lorry with our roofing sheets has arrived, finally, so we will be able to get on with that next week. What a relief!

Our visitors have arrived just in time to see the lorry leave. It’s so great to see everyone, especially Pete’s sister, Anita because it’s been too long.

We go out to dinner at the Brander Lodge, which is just the other end of the Brander Pass from us, and Eddie decides to have a deep fried Mars bar for dessert. We all have a taste and it’s quite nice!

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Eddie and Anita are keen to help with the build but before we start work we all go up to the top of the roof. Once the tin is on this won’t be an option so we are making the most of it while it is relatively safe.

Our main task for the next few days is to fit the ducting for the ventilation system. We need to run the ducting from the vents to the supply and exhaust manifolds. This involves creating frames to run the ducting along the north and south walls. Later this can all be plasterboarded to hide the ducts.

Molly and Eddie are working out the measurement and how to make the frames. Anita wants to help too so Molly shows her how to use the sliding mitre saw and the mitre clamps and now we are leaving them to it.

It’s almost dinner time and while Pete has been away to the community orchard with Niven and Caitlin, and Molly has been making dinner, Anita and Eddie have managed to make all the frames for both walls.

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We have our work cut out for us today because we want to make a start on installing the ducting but first we need to attach the frames to the north wall. We need to run two ducts the full length of the wall and another two ducts about a meter along the wall.

Some of the ducts need to come up through a hole in the floor to be attached to the supply manifold while others will attach to the exhaust manifold that is fixed to the celing below.

We are not long started when Molly’s brother Gordon and Sheena arrive for a wee visit. After a bit of a catch up we have managed to rope them in.

Unlike rope the ducting is more like a naughty snake that coils and knots around itself. So we are getting into a right old fankle and it takes almost the whole teams efforts to get it sorted.

It’s lunchtime and Gordon and Sheena are heading off. We really couldn’t have managed without their help so thanks a lot Gordon and Sheena.

We are outside eating again although it’s not as nice as last night but good enough. We managed to make a big dent in installing the ducting along the north wall and into the rooms on the west side of the house but we’ll need to do more tomorrow.

Before it gets too dark we have come to the river to skim stones and to have a wee walk before bed. It’s a lovely evening and the river is looking beautiful and we are so happy to have our lovely family around us.

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Everyone is leaving today but Anita and Eddie want to finish the job they started so we are up bright and early and getting stuck into installing the remaining ducting on this side of the house.

We are now at the crucial stage because we need to get all seven ducts through a very narrow space above the door into our en suite.

It turns out that although it took quite a bit of physical effort, between us we managed it without too much trouble. It looks like a bit of a sphagetti junction but it makes sense to us.

We will only have two ducts to run along the south wall and into the rooms on the east side of the house once they’ve gone but we are short of about 10 metres of ducting and about 20 seals so it will have to wait.

We owe a huge thanks to Anita and Eddie, and Gordon and Sheena, for helping install the ducting.

Eddie worked out that we couldn’t run four ducts along the south wall, as per the plan, because it would create a headroom issue on the east staircase. He then came up with a solution and between us we worked out how to feed those seven ducts through the restrictred space.

If we hadn’t had all those helpers we would never have managed.

Thanks everyone, great teamwork!