Week Seventy-five

Week beginning 6th November 2023.

It’s a very wet Monday morning so we are starting the day with trying to get a final decision on how we are going to finish the concrete floor in the house.

Pete has just come off the phone with a company that supplies concrete floor sealants and has been told that it is not an appropriate finish for domestic use. He is back to square one and has started searching for an alternative.

Finally we have the real answer! Pete first found out that professional concrete floor specialists grind, then polish the floor, then use a densifier, bonding hardener. With further research he has found a company that supplies the chemical and industrial grinding and polishing machines.

Danny at PWM advises us on what machine to get and what grinding discs and polishing discs we need, so we have hired the machine and everything we need from them. Next week we will take delivery of the machine and, Danny says, we should be able to do the griding, polishing and densifying in seven days. If not we can continue the hire for a few days more.

This is a very positive development and all going well we can get on with the second fix plumbing and electrics once the floor is done in a couple of weeks from now.

While Pete is organising the equipment for the floors, Molly is contacting Norvest, the company who supplied our windows and doors to follow up on our order for a replacement cylinder for the balcony door lock. Dave, says they will arrive later this week.

We’ve had our coffee and are out between the showers doing more cladding on the north elevation, inspired by yesterday’s progress with Mairi and Andrew.

After a couple of hours ducking in out of the rain to fix the cladding we have given up because it’s too frustrating, we’ll just have to wait for better weather.

We are inside now cleaning the floors on the two mezzanines so that we can potentially use the spaces for doing a bit of exercise and on the west mezzanine, Pete could set up office.

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Pete is working today and Molly is carrying on trying to clean up both mezzanines then clean and pack the car before lunch.

Pete has to go to Oban for work so we are taking advantage and taking a load of bags of rubble and mess to the dump.

Arghh! The dump is closed and we have driven all this way with a heavy load of rubbish. What a waste of time and energy.

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One list almost complete in time for a new one to be created.

Pete is away for the day to do with his work so Molly is carrying on with the cleaning and tidying. The west mezzanine is getting another wash and so are some of the windows.

With that done Molly returns to the ensuite to finish priming in the space under the stairs.

Our neighbour Cate has popped by to get some water, as they too are staying in a caravan while building a new house, and stops for a coffee and a chat.

She is now in the guest shower room priming those walls too. We have decided to paint both shower rooms and not leave them with the glazed plaster as we will have in the other rooms.

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It’s Thursday and Pete is away for work again. Molly is painting the glaze onto the walls in our main living area apart from a small area that Jef needs to do a little bit of work on.

There is only a wee bit of glaze left so Molly is using it up on the roof window areas on both mezzanines. There are endless tasks at the moment but we are highly motivated because we are now so close to getting the house finished.

Pete’s back so we are off to see Des, our plumber, because he is lending us his big hammer drill so that Pete can dig out the concrete for the guest shower water trap. It is so good that Des is helping us out like this because it saves us time and money going to Oban to hire one. Thanks Des.

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It’s Friday morning so Pete can give all his energy to the build. His main task for the day is to dig out the concrete for the shower trap. The first thing he is doing is cutting strips into the concrete where the chanel needs to be. He is using our angle grinder with a stone cutting disc attached. It is a messy business because it kicks up a lot of dust but with that done he can get the hammer drill on the job and, with a narrow chisel bit attached, it is making short work of it. It is still taking him a good few hours because he has to dig down 150mm and on the way cut through the reinforcing steel mesh with the angle grinder.

Molly is moving boxes of stuff destined for the shower rooms up onto the mezzanines so that they are out of the way when we come to do the floors.

Jef and Kirsty have just arrived because Jef is here to teach us how to polish the Venetian plaster and to finish off a couple of wee jobs but first we’ll have lunch. Molly has made a leek and potato soup with a nice big fresh leek that Des gave us. The soup and the really nice bread Kirsty brought makes for a delicious lunch.

We are working with Jef applying wax polish to the Venetian plaster. It’s not difficult but we have to make sure and work it in well and then give it a polish with a dry microfibre cloth. It hasn’t taken long to do the first coat so Jef can now leave us to apply at least another two coats but we don’t need to do that immediately.

Jef and Kirsty are off to Edinburgh and we are moving more boxes up onto the mezzanines. It feels a bit like an early 1980s Job Creation Scheme – dig a hole and fill it in but in our case it’s move some timber here, then there, then somewhere else or move a box here, then there, then somewhere else. It almost makes us feel young again!

It’s dark now and Zadjil and Carolyn have just arrived in their new car to give us a hand for the weekend. So it’s going to be a nice dinner and lots of chat and wine and more likely than not a late night. That’s the way Friday nights should be!

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It’s freezing this morning and we are reluctant to get out of bed because we are sleeping in the caravan and it is not built for cold winter mornings.

We’ve finally dragged ourselves out of bed and are ready for Carolyn and Zadjil to join us for breakfast. It may be freezing but it is dry and sunny, perfect weather for doing some more cladding.

We are going to clad the west elevation at ground level so we have to make sure and match the width of the boards with the ones above our drip detail. It makes it a bit tricky and slow but if we take our time it should look good.

We have ourselves organised with Molly and Carolyn looking out the boards and cutting them to size and Zadjil and Pete are fixing them to the battens. Molly and Carolyn have discovered that they need to separate the boards that have frozen together then scrape as much of the frozen sawdust off them as possible before they can measure and cut them to size.

Zadjil and Pete are finding that not only the boards are different sizes but the gaps between them don’t conform to the 5mm that we had intended. Unfortunately they are having to reproduce the inaccuracies so that everything matches up.

What with frozen together boards, the frosty weather and all the elements that need to be balanced it has been slowish progress today but we are happy with what we have achieved.

As the day comes to a close we are trying to find a way to lift our heat battery up to the east mezzanine where it will be plumbed in and connected to the power. After quite a lot of discussion and an attermpt at Egyptian style terchnology we are giving up, at 125Kg it’s just too heavy for us. We are going to have to take some advice on this and get some help too.

Into the caravan for dinner and some wine and an early night so we can do more tomorrow morning before Zadjil and Carolyn head home and we head to Oban.

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We are up and about a good bit earlier this Sunday morning but it is an even frostier start to the day than yesterday.

We are driving on with the cladding but we are facing the same challenges as yesterday but by lunchtime we have managed another good stretch of cladding on the west elevation.

Zadjil and Carolyn are heading home and we are heading for the dump then for a shower and finally a big shop to get us through next week. They have been a great help once again and the wonderful thing is that they really enjoy doing the building work.

It’s been another busy and at times tough week but we are getting there, maybe next week we can get some extra early nights and catch up on our sleep and build up our reserves for next weeks tasks.