Week Eighty-six

Week beginning 22nd January 2024.

What a stormy night it was last night! Pete was about to make breakfast but has come back with the news that our awning has collapsed. On closer inspection it is actually trashed, the guy rope loops have torn and some of the poles are bent and one is even fractured. We have no choice but to dismantle it and do without. The awning has actually lasted well, given it was second hand when we were gifted it and it has lasted over a year through torrential rain, gales and snow falls.

Criag has arrived to carry on with setting the kerbs round the mega shed. We are getting on with the tasks we started at the weekend – more door painting, measuring and cutting more window sills and doing some prep work on the nooks on the straight staircase.

Pete is now working on fitting the door latches and handles and Molly is concentrating on the sills for the ensuite and the two bedrooms. When time calls, we each go and help the other on the tasks that require an extra pair of hands.

One of the challenges we face when making the sills out of larch is finding nice straight boards but we have come up with a solution. Using the straight edge, factory cut, of a length of 18mm ply we can get a straight edge on our larch to work from.

Molly has finished measuring and cutting the larch for the window sills but some of them are still too damp to plane smooth so we are just going to have to wait to get them finally finished.

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It’s Tuesday so Pete is working and Molly is off to Pickleball in the community centre. It is important not to be too focused on working all the time, although we do give that a good try, so we have agreed to try and do more fun things when we can.

This afternoon Molly is having a go at tidying up the taping that covers the tie-down straps. Andrew told us we need to tape over them as part of our air-tightness which we did during the build and most recently when we were grinding and polishing the concrete floor the taping has been damaged and come loose in some places. The first thing to do is remove the damaged tape and clean around the area. A fiddly job that is taking longer than expected.

Before finishing for the day Molly is painting the insides of the nooks on the staircase and in the guest bedroom to match the plaster.

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Another storm hit us last night but luckily this time we escaped without any damage. There have been more storms and heavy downpours this winter than last but we better get used to it because it looks like that is what the future will bring. Here’s hoping we’ve built our house well enough to withstand what is thrown at it.

Pete is away at work for the day so Molly is on her own to get on with a number of different tasks.

The first job of the day is to cut a straight edge on a piece of larch using our trusty bit of ply. Molly measures in just enough to cut 5mm off the board to straighten it.

This is the final window sill for inside the house and has been measured to fit the mezzanine window on the west side of the house.

Luckily the board is dry so Molly planes and sands it smooth before measuring and cutting out the notches to make sure it all fits nicely.

The next task is to check the hardwear on the doors and take off any masking tape, then retouch the paintwork where necessary.

Finally, Molly is painting the special primer on the concrete around the tie-down straps so that the tape can stick properly.

We are having a wee moonlit walk after dinner since the weather has improved so much. These moments, when you get out and take in the beauty of the area help to remind us why we are working so hard to build our house here.

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Pete’s away for work again and Craig has arrived to get on with his work.

The concrete primer is dry so Molly is retaping the tie-down straps. The whole airtightness regime is quite extreme and we have put a huge effort into taping, especially on the double trusses on the vaulted ceiling. We are really hoping that when the final air pressure test is done we get a better score than first time around.

Molly is getting on with a few wee tasks like applying glaze to the nooks she painted on Tuesday and planing and sanding the window sills.

It’s a beautiful sunset tonight which we are able to view from the mezzanine window before going to Cate and Steve’s for dinner in their caravan.

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It’s Friday and Pete can join in the building work again. Our first task is to tackle the cladding under our car charging point. When we fitted the cladding there we didn’t use long enough boards. We didn’t realise until Craig pointed it out to us. We’ve been head scratching this problem for a while and have decided our best option is to cut the boards off just below the charger becuase we can’t just replace the boards where the charger is already wired in.

We are using our circular saw to cut the boards and have clamped a straight edge to the existing boards to get a straight and level cut. Now we have to prize off the boards and prepare new ones. We will also have to add some battens to nail onto which will have to be painted with black wood preserver. We can cut the battens but they are too wet to paint so we can’t finish the job today. We can also cut the new boards ready to attach when the time comes.

We are cladding the north gable of the mega-shed so that when the electricians come they can fit the extractor fan and an outside power point. We have fitted a couple of boards but now realise we might as well fit the drip detail we need.

None of our cladding boards are long enough to reach the full height of the mega-shed. We have two options – to add a drip detail part way up the gable so we can clad below, then above that point or try and match perfectly two boards and have them meet exactly with overlapping angles to allow water to drip off. We have opted for the drip detail – a horizontal timber fixed at a gentle 10° angle with a narrow shallow channel cut on the underside.

With the drip detail attached we can now add extra battens to fix the cladding to and before finishing we add one more cladding board.

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It’s Saturday and we were originally planning to go to Edinburgh to see our grandchildren and plan a holiday with them but the poor souls have had Covid most of the week and are still testing positive. So, we have changed our plan and we are heading to East Kilbride to talk to a flooring company asbout fitting Marmoleum to the two mezzanines. If we can afford it we would like to use this modern version of Linoleum, made almost entirely of sustainable natural materials. It also comes in a wide range of bright colours which we find an exciting prospect.

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It’s Sunday but it’s not a day of rest for us.

Pete is painting the battens above and below the drip detail with black wood preserver. This serves a double purpose – to protect the wood and to make it less noticable in the shadow gaps between the cladding boards.

The battens we cut for under the charger are dry and have been attached and painted with preserver so we can now add the boards we prepared on Friday.

We are having to use our clamps to hold the boards steady in place for nailing. Where the top board meets the one below the two are cut at the same but complamentary angles to ensure any water just runs off.

We are off for a walk with Cate and Steve to check out the hillside they have bought and are planning to replant with native woodland. There are some beautiful, centuries old, oaks already there but the deer and the occassional stray sheep have eaten anything trying to grow there so there are only tall trees, with barely any undergrowth or smaller trees.

It is so nice to get up onto the hill and into the woodland there. We have just spotted a pair of Golden Eagles high overhead. We’ve been keen to set eyes on any of the large raptors since we got here but we’ve had to wait until now. What a thrill.

Further up the hill Steve and Pete almost step on a big old fox hiding in the bracken.

The rain is setting in now so we are saying goodbye to our friends and heading indoors. We aren’t going to do any more cladding because there isn’t any point in getting a soaking and the forecast for tomorrow is good and we can get on with it then.