Week Ninety-four

Week beginning 18th March 2024.

We have decided to take it a bit easier today but we will still have to do some work. A task that we have been waiting to do but couldn’t until our most recent order arrived is the vent pipe for the waste water drains. The pipe arrived last week so we are erecting the scaffolding against the west gable where the vent is to be fixed. It has to extend at least 600mm above the window. We have two long lengths of straight black 110mm pipe, two bends, one joining piece and six fixing brackets.

It isn’t too difficult and as it turns out it has taken about as long putting up the scaffolding as it has to measure, cut and fix the vent. We are pleased with how that has gone so we are going to try and work out what to do about creating a safety barrier in front of the upstairs window on the west gable since the scaffolding is here.

We’ve had a good think and discussion about it and our solution is to make a lighter smaller version of the balcony ballustrades. We have some good long offcuts from when we had to customise the odd cladding board.

It’s a simple construction of 20 spindles, centred at 90mm for safety, with a top and bottom bar. The bit that has taken us the longest to work out is how to fix it to the window reveals. We have decided on fixing a longer flat piece to either end, that way it will be easy to get the screws into the reveals.

To finish it off we are making a nice piece to glue and nail on top to cover the screws with our new router/trimmer. Looks good!

So much for taking it easier today. By the time we dismantled the scaffolding and stored it away it turns out we have worked a full day.

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It’s Tuesday so Pete is off to Edinburgh for work and Molly is coming along so she can do some extra shopping in town.

We were expecting the electricians to come tomorrow to finish the electrics but they have had to cancel because one of their team resigned without notice so they are short handed. A bit of a disappointment but we are eternally patient.

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Pete’s away for work again so Molly is heading to Oban to get some extra building supplies and more shopping.

This afternoon is a good chance to do some of the smaller jobs needing done so Molly is doing a washing and because it is quite a nice day it can be hung outside to dry.

She is now on to burning more of the pallet wood to make covers for the storage spaces on the mezzanines. She is experimenting with some colourful wood stain on the burnt wood to see if that will look good.

Time is marching on but Pete still isn’t home so Molly is doing a bit of tidying and cleaning in our poor neglected caravan.

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It’s a horrible wet, grey Thursday so best stay indoors. Pete is working from home today and Molly is experimenting with decorater’s caulk around the edges of the nooks. If it works well we won’t need to frame them in timber to protect the corners.

It’s not as easy as Molly had hoped but it does work to a point. Maybe a second round will get the quality of finish she is after.

Got a message from the electricians to say that they can come next Tuesday and Wednesday to finish everything off. Yahoo!

We have decided to go for a walk since the rain has stopped for now. The dark nights of winter meant we couldn’t really go for a walk in the evenings to wind down from work but with the days stretching once again we can.

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Another wet day but we need to tidy up our plot because Kevin is going to come and finish the landscaping and spreading the stone chips behind the house. There are still quite a few bits of cut up pallet, bits of rubble and assorted rubbish that needs to go to the dump so we have decided to gather it up, load the car and get it dealt with.

Just got back from the dump to find Kevin busy at the front of the house scraping the top soil and putting it aside. His plan is to make a ramp in front of the caravan and use the dug spoil to build up the ground in front of the house then cover it with the top soil. We really like this plan as it will give us an extended flat area in front of the house and extend the turning area at the back. We will still have the raised bit for our allotment at the back where the caravan is but it will be a bit smaller than we had originally anticipated.

With Kevin working around the house Pete is sorting out the manhole at the edge of our plot. He is adding sections to raise it up higher and filling it out with rubble. This is another of these jobs that has been waiting to be done but now that Kevin is here it can’t wait any longer.

Molly is sensible and is working indoors. We have decided that we will stain some of the pallet wood that will form the lids of the storage areas under the eaves.

Now Molly is doing a test to decide if the edges of the pallet wood should have a small routered edge and Pete has moved indoors to do some polishing on the venetian plaster.

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It’s not so nice again but we are keen to get on with preparing everything for Kevin so we are clearing the area around the caravan. There are a couple of concrete paving slabs that we are moving to the back of the house which we will use to put our bins on.

We’ve had our lunch and Kevin has arrived, even though it is raining, to start moving the soil from the area around the caravan to the front of the house to build it up. He has his big lorry and is filling it up with the spoil then driving it round to the front and dumping it.

It’s still raining so we are in the mega-shed and are going to reset the chop saw bench to make it lower and shorter. That way we don’t need to completely dismantle it for the electricians. We are also going to try and make sure it is all straight and level because over time it seems to have gone off true a bit.

Kevin is heading off now and we have finished redoing the bench, all we need to do now is to put everything back and tidy it up.

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It’s Sunday and we are going to get on with more work, our plan to take things a bit easier is not working out. Kevin is coming this morning to spread the stone chips and we will have to help him a bit.

Kevin has leant us a big strong wheelbarrow and is filling it with chips for behind the mega-shed using his digger. It is a great bonus to able to do it this way as it saves a huge amount of physical effort and is fast. Pete barrows the chips in and Molly is spreading them. Nice job!

We have decided to take the bull by the horns and cut off the excess posts on the balcony and fit the finials. We’ve been nervous about it because there isn’t much room for error. But hey-ho let’s give it a go.

To avoid any kind of disaster we are doing some test cuts to see how it goes because these posts are 140mmx140mm and so are quite thick to cut through. We can use our circular saw to cut two sides but the rest needs to be hand sawn.

That went quite well so we are moving on to drilling the holes for the finials, again we are doing some tests to see how the 40mm drill bit handles.

Now we are making a nice edge on the post with our trimmer/router before gluing the finial into its hole.

We move on to repeat the process for the other finial. This one proves to be more awkward so Molly sands down the rough edges before we do the final preparation for the finial.

We are delighted with the progress we have made again and really pleased to see these beautiful finials finally in place. It’s been a long time since Mike gave them to us and we are very grateful to have received these as a gift. Thank you Mike for giving our balcony its final touch of elegance.

Kevin is done for today. He’ll come back in the evenings to finish the landscaping, add a couple more French drains and bring the caravan down into the parking area.