Showering al fresco

This was the week our builders started replacing the rotten bathroom & ensuite roof on the farmhouse. We hadn’t expected to have to do this, but when the asbestos tiles were taken off to be switched out for slate tiles, an investigation established that the rafters had badly rotted and would only last a couple of years. It felt less disruptive to replace the rafters now while the house was in disarray anyway, rather than wait until the roof started sagging and potentially have to miss out on holiday bookings, and so at the start of the week, the electricians isolated the circuits and removed the lights from the rooms, and the builders covered them with green plastic and dust sheets. By the end of Tuesday, they’d removed the internal ceiling and insulation in the bathroom, and on Wednesday the entire roof came off! It’s fascinating to see the wall where the ceiling used to be – old wood joints and beams have been uncovered – although these will likely be covered up again when the rooms are put back together. The builders have replaced the rafters although we still have temporary felt covering the roof – not ideal on Friday night when a rain shower made its way through the holes and ended up soaking the floors and sheeting (despite our best attempts with buckets and pots).

We’ve been using the ensuite throughout – having to roughly clean it each evening and empty it of bottles and towels again each morning, and time showers either before they’ve started work or in their morning break (John when he comes back from his long marathon training run). With the roof covered temporarily with a blue tarpaulin, and relying only on a camping lantern, the room has a very strange colour to it. It’s the most disruption we’ve had so far – compared to most building projects it’s very little, but still hard trying to get on with normal life at the same time. We’re lucky that our builders keep the house as clean as they can, especially on a Friday when they hoover before they finish for the week. It’s the little things that really make a difference… 

The top floor of the farmhouse is taking shape – the rooms have been fully insulated, the electric backplates have been fitted, and the stud wall around our shower has been put in. The plumbers have started work too, installing the plumbing for the sink and shower and even putting the shower controls in. The rooms feel deceptively large still – once the walls are built out with plasterboard we’ll get a better feel for the size. It’s really exciting to see the progress. 
 

Talking about taking shape – the shippon is coming along nicely. Our stonemasons have finished facing the external walls of the extension with stone, and the roofers have felt and battened the entire roof. When you’re inside, it really feels like a proper building suddenly, rather than a shell. The first clay tiles have been moved onto the scaffolding ready to be fitted next week – it’ll make such a difference once the courtyard isn’t full of tiles.  

Towards the end of the week the stonemasons reverted back to our garage / communal area building – it’s taking time to build up the stone walls but you can see a marked difference each day, and it genuinely looks so amazing. We had toyed with the idea of rendering this building at one point – it’s much cheaper and quicker – but we decided to stick with stone for the environment it created, and we’re so glad we did, as the building now looks so much better than we even imagined. 

We’ve had a pretty busy and mixed week ourselves. We had our latest site meeting on Monday, where we received the latest time schedule and a breakdown of the fit-out to the part of the shippon we’re moving into. Thankfully nothing has slipped this month, and it was useful to see the additional layer of detail as we’re doing the decorating ourselves, and so we can start to plan days off from work based on the dates. In the evenings we’ve been finalising the plans for our kitchen so we can get this moving (another one of those things we nearly finish, and then don’t quite complete it). It’s a bit more complicated because we’ll have a U-shaped kitchen but without right angled corners, so we need to choose units that favour flexibility over space. Luckily we met up with friends at the weekend who have lots of experience in kitchen design and fitting, so we got some good advice from them. 

We managed to get out into the garden on Sunday – it feels (and looked) like we’ve not been out there for ages – it’s looking neglected with weeds and brambles taking over, and seedlings in pots desperate to be planted out. It’s a bit late in the season to be planting things out, but we managed to get the rest of the kohlrabi in the ground, plus some more celeriac and cabbage, and a load of lettuce seedlings. The kitchen garden in particular has been terrorised by slugs and mice – and caterpillars have started appearing, although not to the same extent they did last year. We were lucky enough to be given some effective caterpillar treatment by a friend – it’s worked wonders on the brussels sprouts which were looking particularly nibbled and sorry for themselves, and are now looking much bushier. 
 

Friday morning saw some emergency pruning – overnight we’d lost branches off two of our plum trees (one a major branch that was full of fruit and had almost snapped off, but was lying on another branch). We had to cut it off before it took any of the rest of the tree with it – and then collect the fruit before the insects took over. We also secured branches on one of the apple trees and the damson tree which were drooping dangerously. We’re just hoping we can protect them until the fruit is ready, so we don’t lose too much.