OMG it’s freezing in here!!! Yep, we have the only house in Manchester where it’s actually snowing inside. It’s whipping up a storm in the windowless Daddy Dormer with an endless battle against the wind tearing off the temporary membrane. But yes, it does look pretty out there. You can tell from Builder Cat’s wide eyes her pads didn’t expect that cold sensation when she leapt out of the window frame, hit the roof and whipped straight back round again to jump back in 🙂
Thank heavens all the roof slates are on now and even though we can’t see any leaks inside, this snow will be a real test. As it sits and melts from underneath we’ll see whether any seepage is happening under the complicated slate patterns & shallow angled valleys. Good timing I guess, before we start putting plasterboards and electrics up on the ceilings in the West Wing and main roof dormer. The garage (on the left) was the simplest and most watertight bit, maybe we should just move in there til summer 😉
It’s round about now I wish my old worksite Uggs didn’t have holes in them, honestly my right foot got soaked taken this picture today. I need to get some more boots!
It’s a far cry from these amazing sunlit bi-fold door images which have kept me focused this week. These are the next ‘big buy’ and we’ve got to get it right. I’ve been agonising for months which ones to go for, having eliminated the cheapest buy-in-the-bits-and-make-em-up option and the most costly super engineered ones which we can’t afford, we’ve three companies left to choose from. I’ll blog about that properly very soon but aren’t these images gorgeous? I can’t wait to have something like these by Spring.
I’ve also been dreaming about wood-burning stoves after seeing these in my local shop The Stove Room this week in their sale. I was so SO tempted to nab one but really can’t until I know what sizes are actually needed where. A bit of window shopping did crystallise that I want a more traditional rather than contemporary style, much like these ones below by Jotul and Clearview.
So what was happening before the mini blizzard hlt? We enjoyed some sunshine finishing the slates and the A Team took out the old roof light in the daddy dormer:
Mr M started building up (or down!) the old rafters to allow 100mm rigid Kingspan insulation to be added to the older section of the roof so it’s as warm as the new section. Plus this week all the crumbly old single skin brick walls were strengthened up with a good scratch coat of sand and cement (the grey wall below) to get in all the cracks and holes where the old mortar has disintegrated. Not only will this make them more sturdy but also flatter to board on and more solid to drill in. We’ve had to do this to about fifteen walls, after 100+ years of mortar decay, some added strength was sorely needed.
Plus I’ve been undercoating and top coating our new decorative timber fascia boards, made to match and replace the old rotten and cracked ones taken down last summer. We could have just had the lads fix plain edged board in their place, it would have been cheaper and easier but this was the proper decision, right? They’re so pretty! I’ve done front and back to give them proper protection before they’re fixed up high on the gable wall so hopefully they’ll last as long as the originals did.
What a busy week and it’s not even over yet!
