Renovation
The Bothy 3
Sunday 28 August, 2011
The tension is rising! Chippies have the internal room partitions up and will finish the windows tomorrow. Sparks back on Wednesday then the chippies will finish the internal walls. The brickie shoudl be here tomorrow - a couple of days will see him finished.
Bothy in progress
Then it's the plasterer - so getting close to being finished. Oh, except the drains - they're not quite done yet:-) so it's a new house with a PortaPotty.
The Bothy 2
Thursday 25 August, 2011
The roofers are here today finishing the slating on the roof. The floor is down, too. We got a huge delivery of insulation and plasterboard this morning. The chippies will be here tomorrow and over the weekend - if they are both here and crack on, we should see a big difference by Sunday evening.
The Bothy
Sunday 21 August, 2011
The new Dalmore Bothy (so called 'cos it's on the site of the old one) is coming on a treat. Starting at the top, the back face of the roof is slated; the front side will be done this week. The plumber and the sparks have completed their first fixes. The back wall is completely blocked; the two side walls and the front wall are blocked to head height; the brickie's not here this coming week.
The windows are in - they are lovely - white, four panes to match the ones in the original house. The chippie was putting the floor down this morning, but he was only here for a wee while as he's going off to watch his wee lad playing rugby.
Barn wall
Thursday 11 August, 2011
Steve, the brickie, has been here today. The ground was too wet for him to work on the house, so he's doing the bottom two courses in the barn. This will set the levels, then Dan and John will do the rest to about 1.2 metres. Having the first two courses in also means that we can get the drain in and the concrete poured, so we'll have an area under cover for winter.
Because it will be used for lambing, we put the hurdles into place the lambing pens - Steve can now put the wall in exactly the right place to accommodate three pens across. Before the floor is poured, we'll set some metal tubing where the legs of the hurdles will go, so that they are secure. Trying to push them into concrete ain't going to work :-). A bit more progress today.
Kit
Thursday 4 August, 2011
The kit frame for John and Linda's house is delivered today and the joiner starts this evening. Weather permitting, he's hoping to have it up by Monday. Exciting!
Builders here
Tuesday 21 June, 2011
The builders started on John and Linda's house yesterday. The strip found was dug out and today they are pouring the concrete. They also dug the strip found for the new wall in the barn and are pouring that today as well.
The bricklayer should be here tomorrow to lay a few courses of blockwork to allow the concrete slab to be poured later in the week. Dan and John are going to do the same job in the barn, but it will be after the Highland Show.
D-Day
Saturday 30 April, 2011
Well, the demolition is well underway. JCB man was here bang on time this morning and about 2/3 of the building is now down. I love watching folk work :-) Actually, I love watching people who are really skilled and this guy is amazing. He picked up a wee bit of plastic with the huge bucket and tidied it away. Brilliant! They always make it look easy.
We've been in the vegetable garden - day off yesterday for the wedding. It's starting to look like a vegetable garden now.
Phase 2 demolition starts
Tuesday 19 April, 2011
The work to demolish the east range has started with the removal of the roof tiles and gutters. The building is now empty and we expect the demolition to start on 29th April.
The building work should start mid-end May, so it will be good to see the new "annexe" going up.
Fruit garden progress
Monday 4 April, 2011
We've had a lovely weekend; windy but warm and sunny. Which is nice, because the lambs are outside now.
Dan and I and John and Linda have been focussing on what will be the fruit garden this weekend. It is 12m x 9m and walled on three sides; it was quite overgrown last year, although we cleared a bit for beans, leeks and potatoes. In autumn, we cleared one half and covered it with horse poo and black plastic; a few weeks ago, Dan forked it over and John planted our early potatoes. The other half, apart from a wee bed with the rhubarb in it, was still overgrown.
Preparing the fruit garden
Sunday 27 February, 2011
It's another lovely day here - third day in a row with rain early on but lovely sunshine by mid-morning.
Dan's been in the fruit garden where. this year, we'll be planting potatoes to clean the ground. It's 12m x 9m and is split into roughly two halves. We dug out one half last summer but didn't manage to get all of the other side cleared. The soil is light sandy loam but we noticed that there weren't many worms. This is what it was like 6 months ago:
