Happy anniversary

As we celebrate the anniversary of the auction, the collapsed wall is being rebuilt and the existing stonework is being cleaned down, joints raked out, helifix bars fixed in across cracks and between the two skins of stonework, and all repointed outside and in with lime mortar.

There are 11 builders bags of reclaimed stone on site, ready for use in the new buttresses and raising the walls all round by 500mm.  The hand-made bricks are due to arrive soon, and the oak posts, beams and lintols are being sourced now ready for inclusion as the openings are formed.

We visited a company that does all the air source heating kit last Friday (on our way to our annual get-together in Exeter with our ex ex-pat friends who worked in Nigeria together 30 years ago) and got some great advice about what's good and what's not so good in the renewable energy market.

I also contacted the planners about putting up a garden shed - and was told we need planning permission!  So application no. 4 will go in soon, with plans and all four elevations of our proposed shed.  The good news is that there won't be any extra fee this time, but we will have to go through the usual 8 week consultation period before they can approve our shed ..... !

But we did get one wonderful anniversary present.  Our friend Andrew, now semi-retired and a budding artist in all his spare time, presented us with an original painting of the barn before any work had been done.  He visited the barn a few weeks ago, then worked from photos he'd taken that day plus some of ours from a year ago and came up with a beautiful picture of the derelict barn.  We hope he'll be available in 6 months time to do another one of the completed project, for a 'before and after' set.

Now that's a hole

The builders have been progressing well with the new lean-to, and it's turned in to a mammoth earthmoving exercise.  The drawings didn't give a true impression of just how much digging was needed.  These pictures give some idea ... note the dark brown upper layers (remnants of animal bedding from inside the 'nissen hut') and the orange clay below.

The internet's a nightmare

For the past few weeks Misan's dongle has been misbehaving.  So we signed up to Sky Broadband (had to give up Sky Sports in exchange, but then I'm fed up with Pro Bull Riding and World Darts anyway, so what the heck).  Of course, it took a week or so to get it on, then tonight it won't recognise this blogsite, so I'm now accessing it from my laptop.

Anyway, we need to catch up.  We've sorted out our photos, so here's one of the mesh in the barn before the slab was cast - note the upstand that will hold up the stone walls that have been undermined ....

And here's one of the wall that came down - until then it was holding up one of the roof trusses, so it's as well that the builders quickly put the acrow prop in. 

Our materials were all approved by the planners back in August, and our builder is back on site this week so things are back in full swing.  The foundations for the new lean-to are in, but not without masses of excavation to lower the ground levels at that end of the barn.

We chose our internal joinery (doors, staircase, etc) last weekend, then Misan chose her range cooker this weekend.

And I eventually applied for our electricity connection today.  Just waiting apprehensively for their quotation now, which is inevitably more than you've budgetted for and there's nothing you can do about it.  Power to the people, eh?