Week Twenty Nine – Blast Off

Busy week this week. Window frames painted and ready for fitting

We discovered this week that the headroom over the south exit door would be around 6ft - a couple of inches short of the regulatory height. As a barn conversion is exempt from certain things where the nature of the structure makes compliance impossible we had the option to leave it as it is or else redo frame above the doorway. It wouldn't be trivial and would involve fairly major surgery. So we decided to leave it. We've been advised to put a picture of a duck over the doorway ... In fact, over several doorways.

There's a pile of old timbers recovered from the barn out the back. We've managed to re-use some of it but not sure what to do with the rest. Would be expensive if we had to go to a reclaim yard and buy it - but who'd buy it off us? Maybe try our luck on eBay? Worm Eaten timber for sale, roll up, roll up.

And the pile of old boards just keeps on growing. Maybe use for kindling some day. Or perhaps just a bonfire.

A picnic table for the guys. Never let it be said that we didn't provide the best facilities money can buy for the wellbeing of our guys.

Plastic closures under the external cladding to keep the vermin out, hopefully. Does that look straight to you?

The timber frame needed sand blasting to remove years of dust and woodworm frass. (Never heard that word before. Dictionary.com defines it as insect droppings. Yuk. It's what the woodworms leave behind after feasting on your antique furniture - a sort of powdery, dusty coating. Like I said - Yuk.) Anyway, we were visited this week by the Blasting Spaceman - at least that's what he looked like.

Dust everywhere and billowing out the door.

Our Spaceman brought with him a machine that looked something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I expected a squad of Oompa Loompas to leap out and set to work. I wish ...

On the first floor, stud walls are going up – beginning to see how the first floor will look, how the rooms will be. Amazing the difference once you begin to set boundaries to open space.

View from the bedroom - for now, because it will be boarded over in due course.

Not all walls are stud work - here's blockwork up to the truss between bedroom 2 and 4.

Out the back flora and fauna continue to flourish despite the lack of rain.

Noggins between the ends of the joists to stop them falling over

And noggins between the middles of the joists doing the same sort of thing - it's all about greater stability I guess.

A steel beam notched into a supporting post. Amazing that an oak post can provide enough support for a steel beam holding up a load of floor joists.

The view from the double height area through the open stud gallery to the main bedroom. You get a great view from up there over the kitchen and dining area. Just wish there was some way of retaining it. But it might be a wee bit uncomfortable getting into bed in full view ...

Dragon tie in a corner of the main bedroom with celotex between the rafters above.

Ply floor fitted round studs in the main bedroom, with that fabulous, but temporary, view beyond.

We decided this week to reduce size of cloakroom off the utility room. It was planned as a downstairs shower room. We've reduced it to give a bit more space to the utility room, to reduce costs in sanitary ware and because it seemed a bit extravagant to have a shower room downstairs. N'est ce pas?

We're still agonising over what internal doors to buy - not that we actually need them right now. The traditional choice seems to be oak framed ledged and braced with Suffolk latches rather than a proper door handle. Part of the problem is that oak FLB doors are actually quite expensive. Seems odd that the traditional door found in humble cottages all over the land is a bit of a luxury item. You can get solid oak veneer doors thick enough to take a lever handle and normal latch for a fraction of the price. Admittedly they're mass produced, and constructed using a cheap engineered wood. But the finished article looks pretty good and by all accounts is durable. Bye the bye, don't you love that term 'solid oak veneer'? Almost a contradiction in terms. It leaves you thinking it's solid oak (for which you'd have to look into taking out a second mortgage) whereas it means it's a solid door with a film, a smidgin, a smear, a veneer of oak stuck on the outside. Ah well that's progress.

Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers

as Gilbert and Sullivan put it.

And finally